Netanyahu, don’t fire Gallant again: The first was a tragedy, the second could be worse

While nobody as of this writing has confirmed it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is widely reported to have made the decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with a former minor rival and relentless critic, Gideon Sa’ar.

The “green light” has been given, according to the reporting on Channel 12’s main news broadcast. Even as Netanyahu sat together with Gallant earlier Monday at a highly sensitive security meeting, it said, the prime minister’s aides were passing him scraps of paper with updates on the progress toward finalizing terms with Sa’ar. Kan News said the announcement could come within hours, though Channel 13 claimed Sara Netanyahu — yes, a key figure — was still vacillating, unpersuaded of the benefits of exchanging a troublesome minister for a disloyal one.

Netanyahu’s endlessly bitter relationship with Gallant is public knowledge. He fired the defense minister in March 2023, after Gallant presciently warned the nation that the coalition’s bid to destroy judicial independence was weakening Israel and emboldening its enemies — and reinstated him two weeks later, after a vast public outcry.

He publicly took Gallant to task two weeks ago for daring to denounce the cabinet’s decision to insist on maintaining an IDF presence along the Gaza-Egypt border, even at the potential cost of torpedoing a deal for the release of the hostages still held by Hamas, almost a year after the terrorists’ invasion and slaughter in southern Israel.

The two are said to have been at odds in recent days, too, over Netanyahu’s reported decision that the time has come for a major military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to most accounts, however, Netanyahu’s prime and urgent motivation for dumping his defense minister is Gallant’s abiding refusal to advance legislation that would continue to exclude most ultra-Orthodox men from military service. Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have reportedly told him that they will bring down his coalition if the legislation is not pushed through, while Sa’ar would not oppose it.

New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar at the Knesset on March 13, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Whatever the mix of explanations, the move would be unforgivably dangerous.

Senior sources in a US administration that broadly trusts Gallant and despises Netanyahu, and on whose military and diplomatic support Israel depends, were quoted on Monday night as calling it an act of madness. And they are right.

Switching your veteran defense minister when you are still fighting Hamas in Gaza, preparing for a major offensive against Hezbollah, grappling with an escalation of terrorism in the West Bank, fighting off Houthi missile attacks, and trying to strategize on thwarting Iran’s nuclear weapons drive is beyond irresponsible. Installing a replacement with no major security experience merely elevates the recklessness.

One barometer would be how Israel’s enemies are watching the move. Plainly, while the IDF has been striving to restore Israel’s deterrent capability after October 7’s humiliation and catastrophe, those enemies can only be encouraged by the fresh evidence of disunity and chaos at the helm of the small Jewish nation whose destruction they are delightedly contemplating.

Within Israel, the move can only deepen division, and exacerbate the profound mistrust felt by so many Israelis about the political leadership in general and the prime minister in particular. It will undermine cohesion and confidence within the military, too — with the departure of a familiar, independently-minded ex-general, and his replacement by a politically ambitious military nobody.

Protesters near the residence of Gideon Sa’ar in Tel Aviv, calling on him not to join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, September 16, 2024. (Dan Bar Dov)

As for the most anguished Israeli challenge of all right now — the deadlocked effort to bring home the 97 remaining October 7 hostages — some relatives of those held by Hamas said Monday that Gallant’s ouster, and Sa’ar’s arrival, would doom them.

The main Hostage Families Forum pleaded with the leadership to stop “playing political games” with precious lives at stake. Einav Zangauker, one of the most prominent activists, whose son Matan is held by Hamas, declared flatly that the ministerial switch would mean “that the government of Israel is abandoning the hostages to die,” given that Sa’ar is closer to the reluctant Netanyahu on a hostage-ceasefire deal.

Additionally, the very fact that Sa’ar would be taking up the defense minister’s role because of his willingness to indulge the ultra-Orthodox community’s exclusion from IDF service would mean ongoing near-untenable strain on Israel’s standing and reserve army forces, and a heightened sense of grievance at the inequality of the burden.

When Netanyahu fired Gallant last year, Sa’ar denounced the move as insanity, and noted that there was no precedent for a defense minister being fired for warning about security dangers. “Netanyahu is determined to lead Israel into the abyss,” Sa’ar said then. “Every day he stays in power endangers Israel and its future.”

Sa’ar was right then, and he is right now — except he is evidently poised to become the prime minister’s enabler, and seems to have entirely forgotten decades of political history that demonstrate Netanyahu will toss him aside when his purpose has been served.

Netanyahu chose to ignore Gallant’s warning in March 2023 that his political agenda was tearing the nation apart, and had come to constitute a “tangible threat” to Israel’s security. Hamas invaded seven months later. Netanyahu is again apparently about to prioritize his political needs — except this time, Israel is already deep in crisis, its enemies circling, its internal resilience undermined.

Firing Gallant the first time was followed by tragedy for Israel. A second time threatens to be even worse.