On November 5, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fired Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, citing a ‘crisis of trust’, effectively removing one of his most ardent critics.
Gallant’s dismissal has led to widespread protests in Israel and condemnations by families of hostages still held in Gaza, who considered him one of a few ceasefire advocates in the upper echelon of the Israeli government.
The decision to fire Gallant may prove myopic, coming back to haunt Netanyahu down the road and opening him up to accusations that he is more concerned with his own personal survival and not the best interests of the State of Israel.
This latest shuffle highlights that the Netanyahu government is very unlikely to engage with any ceasefire proposal, especially with the election of Donald Trump as the U.S. president, who has a track record of supporting Netanyahu’s hardline policies.
On November 5, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fired Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, citing a ‘crisis of trust,’ effectively removing one of the few voices from the upper echelon of his government that has called for a ceasefire that would see Israeli hostages released. Among those in the Israeli war cabinet, Gallant has been Netanyahu’s most ardent critic dating back to before October 7 when he criticized Netanyahu’s attempts to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, leading to his temporary dismissal. His removal will provide Netanyahu with far more leverage in crafting Israel’s military strategy in both Gaza and Lebanon and could complicate things further if Iran follows through on its threats to retaliate against Israel in the latest back-and-forth between the countries. Netanyahu may also have been resentful of Gallant’s relationship with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and other members of the Biden administration, given Netanyahu’s own frosty interactions with high-ranking figures surrounding the current U.S. president and Biden himself.
Gallant’s dismissal has led to widespread protests in Israel and condemnations by families of hostages still held in Gaza. Tens of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Caesarea, and other cities. According to CNN, protesters in Tel Aviv blocked a busy highway, with the families of hostages held in Gaza chanting, “Bibi is a traitor,” using Netanyahu’s nickname. Protestors fear that without Gallant, the likelihood of hostage recovery being prioritized by the government has even further diminished. The incoming defense minister, Israel Katz, will likely continue the hardline and ‘total victory’ approach of Prime Minister Netanyahu in both Gaza and Lebanon, making imminent negotiations with Hamas improbable. Katz will be backfilled as foreign minister by Gideon Sa’ar.
Netanyahu might not stop with Gallant. Reports claim that Netanyahu is considering getting rid of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Herzi Halevi, and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, given reporting by Channel 12 that claims Gallant and Halevi both argued to Netanyahu that keeping an IDF presence in the Philadelphi corridor, the narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt, could prevent a ceasefire and hostage release. However, Netanyahu has denied these claims.
This latest shuffle highlights that the Netanyahu government is very unlikely to engage with any ceasefire proposal, especially with the election of Donald Trump as the forty-seventh U.S. president, who has a track record of supporting Netanyahu’s hardline policies. Still, predicting how Trump will approach U.S. support for Israel is not straightforward, as the situation in the Middle East looks much different than the last time Trump was president. For example, there are now U.S. troops on the ground in Israel helping to operate missile defense systems. The cost to the United States for supporting Israel has been extraordinary, even by the usual standards of U.S. assistance. Moreover, if Trump is interested in moving forward with a plan for Israeli-Saudi normalization, he will have to be firm enough to extract more concessions from Israel. A complicating factor for the Trump administration could be how to deal with the situation in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the contours of Trump’s Iran strategy are uncertain, and although he may bring in hardliners who will look to revive the ‘maximum pressure’ strategy on Tehran, Trump himself has also mused openly about negotiating a deal with the Iranians.
Addressing his firing, Gallant believes he was removed for his support for requiring members of the ultra-orthodox community (Haredim) to serve in the IDF, his calls for an official commission of inquiry into the intelligence failure of October 7, and, notably, his support for a ceasefire deal. Gallant is likely correct that his dismissal was a result of friction within the government about the longstanding issue of drafting ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF. Gallant was likely jettisoned for actively supporting this conscription following the Supreme Court’s June 2024 ruling that the IDF must begin drafting Haredi men. Netanyahu, however, needed to keep the exemption in place to placate and mollify far-right figures in his government. The decision to fire Gallant may prove myopic, coming back to haunt Netanyahu down the road and opening him up to accusations that he is more concerned with his own personal political survival and not the best interests of the State of Israel.
Gallant remains a controversial figure, suspected of war crimes in Gaza during operations in 2008 and 2009 while he led the IDF’s Southern Command. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also issued arrest warrants against both Gallant and Netanyahu for war crimes in relation to the current conflict in Gaza. However, he has been a key opposition figure in the Netanyahu government, pushing back against some of its most extreme proposals on the Hamas-Israel war, even as Gallant himself has said some extremely incendiary things about the conflict, including Israel establishing a government in Gaza after Hamas is defeated.
Netanyahu and Gallant had vastly different proposals on a host of policy issues, extending from Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms in 2023 to how the war in Gaza should be conducted and how it should end. While after October 7 Gallant was a proponent of the war in Gaza, he has increasingly voiced his opinion that the release of hostages should be prioritized and did not think Netanyahu’s approach of ‘total victory’ over Hamas was sustainable or desirable. Instead, Gallant has argued for painful concessions to be made to bring home the more than 60 hostages and 30 bodies of hostages that remain in Gaza.