On May 18, the Zionist Benny Gantz, head of Israel’s centrist National Unity Party and a key part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet, issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu that could cause the already fragile ruling coalition to fall apart in just weeks.
In a rare public rebuke of Netanyahu’s leadership from within the administration, Gantz declared that unless the government agrees by June 8 on a comprehensive plan for what happens “the day after” the genocidal war in Gaza is finished, he will leave the government. Gantz pledged to pull all support for Netanyahu’s Likud coalition administration at the same time.
Gantz’s speech, while brief, put on public display the divisive chaos raging within Netanyahu’s Cabinet at the present time.
“Lately, something has gone wrong,” Gantz said, he said in a deliberate calculated understatement.
“Essential decisions were not made. Essential leadership decisions to ensure victory were not done,” he explained.
While by that last statement Gantz showed support for the vicious war against the Palestinian people, by implication he pointed to Netanyahu as having failed as a leader. And in his next statement, he addressed directly the “elephant in the room” about how the right-wing members of the Cabinet, led by Minister of National Security Ben Gvir have pushed Netanyahu to extremes Gantz believes are destroying the integrity of the government and Israel itself.
“A small minority has taken over the command bridge of the Israeli ship of state and is steering her toward the rocks,” Gantz said. “Personal and political considerations have infiltrated the holy of holies of Israeli security,”
The “small minority” Gantz is referring to is headed up by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir. Making the Otzma Yehudit party that Ben-Gvir heads part of Netanyahu’s administration in 2022 was a critical step to getting the proper number of representatives in the government legislature, the Knesset, to allow Netanyahu’s Likud Party to rule. With that Netanyahu also had to accept the hardline anti-Arab positions Ben Gvir holds, which includes that he believes not only that Hamas is evil, but that Palestinians do not belong in any part of Israel, whether in Gaza or the West Bank.
Gantz’s comments also obliquely referenced Ben-Gvir’s own public statements over the past weeks. Ben-Gvir had declared that if Netanyahu were to give in to positions Gantz took recently to reign in the Security Minister’s savage treatment of Palestinians on the West Bank, Ben-Gvir would resign and pull his party’s support from the Likud coalition.
In addition to Gantz issuing his ultimatum about Netanyahu having to push through a long-term plan for Gaza by June 8 or face he and his party’s departure from the government, Gantz also outlined in his May 18 speech what he sees as six elements that he considers essential for that post-war plan.
Those elements are to:
- Secure the return to Israel of all hostages held by Hamas
- Follow the complete destruction of Hamas that was the excuse for the war with full demilitarization of the Gaza strip.
- Establish an alternative governing approach in post-war Gaza that headed by a consortium headed up by the United States, Europe, the Arab nation community, and a Palestinian contingent. Gantz describes the intent as putting in a governing body which “is not Hamas and not Abbas”.
Mahmoud Abbas is head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), a body established in 1994 by the Oslo accords as an alternative to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The PA is currently responsible for civil Palestinian government control of certain parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank - Bring back currently displaced Israelis back to the northern part of Israel by September 1 and begin the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the western Negev part of the country.
- Begin formal normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia again, a process that was set aside after the October 7 Gaza war began. Gantz says the normalization should also be part of a broader move to sign a treaty which will align Israel with much of the Arab world against Iran.
- As a means of bringing the nation of Israel back together, set up a new state-wide “national service” in which every Israeli can “serve the country and contribute to the highest national effort.” Presumably this would be integrated with a government policy which has been in place since 1948 that all Israelis over the age of 18 must serve in the military. Men and women alike typically serve a minimum of 2 years, with men often as much as three years.
After outlining these points, Gantz laid out what would happen if Prime Minister Netanyahu did not deliver on a plan which incorporates these elements as a minimum.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu, I look you in the eye this evening and say – the choice is in your hands,” he said. “After speaking to you over and over again, the moment of truth has arrived.”
“I have known you for many years as a leader and Israeli patriot,” Gantz continued. “You know very well what needs to be done.”
“Prime minister Netanyahu, I look you in the eye tonight and tell you: the choice is in your hands,” Gantz went on. “[The] Netanyahu of a decade ago would have done the right thing. Are you able to do the correct and patriotic thing today as well?”
