by David Horowitz at The Times of Israel
In March 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he was firing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who had publicly warned that the internal rift in Israel over the government’s plans to weaken the judiciary was so deep as to embolden Israel’s enemies and pose a tangible risk to national security. Two weeks later, amid vast public protests, the prime minister reversed the move.
On Tuesday night, Netanyahu fired Gallant a second time — and, unlike the previous occasion, handed him a letter of dismissal, which takes formal effect after 48 hours.
The sacking, in other words, is emphatically for real this time. And the circumstances are far more devastating for Israel.
Far from facing concerns about the potential emboldening of enemies, Israel is more than a year into a war that began with Hamas’s invasion and slaughter in southern Israel and has spread to multiple fronts — including across the northern border, where the IDF is battling Hezbollah, and a direct confrontation with Iran, which is widely expected to soon carry out a third attack on Israel following strikes in April and again in October.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid immediately termed Netanyahu’s sacking of Gallant “an act of madness.” And while for the prime minister personally it makes a terrible kind of sense, for Israel as a whole, it is plain terrible: Netanyahu has put his political survival above the most fundamental interests of the state…
Continue Reading