Netanyahu recently described Benny Gantz, chair of the National Unity Party, as “the Democratic Party’s man in Jerusalem.”
In all the dueling off-the-record interviews given by one side of the war cabinet about the other, one thing has become clear: In the middle of the war against Hamas, the IDF has become a political football.
In one press account published on Sunday, the IDF chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, was said to have upbraided Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for failing to lay out a postwar strategy for Gaza. But the fire goes both ways; an anonymous cabinet official, who has had to witness the ceremonial entrance of the chief of staff with his train of senior officials, cynically observed to me that Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have undisclosed skills.
“They possess daring, sophistication, and the ability to surprise,” said the cabinet minister. “It’s a shame that their talents go into making general staff appointments rather than preparing the IDF for war.”
That comment was made last week, after the US presented the Qatari and Egyptian cease-fire proposal later revealed to have been dictated by Hamas, but before the IDF began its operation in Rafah.
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