Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Tuesday evening that he has found a “crisis of trust” that “gradually deepened” with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on the eve of US elections and a pending Iran attack seemed like something out of a horror movie.
What justifiable strategy is there to replace a defense minister in the middle of a multi-front existential war, two fronts of which are being fought by soldiers who are weary and bone-tired, with no real end in sight?
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara said on Thursday that Netanyahu’s decision is legally sound and that her office will not intervene. The move came after petitioners requested that the High Court of Justice freeze the firing.
The deeper meaning
But let’s put Gallant aside. Because, besides the fact that he is a military man with overflowing qualifications for the role, Gallant has led Israel’s defense strategy seamlessly for the past year. Even if you don’t agree with him, his moves, or his politics, he was the man for the job.
But it’s not about him. It is about something much bigger: A sense of stability gradually growing more eroded, consistency, and ultimately, leadership.
When Netanyahu threatened to fire Gallant last March, it set off a wave of anger and a sense of both discontent and disgust, feelings that soon became concretized in what has become one of the strongest demonstrations ever.
That energy was echoed on Tuesday night, but it carried with it something even more ominous: a sense of panic and exhaustion; the feeling that this is precisely the thing that is one step too far – but the people are so weary, the hostages families so tortured, that this is the only thing left to do to try to affect some change, or at least express frustrations.
Few reservists expressed feelings of doubt, anger, and betrayal on Wednesday. Some expressed doubt at the decision to fire the defense minister for seemingly political reasons in the middle of a war, while others expressed frustration over the fact that Gallant was fired in part for opposing a bill that would exempt eligible ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men from the draft, reported the Post’s Economic Correspondent Eve Young.
Because anyone with sight and intellect could see exactly what happened here: An underside punch to kick at the political chessboard and keep the coalition intact, because if the haredi parties won’t get what they want, they will crumble the coalition, tunnel-visioned, damning Israel’s greater needs and goals.
The reason this is so outrageous is because instead of dealing with the century-old issue of differences between the haredi sector and their fellow citizens who work and contribute much more, instead of answering the very dire needs of protection that the State of Israel needs, this move maintains the status quo, putting even more weight on the very people growing too tired to carry it.
A true leader would find a way to bridge those gaps, would see the fractures in the society they are charged with leading and protecting, and tend to them. What we have seen is only the opposite, and it only becomes more brazen.
“We expect our soldiers to be strong and to fight with everything they have. But what does that strength mean when, back in the Knesset, the message to both our troops and our enemies is one of fractured leadership, of weak priorities?” asked Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein.
“Gallant’s sacking, right here, right now, is no simple bureaucratic change: It’s an earthquake, a shock wave that rattles from the top of the government to the battlefield trenches; it screams chaos,” he wrote. “Why fire Gallant in the middle of a war? Because he had the nerve to issue draft notices…? Because coalition survival suddenly trumps national security? That’s what this soldier in Gaza is hearing. Is this what I’m fighting for? Is this what I’m ready to die for?”
If the rot is so clear from the top, what can this possibly say about our society?
As it stands, there is effectively one person filling in the positions of prime minister, defense minister, and foreign minister: Netanyahu. Israel Katz does not have the qualifications for the role, and the deal Gideon Sa’ar agreed to is a stab in the back of the public. We deserve better leaders.
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