Member Newsletter
A number of you have asked me to share my perspective on one of the Israeli opposition leaders (one of, not the official one) Benny Gantz leaving the Netanyahu coalition. So here goes. My overall impression, sadly, is perhaps best captured by not posting on it until now, though I was kind of letting it marinate while I thought of what to say. Basically, I think it matters very little. But it’s helpful to walk through the different dimensions of non-mattering.
In the most basic sense it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t endanger the governing coalition’s majority. That majority had 64 seats on October 7th, which means a majority and three seats to spare. They were added and now taken away, a wash. In the short term it only makes Netanyahu more reliant on the ultra-rightist parties in the coalition — something Gantz’s party’s entry was in some ways meant to limit.
In practice I don’t think it limited it that much because Netanyahu was never going to allow himself to become dependent on the votes of his political opponents. Since it didn’t dilute their hold over Netanyahu I don’t think in practice they gain that much more sway.
To a significant degree — how much depends on your read of his cynicism — Gantz is leaving because remaining in the coalition was hurting him politically. In Israel, people vote for parties and then the head of the dominant party is usually given the first shot at forming a coalition and becoming prime minister. So polling mostly focuses on party support. But pollsters also poll for prime minister, even though it’s not strictly an electoral question. And Gantz’s standing has been in serious decline, with some rebound for Netanyahu. At least immediately after October 7th, it was probably inevitable that Gantz would join a government of national unity. Doing so is bound up with the aura that a former Chief of Staff of the Army brings to the political arena — service, national security, etc. And for some time his popularity remained sky high. But for months it’s gained him very little and clearly started to debilitate him. It’s mostly served to tar him with the failures and outrages of Netanyahu’s policies while also making him look weak, inasmuch as he clearly exercises very little influence over the government. So the worst of all worlds in political terms.
Foreign governments have liked having Gantz and his party associate Eisenkot there in the war cabinet, because that gave him total visibility into all aspects of the conduct of the war — thus a kind of an insurance policy. He may not be able to stop something totally crazy. But he’d know about it. Again, though, politically it’s been a loser for Gantz.
On balance I don’t think Netanyahu has gained that much directly from this trajectory. But it’s definitely bloodied Gantz and damaged his reputation. And since Gantz was the obvious next prime minister for the first several months of the war, that’s a zero-sum gain for Netanyahu.
The final reason it doesn’t matter is Gantz himself. He simply lacks the qualities required of a national leader. I know that sounds like a big statement about a guy who ascended to the highest rank in the IDF. But it’s a conclusion I came to in spite of myself. He seems to lack moral courage, as I argued a month ago, by which I mean the ability to make consequential decisions and take responsibility for them.
Back then he was basically goaded into threatening to leave the coalition if Netanyahu didn’t formulate a clear and coherent “day after” policy. Good! But then he post-dated the ultimatum by three weeks. In itself this kind of low energy effort captured his whole career in politics. In the event, the expiration date of his ultimatum coincided with the successful rescue of four hostages, a rare moment of success and celebration in the Israel of 2024. So it kind of drowned out his big moment. But that was just unlucky timing for Gantz in a story he had very much written himself.
If anyone is going to bring this government down it will be the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He is a much more ideologically right-wing figure. But he has shown the ability and the willingness to put his foot down, at real risk to his own political future, when he thinks the country itself is endangered by Netanyahu’s policies. The contrast with Gantz is a powerful one.