Ministers accuse one another of ‘opportunistic’ warmongering
Yisrael Katz says Naftali Bennett could ‘ignite another conflict in Gaza’ with his criticism of military readiness for 2014 war
Raoul Wootliff is a former Times of Israel political correspondent and Daily Briefing podcast producer.
Amid ongoing criminal investigations into Benjamin Netanyahu, senior Jewish Home and Likud ministers sparred Sunday over rumored efforts to position themselves as potential successors to the embattled prime minister.
Responding to rumors that Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the Jewish Home chairman, was behind a series of leaks regarding the government’s conduct during the 2014 Gaza war, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) said Bennett was playing politics with Israel’s security.
“Bennett is trying to widen his support base at the expense of national interests and it needs to stop.” Katz told Army Radio.
Last week lawmakers approved the publication of a section of a state comptroller report on how Israel handled the threat of Hamas attack tunnels during the war, following a number of leaks detailing its key findings.
The report relates to how the security cabinet of top-level ministers handled itself in the run-up and during the campaign, officials dubbed Operation Protective Edge in Israel.
Portions of the report that have been leaked to the press painted a damning picture of the failure of Netanyahu and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon to properly inform the security cabinet of the extent of the threat emanating from Hamas’s underground network.
Bennett, who served at the time as economy minister, maintains that he became aware of the urgency of dealing with cross-border tunnels — an issue that became the war’s main goal in its final weeks — outside the confines of cabinet discussions, including during his conversations with IDF officers, and that the threat posed by the tunnels was not properly discussed or understood in the security cabinet’s meetings.
Ramping up criticism of Bennett already expressed by Netanyahu and Ya’alon, Katz suggested Sunday that the Jewish Home leader’s belligerence was buoying terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
“Security cabinet members should not mouth off for political points,” he said. “It’s a grave situation that the head of a small party can ignite the Gaza region and even draw the military establishment into a war due to opportunistic political considerations.”
On Monday morning, a rocket was fired from northern Gaza at Israel, striking an open field south of the city of Ashkelon. Later in the day, an IDF patrol came under fire near the security fence surrounding the coastal enclave. No Israelis were injured in the attacks.
In response, the army targeted at least eight Hamas positions in the Strip, with both airstrikes and tank shellings. Two Palestinians were injured by shrapnel to an unknown degree, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Hitting back at Katz, the Jewish Home party said Sunday that the transportation minister was the real opportunistic warmonger, stirring up tension in the government in order to advance his own political ambitions.
“Minister Katz is running a campaign to replace Netanyahu and he is trying to launch the campaign with a personal attack against other ministers in the government,” the party said in a statement. “It would be better is he went back to dealing with the traffic on Route 1… and left Jewish Home out of his personal battle with Netanyahu.”
Katz, who has publicly clashed with Netanyahu in the past, is considered a strong candidate to replace him if he is forced to step down over a possible police indictment in one of two police investigations currently open against him.
Police are investigating allegations that a number of businessmen have given lucrative gifts to Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, over his years in office. The prime minister has been questioned under caution about the claims, known as Case 1000.
Police have also questioned him in another case, known as Case 2000, in which Netanyahu is believed to have offered the publisher of Israel’s biggest-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth to curtail the operations of Yedioth’s pro-Netanyahu rival, Israel Hayom, in exchange for more favorable coverage in Yedioth.
