Likud legal adviser calls for expelling Gallant, barring him from party primaries
‘We wish Gallant success in the left-wing bloc,’ Likud says after former defense minister criticizes the government in his first interview since resigning from the Knesset
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"
In a scathing opinion submitted to the party’s highest internal court, Likud legal adviser Avi Halevi on Wednesday called for the expulsion of former defense minister Yoav Gallant from the party and for barring him from running with on the party slate in future Knesset elections.
Coming out in support of a suit filed last year by dozens of Likud central committee members against the longtime party member, Halevi wrote that their petition should be accepted and Gallant either removed from the party’s rolls or banned from running in the party’s next primary election.
The Likud court will meet next Wednesday to review the case, Channel 12 reported.
During his tenure as defense minister and later as an MK, Gallant publicly opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue of judicial overhaul, stated that he would not support an ultra-Orthodox conscription bill without opposition support, and skipped multiple votes in the Knesset plenum — all of which violated the “duty of trust that a Likud member owes to the movement according to the Likud constitution,” Halevi wrote.
Moreover, he argued, Gallant’s actions assisted Likud’s political opponents in opposing the policies of the party and the Netanyahu government.
Spokespeople for Gallant and Likud did not respond to requests for comment.
Netanyahu and Gallant had frequently clashed since the government took power at the end of 2022, with the prime minister firing him in March 2023 — after he had warned of the security dangers stemming from the national rift over the judicial overhaul — only to reverse the move amid intense public objection.
Last November, Netanyahu fired Gallant for a second and final time, citing a lack of mutual trust during a time of war.
“I made many attempts to bridge these gaps, but they kept getting wider,” Netanyahu said at the time. “They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy — our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it.”
In response, Gallant held a press conference in which he argued that the reason for his dismissal was his insistence on the need to draft Haredi men into the IDF, the imperative to bring back the hostages from Gaza, and the need for a state commission of inquiry in the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror onslaught and ensuing war.
Following his dismissal, he was largely absent from numerous votes important to the coalition — including one on a critical budget-related bill, which forced the prime minister was to leave his hospital bed post-surgery and come vote in the Knesset to ensure its passage — and on January 1 announced his resignation from the Knesset.
In an announcement carried live on Israeli television, Gallant attacked the current government for undermining the security of the country even while insisting that he would remain a member of Likud.
“As a member of the Likud movement, I will continue to fight for the movement’s path,” he pledged, indicating this was not the end of his political career and he would likely return to mount a challenge for the party leadership.
While he has largely refrained from political commentary since leaving office, Gallant has broken his silence in recent days, speaking out against Netanyahu in interviews with various Israeli media outlets.
In an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Gallant accused the prime minister and his cabinet of having delayed a ceasefire deal that would have led to the return of more living hostages and sharply criticized the premier for rejecting a large-scale preemptive strike on the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah during the war’s early stages, maintaining that such an attack could have stymied the escalation of violence on Israel’s northern border.
“I think that the fact that we didn’t act [against Hezbollah] on October 11 is the biggest security-related missed opportunity in the history of the State of Israel. Not just during this war,” he said.
Responding to Gallant’s post-Knesset interviews, Likud dismissed the former cabinet minister as an inconsequential leftist.
“Gallant is no longer relevant since Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected his demand to stop the war before entering Rafah, before the occupation of [the] Philadelphi [corridor], before the elimination of Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah and before the beepers – steps that changed the Middle East and led to another release of our hostages,” the party said in a statement.
“We wish Gallant success in the left-wing bloc.”
Asked if Gallant should remain in Likud, MK Tally Gotliv, a longtime critic of the former defense minister, told The Times of Israel that Likud voters were unlikely to support him going forward.
“As for the next elections, I don’t believe that Yoav Gallant will run for Likud anyway, and if he does run for Likud, we are a party that has primaries. The voters… know who is suitable for the Likud party and who is not,” she said.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
