Gallant takes public swipe at Netanyahu after scathing report on Meron disaster
Defense minister tells cadets that ‘taking responsibility is the source of authority,’ as he and IDF chief urge Haredi enlistment to boost army’s ranks and increase social cohesion
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday appeared to take a swipe at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a speech addressing the merits of sound leadership and personal responsibility.
“The ability to lead consists of three things: a commitment to the mission, personal example, and the internalization that taking responsibility is the source of authority,” Gallant said at a cadet graduation ceremony at the IDF’s officers school in southern Israel, known as Bahad 1.
Netanyahu has infamously refused to accept direct responsibility for the failures of leadership that led to the October 7 massacre, and has lashed out at the Israeli media amid discontent over the war cabinet’s handling of the campaign against Hamas.
On Wednesday, a state commission of inquiry found Netanyahu personally responsible for the April 2021 Mount Meron disaster, in which 45 people were killed in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of a second-century sage in northern Israel despite numerous safety warnings ahead of time. However, it did not propose sanctions against Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party then derided the commission of inquiry’s mandate, given that it was established by his political rivals, former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, and charged that it was being used as a “political weapon” against the premier.
During his Thursday speech, Gallant also spoke of the “difficult” war Israel has been fighting on many fronts, in the north and the south and in places that are “far away” and “secret.”
Hamas, he said, has only two options: “Surrender or death. There is no third option.”
“We are achieving the goals of the war: the dismantling of Hamas as a military system and a governing system, and the return of all the hostages to their homes,” he said.
“This is a fight for our home, for our values as a nation, and for our right to exist as a Jewish, democratic society in our country, our homeland, the State of Israel,” added Gallant.
He said Israel has a moral duty to keep fighting “until we defeat Hamas in all of Gaza and return our hostages.”
The defense minister spoke after Netanyahu, who emphasized that Israel is “in an existential war” that it “has to win.” The premier made no reference to the Meron report, which he has yet to publicly comment on.
Netanyahu vowed that Israel will “strike our enemies until total victory,” a phrase he has used repeatedly in the past months of war against Hamas, which began on October 7 when thousands of Gazan terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages.
He promised to eliminate the “murderous regime of Hamas, eliminate terrorists, destroy tunnels,” and pursue the perpetrators of the October 7 attack while doing everything possible to “locate the hostages.”
The IDF is advancing impressively to reach its war goal while minimizing civilian casualties in Gaza, said Netanyahu, slamming Hamas for its tactics of using Gazan “civilians as human shields,” and using “subterranean tunnels spanning many kilometers.”
The IDF “will continue to act against Hamas in all corners of Gaza, including in Rafah, Hamas’s last stronghold,” the premier vowed, to applause.
“Whoever tells us not to operate in Rafah is telling us to lose the war and that will not happen,” he said.
“Our enemies have brought on themselves [destruction]. He who spoke about spiderwebs is seeing lions,” Netanyahu said, a reference to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah calling Israel a “fragile spiderweb” following the October 7 Hamas massacre.
Netanyahu noted the mounting international pressure on Israel to end the war, and said Israel will withstand these pressures as its aim is “total victory in war.”
“There is international pressure, and it’s growing, but particularly when the international pressure rises, we must close ranks. We need to stand together against the attempts to stop the war,” he said.
Western leaders should understand that “when we defeat the murderers of October 7th, we prevent the next September 11th,” he said. “That is why you must stand behind Israel and behind the IDF,” he adds.
“We will all stand together, heart to heart, [and] remember our fallen and ensure… victory,” said Netanyahu.
Gallant, Halevi call for ultra-Orthodox to enlist in IDF
Following the prime minister’s remarks, both Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who was third to speak at Thursday’s ceremony, touched on the issue of the Haredi enlistment in the military, saying that all members of Israeli society should be drafted.
“The war and the challenges placed before us… require us to share the burden of military service,” Gallant said. “Everyone must carry the burden, all sectors of the nation.”
Halevi explicitly called for a change in IDF draft policy. “At this time,” he said, “it is not enough to praise the existing diversity in the IDF; rather, [we must] call for it to be expanded and to add troops from all corners of society.”
“This is the need of the hour, not only because the IDF needs to fill the missing ranks and expand its ranks, but mainly to strengthen social cohesion, the source of our resilience and strength and an important component of Israeli antifragility,” Halevi added.
National Unity minister and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot also addressed the ultra-Orthodox draft during a talk at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies’s 17th annual international conference on Wednesday.
“I would be happy to see the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community understanding the magnitude of the hour,” said Eisenkot, who lost both his son and his nephew during battles with Hamas in Gaza in December. “We have a historic opportunity here.”
The ultra-Orthodox have long enjoyed exemptions from military service, protesting or refusing draft orders and seeking to enshrine the exemption in law. Many in the Haredi world view army service and wider integration with the secular world to be a threat to their religious identity and the continuity of insular community traditions.
Ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students receive state-paid stipends for studying in yeshiva within the framework of the law, allowing them to receive annual military service deferrals until they reach the age of exemption.
Agencies contributed to this report.
