Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/POOL
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant hold a joint press conference at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Nov. 11, 2023
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Ministry Yoav Gallant recently apologized to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a bid to stave off his firing, Maariv reported on Thursday, citing conversations among the premier’s associates.
According to Maariv political correspondent Ben Caspit — one of the most vocal critics of the prime minister in the Israeli press — Gallant this week also “admitted some mistakes and offered to open a new page.” Netanyahu hemmed and hawed in response, the reporter claimed.
“It’s not that I think there was real reconciliation between Gallant and Netanyahu,” Caspit wrote, noting that the possibility of an all-out war with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, among other things, has “reduced the viability of the entire move at a furious pace.”
Speaking at the Ramat David Airbase near Haifa on Wednesday, Gallant declared that Israel is “at the beginning of a new period in this war.
“The prime minister, the [IDF] chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet, of the Mossad, and the defense minister, all of them are participating in a joint effort … to bring the residents back [to the evacuated north],” he added.
On Monday, Netanyahu was reportedly in negotiations to replace Gallant with New Hope Party chief Gideon Sa’ar, who left the emergency wartime government for the opposition in late March.
Expanding the coalition will help advance a hostages-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas, Netanyahu said in conversation with advisers, according to reports. The Prime Minister’s Office denied holding talks with Sa’ar, while a New Hope spokesperson claimed that there was “nothing new” to report.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12, Netanyahu also offered lawmakers of the New Hope Party reserved spots on the Knesset candidates slate of his ruling Likud Party in a future election in exchange for Sa’ar backing the coalition until the end of the government’s term in October 2026.
Netanyahu and Gallant have been at odds since the 2023 judicial reform crisis. In May of last year, while Netanyahu was abroad, Gallant called a solo press conference and urged the prime minister to halt the judicial reform legislation amid massive street protests throughout Israel.
Some 24 hours later, Netanyahu announced his intention to fire Gallant. Nationwide protests against the government’s judicial reform agenda intensified, and the prime minister reversed his decision.
Four months ago, Netanyahu and other members of his coalition slammed Gallant after he demanded that Jerusalem commit to Palestinian control over the Gaza Strip post-war with Hamas.
Earlier this month, after news broke that the Israel Defense Forces found the bodies of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza, Gallant demanded that Netanyahu renege on a decision to keep IDF troops on the enclave’s border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
The majority of Likud voters have lost faith in Gallant and would like to see him fired, according to a JNS/Direct Polls survey carried out in July.
Sa’ar announced on March 25 his decision to quit the unity government, two weeks after breaking up his alliance with Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party and being denied a spot on the now-dissolved War Cabinet.
The New Hope Party chief said at the time that he had “prioritized the establishment of the emergency government” in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre, before adding, “In retrospect, maybe I was wrong about that.”
At the time, Sa’ar blamed the government for what he described as a failure to accomplish its war goals and said the military campaign against Hamas had been managed “contrary to the national interest.”
