Netanyahu’s coalition bickers over Gaza

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brittle governing coalition isn’t anywhere near resolving its internal splits over how the Gaza Strip should be governed once Hamas has been crushed, and the situation is testing the patience of the country’s Western allies — including an increasingly exasperated United States.

Judging by an ill-tempered security Cabinet meeting last week, which was an exceptionally rowdy affair even by the rambunctious standards of Israel’s politics, Netanyahu’s coalition — widely judged as the most right-wing in the country’s history — is fraying. And the sharp differences over Gaza’s fate aren’t helping.

More of a no-holds-barred verbal brawl than a sober meeting at a moment of great national peril, last week’s security Cabinet had been summoned to agree on outlines for a “day-after” plan for Gaza, which the U.S. is ever more urgently demanding. But according to local media reports, as well as background briefings by officials, stark differences between the governing parties over a Gaza plan are exposing deeper underlying divides that are both ideological and personal.

This, in turn, raises questions about just how much longer the country’s wartime unity government can hang together, especially as a protest movement calling for Netanyahu to quit is starting to flex its muscles.

Ministers rounded on each other for much of the acrimonious meeting, with religious nationalists and hard-right leaders excoriating the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces Herzi Halevi, and taking potshots at a proposal offered by Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

Coming on the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in Israel, where he’ll be pressing Netanyahu to start winding down military operations in Gaza and conform to U.S. expectations on the enclave’s postwar future, the brawl was especially poorly timed. It also augurs badly for any meeting of the minds on postwar Gaza governance between Israel and Washington — let alone with Israel’s Arab neighbors.

The sharp-tongued bickering was initially sparked by Halevi disclosing he’d set up an internal army inquiry headed by former defense officials, probing the failings of Israel’s security services before the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

Led by ministers Miri Regev, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition partners complained that holding an internal inquiry while fighting rages in Gaza is inappropriate and would distract from what should be the real focus — winning the war.

But their anger was largely concentrated on the inclusion of former Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz — who oversaw the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — in the inquiry team. They see Israel’s Gaza disengagement as the original sin that allowed Hamas to grow and become the force it has, able to launch attacks as devastating as the ones on October 7. They want the 2005 withdrawal reversed and Israel to annex part, or all, of Gaza, even discussing the possibility of Gazans “voluntarily” being resettled elsewhere — including the DR Congo.

This clash, which saw some defense officials walk out in protest, merely added fuel to the fire over Gallant’s proposal that Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas administer the enclave after the war. Under Gallant’s plan, there would be no Israeli resettlement of Gaza — which infuriated religious nationalists like Smotrich — however, the IDF would retain military control on the borders, and have the right to mount military operations inside Gaza when deemed necessary.

“Gaza residents are Palestinian. Therefore, Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel,” Gallant said last week. But for Smotrich, “Gallant’s ‘day after’ plan is a re-run of the ‘day before’ October 7.”

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich walks with soldiers during a visit to Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the border with the Gaza Strip | Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images

Scorned by the government’s hard right, the defense minister’s proposal is unlikely to cut it with the U.S. or with Israel’s Arab and Gulf neighbors either, as there would be no role for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which oversees the West Bank. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration wants Gaza to be handed over to what it calls a “revitalized” PA, although it hasn’t detailed exactly what that means or the necessary steps for such a revamp.

Netanyahu eventually broke up the Cabinet meeting after three hours of confrontational exchanges, insults and ministers swearing at each other, once again leaving Gaza’s postwar future unresolved in Israeli minds. And all this, just as the Biden administration redoubles its insistence on a serious and credible postwar plan that Arab nations can accept.

The disastrous meeting also prompted three key centrists in the wartime government — Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot and Yechiel Tropper of the National Unity government’s Blue and White faction — to skip a full meeting on Sunday, highlighting the growing tensions and coalition rifts.

Tropper linked his boycott to the right-wing ministers assailing Halevi. He told national broadcaster Kan that he didn’t know “how long we will be in the government; I only know that we entered for the good of the country and our exit will also be related to the good of the country.”

Gantz, a former defense minister and onetime chief of the General Staff, had led his centrists into Netanyahu’s government after October 7 for the sake of national unity. “There is a time for peace and a time for war. Now is a time for war,” he had said when accepting Netanyahu’s offer to join the war Cabinet.

But Gantz’s popularity has risen dramatically since then, and he’s now seen as Netanyahu’s most likely challenger. So, if he chose to bolt from the government, it would increase the likelihood of an early election — and that’s something anti-Netanyahu activists are starting to demand once more. Until very recently, there was little appetite for demonstrations, with small turnouts of around just a few dozen to a few hundred people. However, rallies over the weekend saw several thousand participating, with protesters taking to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, calling for the prime minister’s removal.

So far, Netanyahu has been circumspect in outlining a postwar Gaza plan, mainly restricting himself to dismissing a role for the PA. And this has partly been due to his worry that disputes over Gaza’s postwar governance could prove fatal for his coalition. It looks like that may well turn out to be true.