After Knesset clash, Likud MK Halevi vows to continue challenging defense minister on war
Hawkish lawmaker says he expects to be reinstated to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee within weeks, criticizes government’s campaign as insufficiently aggressive
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi slammed the government’s management of the war in Gaza on Wednesday, arguing that its plans are insufficient to defeat Hamas and criticizing Defense Minister Israel Katz’s treatment of the Knesset panel tasked with overseeing the military as “inappropriate.”
Halevi spoke with The Times of Israel days after being removed from the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for voting against a measure to extend the government’s ability to issue emergency call-up orders for IDF reservists. He doubled down on his criticism, arguing that the latest IDF offensive, Operation Gideon’s Chariots, will not allow Israel to “totally defeat Hamas.”
Halevi has long expressed reservations about Israel’s wartime achievements, claiming last year that the IDF was overestimating the damage it had done to Hamas.
“In order to defeat [Hamas], we need a plan, an original plan, that actually takes over the resources, the population, and the land,” he said, insisting that as long as Hamas controls food and energy in Gaza, it will retain the ability to recruit fighters.
Despite senior coalition leaders’ claim that the new operation will end with Israel holding territory and “conquering” the Strip, Halevi said that based on information provided to lawmakers, “even with this operation, Hamas will still control, not all of the population, not all of the land, not all of the resources — but part of the resources, part of the land, and part of the population. This is impossible.”
Despite having hoped that a change of defense minister and IDF chief of staff would alter how Israel was operating in Gaza, “the new program has the same failures, the same problems,” he said.
The operation is “stronger, it uses more weaponry, more firepower. But it’s not a matter of quantity. It’s a matter of quality, of strategic steps.”
This was the same position Halevi took when he voted against extending the government’s authority to issue emergency call-up orders on Sunday. Halevi argued that “after 20 months of operational failure at a huge bloody cost,” it was his “responsibility …to ensure that the IDF has learned its lessons before voting in favor of sending soldiers into battle.”
Regardless of the coalition’s assurances, under the current IDF strategy, “aid will continue to reach Hamas [and the group] will continue to control a large area and population, and thus the enemy will not be defeated,” he stated.
During the meeting in which he voted against the government motion, which eventually passed following his removal, Halevi also butted heads with the defense minister, whom he accused of acting in an “inappropriate” manner.
When challenged during Sunday’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Halevi said that Defense Minister Katz (Likud) “shouted and mocked” him, yelling, “You understand nothing.”
“There is a rule in politics. When you don’t have good answers, just raise your voice,” Halevi said.
“I would expect the defense minister of Israel to not only answer MKs’ questions but mainly to ask them himself. Why doesn’t he ask those questions? Why is he not bothered by the fact that the land and the population and the resources, according to the program, will not be in our hands at the end of the operation?”
According to Hebrew media, Katz harshly criticized Halevi in an internal Likud chat over his opposition to extending the government’s authority to mobilize reservists, accusing him of spreading a “blood libel” against IDF commanders and comparing him to left-wing politician Yair Golan, who this week accused the government of killing babies in Gaza “as a hobby.”
“As was clearly reported to us in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the ‘Gideon Chariots’ plan, even if successful, will leave Hamas in control of the territory, the population, and aid. The operation does not include a tight siege before soldiers enter on foot, as was rightly suggested by 10 [retired] IDF major generals in the generals’ plan,” Halevi wrote on Tuesday.
Halevi may cross swords with Katz again, stating that coalition whip Ofir Katz had told him that his suspension would be “temporary” and only last around two weeks. He insisted that after his return, he would continue to pursue an independent course when he believed it necessary.
“I will not raise my hand to support [any] military program that doesn’t advance our victory,” he pledged.
Commenting on the ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill currently being revised by Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud), Halevi said that while he supports an enlistment bill containing sanctions against draft evaders, he doubts that enough Haredi soldiers will be enlisted in time to satisfy the IDF’s manpower needs.
The coalition’s “top priority” must be the war, he said. Everything else “should be secondary.”
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