‘Near-criminal behavior’: Eisenkot claims disarray, indecision, politics in PM’s war conduct

A senior opposition lawmaker who was a key member of the wartime government at the start of the Gaza conflict issued a damning indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making in an interview on Friday, arguing that the country’s leadership has been acting primarily based on political considerations in the management of the multi-front conflict, and has engaged in “near-criminal behavior” to try to conceal this from the public.

National Unity Party MK Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff who served for the first eight months of the war as an observer in the high-level war cabinet, told Channel 12 news that this week’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was a continuation of a trend in which narrow partisan considerations guide Netanyahu’s moves.

He also accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war due to the desire of some elements in his government to lead to martial law in Gaza and eventually rebuild settlements there, and the prime minister’s fear his government will collapse if he does not appease them.

National Unity bolted the coalition five months ago over the prime minister’s failure to draw a clear plan for the conflict, bashing Netanyahu’s handling of the war and warning politics was constantly influencing decisions.

In a Friday interview, Eisenkot argued that when he and his party leader Benny Gantz joined the emergency government in the late afternoon of October 11, 2023 — four days after the shock October 7 Hamas onslaught shattered years of successive governments’ strategy of tolerating the Palestinian terror group in the Gaza Strip — they observed a leadership in deep disarray that was struggling to keep the situation under control.

According to the opposition lawmaker’s account, after a few weeks, during which he said he and Gantz persuaded Netanyahu to launch a ground operation in Gaza, the premier returned to his usual self and started systematically sidelining Gantz and Eisenkot, while pandering to far-right parties’ demands to avoid working toward ending the fighting in the Strip — to the point that the National Unity ministers felt like a “fig leaf” and decided to leave the government in June.

Netanyahu’s office commented that Eisenkot’s accusations were “lies” but did not go into more detail.

‘Someone didn’t want us to know’

Eisenkot was asked about the multiple criminal probes that have been opened into alleged wrongdoing within the Prime Minister’s Office, including one aide’s alleged theft of classified documents from the army and another’s possible alteration of official protocols of wartime meetings.

Noting his past as military chief and as military secretary to prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon in 1999-2001, Eisenkot said: “I have seen how the Prime Minister’s Office works. So beyond the built-in weakness of the team surrounding the prime minister, in my eyes this is near-criminal behavior that can be observed between the lines.

“I am not surprised that there are such cases — this is an environment and these are people who act in an inappropriate, manipulative way,” he added, accusing Netanyahu’s team of leaking false information to the press.

“I would sit in a meeting and know exactly what I, Gallant, Gantz and Netanyahu had said, and the next day we would hear the complete opposite in some media outlets.”

Eisenkot said that during a crucial discussion on October 11, 2023, during which a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon was almost declared before being called off at the last minute, Netanyahu’s people avoided having a stenographer record what was said for the first hour of the meeting.

“I have taken part in hundreds of discussions at the Prime Minister’s Office and I can’t remember a discussion of this level of importance where the first hour is without a recording and without a stenographer. This testifies to something,” he said, adding that this was purposeful and that “someone didn’t want us to know” what was said.

The war’s ‘hidden goals’

Asked by the interviewer what his first thought was when Netanyahu fired Gallant on Tuesday evening, Eisenkot said: “Befuddlement.”

Rejecting Netanyahu’s explanation that the dismissal was due to lack of trust between him and Gallant, Eisenkot argued that it was for “purely political” reasons linked, among other things, to the defense minister’s work to implement a High Court decision to start drafting larger swaths of the ultra-Orthodox public to the military, and to Gallant’s objection to any law regulating the matter that isn’t coordinated with opposition factions.

“This is a flawed order of priorities due to political pressure,” he said.

“We saw deep problems in [Netanyahu’s] decision-making and ulterior motives that have caused a complete and deep failure, in that tonight there are [still] 101 hostages in the Gaza Strip — a terrible abandonment with his name on it as prime minister.”

