Ben Gvir demands Netanyahu add him, others to war cabinet as Gantz jets

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, right, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, left, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 10, 2023. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, right, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, left, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 10, 2023. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir wastes no time in shooting a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding that he open the war cabinet to new membership — specifically himself — after Benny Gantz and his National Unity party bolt from the coalition.

In a letter to Netanyahu posted on social media Ben Gvir says the cabinet’s makeup until now only included ministers who follow the military’s accepted conceptual wisdom, with the rest ignored and blackballed. It is time to bring in ministers who “warned in real time against the conception and viewpoint that everyone today accepts was wrong,” he writes, demanding that he be added to the three-man cabinet.

Ben Gvir, widely seen as a firebrand reactionary, had indicated earlier that he planned to jockey for greater power for himself and his far-right party Otzma Yehudit in the wake of Gantz’s resignation.

“It’s time to make decisive, courageous decision,” he writes.

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