Israel War Cabinet Member Threatens to Leave Post: Why?

War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz threatened this Saturday to abandon the emergency government if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not agree on a plan for a post-war Gaza before June 8, including who could govern the devastated Palestinian enclave.

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In a televised message, Gantz demanded that the War Cabinet – made up of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – develop a six-point plan so that his centrist party does not abandon the coalition in three weeks.

“There is something deeply broken in the way Israel’s leaders are conducting the war”said Gantz, who said this was not the case when his party, National Unity, joined an emergency coalition days after the Hamas massacre of October 7.

But “recently something went wrong,” the politician added, before blaming “a small minority” for seizing “the Israeli ship and sailing it into a rock wall.”

Gantz called on Netanyahu to choose “national interest over personal interest,” warning him that if he chooses “the path of fanatics and leads the entire state into the abyss” he will be forced to leave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded shortly after to Gantz, in a cryptic message in which he described his demands as “euphemisms” that seek to hide Israel’s defeat.

“The meaning (is) clear: the end of the war, the defeat of Israel and the abandonment of the majority of the hostages, leaving Hamas intact and establishing a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said, according to statements reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

For his part, the Minister of National Security, the far-right and settler Itamar Ben Gvir, accused Gantz on the social network dismantle the current War Cabinet in exchange for a “determined, powerful and decisive policy.”

Gantz’s ultimatum comes days after Defense Minister and War Cabinet member Yoav Gallant publicly contradicted Netanyahu by opposing any military-tinged Israeli government in Gaza.

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