While avoiding the assertion — made by many Israelis, according to recent polls — that Netanyahu is endangering national security, Eisenkot said: “What I can say is that the decisions I saw throughout the time [I served in the government] didn’t stem from fulfilling Israel’s national interests. The heavy weight of the personal and political considerations was a central component in his decision making, within several weeks of the start of the war.”

Eisenkot said he and Gantz had worked since February to wrap up the first stage of the war in Gaza and focus the main effort on fighting Hezbollah in the north (the government only eventually shifted to focus on Hezbollah in September, months after National Unity departed). He criticized the leadership, including Gallant, for limiting the IDF’s response there for months and not employing “maximum force for minimum time.”

He said the war effort on both fronts had been stretched out far longer than it should have due to such policies, and “we’ve been dragged into a reality where after 13 months, while we’ve had some notable cumulative achievements, it’s alongside a completely crazy reality that has been normalized, in which 200-300 projectiles are fired [daily] at the north and center of the country, and some feel this is reasonable.”

Beyond the stated war goals — eliminating Hamas’s military and governance capabilities in Gaza, returning the hostages, and enabling tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to safely return to their homes in the south and the north — Eisenkot accused central figures in the coalition of working to fulfill “hidden goals” — establishing Israeli military rule in Gaza and rebuilding settlements in the territory.

Asked if this has been preventing an agreement to halt the fighting in Gaza, Eisenkot said: “Definitely. The political consideration and [Netanyahu’s] understanding that if he releases terrorists in exchange for the hostages, and if the IDF withdraws [from Gaza]… this would cause his coalition and his partnership with [far-right ministers] Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to crumble.”

Asked about his recommended action plan, Eisenkot said he supported reaching a ceasefire, but only for a few months, to return the hostages.

“I assume we will be fighting Hamas and terror for decades,” he said, arguing that Gaza should be treated after the war like the West Bank’s Area A, where there is Palestinian civilian and security control but where Israel launches periodical military incursions to clear out terror cells.

‘A frightened, unstable leadership’

Going back to the October 11, 2023, meeting immediately after he and Gantz joined the government, Eisenkot asserted that “this was the first time I saw up close what it means when a leadership loses its balance.”

Describing a leadership in deep disarray following the surprise of Hamas’s massacre, Eisenkot said: “I saw unsteadiness in people I had worked with and had seen as stable, rational people. It was very concerning, and that’s why we entered [the government] — not for Netanyahu, but for the State of Israel.”

He argued that while Netanyahu has pushed a narrative in the media by which Gantz and Eisenkot fought against and curbed his desire for more aggressive action, the opposite was true.

“Without our pressure there would have been no [ground] offensive — the prime minister was very afraid of an offensive. All sorts of experts came to him and frightened him.

“When the protocols are published and people hear what some people said about this issue… I saw a frightened, unstable leadership that could have made irresponsible decisions, and I think we made a contribution… that was reflected in the first months [of the war].”

However, he added, “I admit that after matters became somewhat stabilized, I started to feel like a fig leaf, like we weren’t having an influence. We made major efforts to have influence and not leave mid-war because we understand what that means.”

However, “at a certain point we realized we were serving as a fig leaf to a prime minister who makes decisions alone, as Yoav Gallant has said.”

In one meeting, Eisenkot said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu confidant, lost patience and said: “Why are we wasting time here, in the end, we’re three people who make the decisions.”

Eisenkot recalled: “‘We asked him, ‘We know who the first is, we know who the second is, but who is the third?’ This was left unanswered.”

Asked who the “third man” was — presumably in addition to Netanyahu and Dermer — Eisenkot answered wryly: “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a third woman” — a possible reference to the premier’s wife, Sara, who has been said for years to have key influence over his husband’s decisions.

Netanyahu’s office commented in response to the interview: “Near-criminality is to tell the public lies and hide behind [parliamentary] immunity. We call on Eisenkot to give up his immunity,” apparently so he could be sued for defamation.

Eisenkot issued his own response: “When there is nothing to be said to the point, nonsense responses are issued. I am willing to give up my immunity at any time and on any matter.”