Gallant’s firing isn’t the end of Netanyahu’s campaign against his ex-defense minister
Dismissed minister wants to stay in the ruling Likud party, but PM’s loyalists, who view him as part of the opposition, will be seeking a pretext to declare him a defector
Shalom Yerushalmi is the political analyst for Zman Israel, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew current affairs website
Yoav Gallant wasn’t present at the Knesset on Thursday as the plenum voted on the controversial government shakeup that followed his firing as defense minister.
Gallant didn’t want to raise his hand in support of Israel Katz’s appointment as his replacement, but he didn’t want to vote against it either, and therefore was absent. On Friday, Gallant and Katz met at the handover ceremony and then sat down for a transition meeting.
Katz is the man who paved Gallant’s way to the Likud party in 2019, after Gallant fell out with Moshe Kahlon, leader of the Kulanu party, where the former top army general began his political career.
Coalition whip Ofir Katz, who over the past week penalized some lawmakers who had considered voting against the government’s will, doubtless wrote down Gallant’s absence in his notebook: To be continued.
For now, Gallant is staying in the ruling Likud party, but he’ll need to be careful, as there are those who are waiting for any slip-up. After being sacked mid-war, Gallant can ill afford to vote against the coalition, particularly on no-confidence motions against the state budget. He also needs to avoid overly frequent public remarks criticizing the government.
Even now, Likud lawmakers — no doubt instructed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his inner circle — are claiming that Gallant hopes to topple the government and that he should be ousted from Likud. If Gallant were to take adversarial and combative positions, Likud would be able to declare him a “defector” via the Knesset’s House Committee.
Per Knesset rules, lawmakers under such a designation come under parliamentary sanctions. These prevent them from joining a government, forming a new faction or joining an existing faction in the current Knesset. They also bar them from running in the next elections as part of any faction currently sitting in parliament — Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, for instance — unless they resign from the Knesset upon being designated a “defector.”
No longer a minister, Gallant will now wait to see if Likud at least offers him a spot on the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. If not, the former defense minister and ex-IDF general will have to look on as party colleagues such as Nissim Vaturi and Tally Gotliv — who lack security experience — serve there instead. In local politics, even such an absurdity is considered routine.
In the current state of affairs, Gallant will have a hard time gaining enough support in Likud primaries to be reelected as an MK for Netanyahu’s party.
His dramatic ouster from the Defense Ministry was the culmination of his protracted confrontations with the prime minister, which grew in intensity over the course of the war.
At first, the conflict between them was controlled, and both sides used it for their needs. However, their differences escalated and Gallant was branded a partner — heaven forbid — of National Unity MKs Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, who had served alongside him in the high-level war cabinet running the war. Before and after the pair left the government in June, Gallant was considered Netanyahu’s most obdurate opponent in the security cabinet.
At the beginning of the war, Gallant’s popularity actually skyrocketed in Likud and more widely on the right. Gallant, who finished the last Likud primaries in third place, made announcements that party members loved hearing. He threatened to impose a humanitarian siege on Palestinians in Gaza and promised that Gazans wouldn’t even get water or electricity.
However, the bluster died down to a degree as the realities of the conflict set in.
Likud MK Ariel Kallner said on Thursday: “Gallant started excellently. I remember him telling Gazan terrorists, ‘Either surrender or face death.’ Unfortunately, he was broken along the way.”
The disagreements with Netanyahu gradually grew worse, as Gallant himself acknowledged in his address on Tuesday evening, shortly after he was fired. In addition to the arguments on whether to impose military rule on Gaza long-term, there was friction around a potential hostage deal with Hamas; his call to form a state commission of inquiry into the profound failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught; and, of course, on the matter of conscripting ultra-Orthodox soldiers to the military.
When Gallant insisted on opposing a law aimed at facilitating the continued exemption of Haredi men from service, and when the Haredi parties threatened Netanyahu that they would bolt the government if it didn’t pass, the prime minister pushed Gallant out of his way.
From now on, Netanyahu will attempt to destroy Gallant’s political career, as he attempted, often with considerable success, with a host of previous defense ministers who served under him, including Yitzhak Mordechai, Ehud Barak, Avigdor Liberman and Moshe Ya’alon.
As far as coalition leaders are concerned, Likud MK Gallant is an opposition member, and certainly can’t be counted on to vote for the planned ultra-Orthodox draft exemption legislation.
On Thursday, in a meeting with hostage families, Gallant expressed oppositional stances on other topics as well. He supported withdrawing the IDF from Gaza to seal a hostage release deal, as well as boosting humanitarian aid to Gazans to avoid the US making good on a threat to withhold munitions.
Gallant told The Times of Israel on Thursday that he was staying in Likud and in the Knesset, but there is always the option that he will decide to abandon politics for lucrative business opportunities, like his colleague, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.
Gallant could also collaborate with a good ghostwriter to write an autobiography focused on the war, in which he might tell of the state in which he found Netanyahu on October 7, 2023.
Whatever happens, Gallant will himself be unable to avoid being remembered in the history books as the person who was defense minister on that most terrible of all days, and thus one of those most responsible for the worst failure and disaster Israel has ever experienced.
Translated and edited from the original Hebrew on The Times of Israel’s sister site Zman Yisrael.