“The people of Israel are watching you,” he added. “You must choose between Zionism and cynicism, between unity and divisiveness, between responsibility and negligence, between victory and disaster.”
“If you choose the path of fanatics and lead the entire nation to the abyss,” Gantz concluded, “we will be forced to quit the government,”
Gantz concluded his address with a final verbal warning shot at Netanyahu in his address.
“I came here today to tell the truth,” he said. “And the truth is hard: while Israeli soldiers show supreme bravery on the front, some of the people who sent them into battle behave with cowardice and irresponsibility.”
Though carefully crafted to avoid someone being able to quote Gantz as saying Netanyahu was himself an irresponsible coward who put his political survival ahead of doing what was right for the country, his intent was clear.
One hour after Gantz made his statement, the office of Prime Minister Netanyahu issued a sharply worded rebuttal which made it clear the Israeli leader had no intention of following through on Gantz’s six-point list or his June 8 deadline for a post-war plan.
“While our heroic soldiers are fighting to destroy Hamas’s battalions in Rafah, Gantz chooses to set an ultimatum for the prime minister instead of setting an ultimatum for Hamas,” it read. “The conditions that Benny Gantz set are empty words whose meaning is clear: an end to the war and Israeli defeat, abandoning most of the hostages, leaving Hamas standing, and forming a Palestinian state. Our soldiers did not fall for nothing, and especially not to replace Hamastan with Fatahstan.”
The prime minister’s office statement also included reference to the need for an “emergency government” in Gaza which must go in place as the war ends. Though details were not included for what that means, Netanyahu has said Israeli military forces must remain in place in Gaza for an indefinite period when the war is over. He is also adamant that no outside coalition government in Gaza can be considered for now.
Not long after Netanyahu’s office sent out its statement, National Security Minister Ben Gvir also weighed in on what Gantz said with a darker attack on Gantz himself and the motives behind why he made his speech.
“Gantz is a small leader and a great deceiver, and from the first moment he joined the government, he was mainly focused on dismantling it,” Ben Gvir said. “His trips to Washington were only a small part of his plots.”
Despite the fiery attacks from the National Security Minister and the prime minister, Gantz is not likely to alter his positions on what he feels is required for a “day after” plan for Gaza. By doing so, he is drawing a red line which seems likely to cause Gantz and his National Unity Party to withdraw from the coalition government in just under three weeks from now.
Unfortunately for Netanyahu, his disagreements with Gantz are not the only ones the prime minister must soon find a way to address or risk the forcible dissolution of his government.
The other important member of his administration who believes in a very different future for Gaza than Netanyahu does is War Cabinet member Yoav Gallant, the country’s Minister of Defense.
On May 16, Gallant said he would not accept any solution for post-war Gaza which includes Israeli military forces remaining in the Strip when the fighting is over. The defense minister also said he refuses to accept a plan which installs a new civil government in Gaza either reporting to or headed up by Israel.
Gallant’s positions were taken two days before Gantz’s position became public. Everything Gallant said is also wholly in line with what Benny Gantz proposed.
If as expected Netanyahu refuses to give in to what Gantz and Gallant have demanded, the prime minister could be faced with losing both men as part of his government sometime next month. Losing Gallant would mean forcing reconstructing the chain of military command at a high-risk time. Losing Gallant could be even more messy, since the only way Netanyahu might keep what is left of his coalition government together would be to cede even more political power to the ultra-right contingents.
In the meantime, the final genocide of the Palestinian people is also well under way. Extensive aerial and ground attacks in the northern and central parts of Gaza are killing dozens of innocent Palestinians every day and reducing to rubble what remains of shelters, housing, and other facilities. In Rafah, where roughly 1.5 million Palestinians used to live and shelter because they were told by the Israeli government to go there to seek refuge, a mass evacuation of at least 800,000 innocent people to the temporary tent city of al-Mawasi that Israeli set up along the Mediterranean coastline has already happened.
“Nearly half of the population of Rafah or 800,000 people are on the road having been forced to flee since the Israeli forces started the military operation in the area on 6 May,” United Nations Relief Works Agency head Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on the social media platform X last week.
According to Palestinian Health Ministry officials present on the scene, fascist Israel’s genocidal war which was ostensibly against Hamas has resulted to date in the murders of over 35,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.