Gallant swipes at Netanyahu: ‘Taking responsibility is source of authority’

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appears to take a jab at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a speech this afternoon in which he extols 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 says at a cadets 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.

Yesterday, 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. It did not propose sanctions against Netanyahu, however.

His 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 speech this afternoon, Gallant spoke of the “difficult” war Israel has been fighting on many fronts, in the north and the south and in places that are “far way” and “secret.”

Hamas, he says, 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 says.

“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,” says Gallant.

He says Israel has a moral duty to keep fighting “until we defeat Hamas in all of Gaza and return our hostages.”