Only those who believe in coincidences can accept that Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, coincided with the day of the presidential elections in the United States. For others, it is another step in the Israeli prime minister’s attempt to remove all obstacles in his quest to stay in power and realize his dream of creating a new order in the region. All this with the blessings one can imagine from a resurgent Donald Trump.
Although both share the ranks of Likud, the tensions between Netanyahu and Gallant were well known since the start of the current government at the end of 2022. In fact, already in March last year, the former had tried in vain to get rid of the second, not only because Gallant opposed the judicial reform that Netanyahu intended to approve to protect himself from the three lawsuits against him that could put him in prison, but also because he publicly displayed that this The measure represented a notable deterioration of Israel’s flawed democracy.
Since then, personal tensions have only increased, both regarding attempts to free the 101 Israelis still held by Hamas – clarifying that this issue is not a priority for the prime minister, while Gallant bet on exploring avenues of negotiation to achieve a prisoner exchange – as well as on the future of the war.
It is evident that Netanyahu seeks the prolongation and expansion of the conflict as the main mechanism to stay in power, delaying as much as possible the elections that could determine his defeat and, therefore, his impunity before the justice system. The second, on the contrary, required an exit strategy, knowing that Israel will not definitively eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah by military means, nor has it in its interest to exhaust itself in an indefinite war given its demographic, economic and military limits.
But perhaps the determining factor in understanding this cessation is that linked to the judicial decision last June, when the Supreme Court ended the privilege of ultra-Orthodox men not to perform military service. Gallant, as Defense Chief, found it necessary to have more troops available to deal with so many open combat fronts (Gaza, for over a year, and Lebanon, for a month and a half).
But Netanyahu knows that if he implements the Supreme Court’s decision, his government will not be able to survive another day, facing the threat of the ultra-Orthodox parties that are part of the government coalition to withdraw their support; the same ones who are guaranteed to govern again during any future meeting at the polls given the particularities of the Israeli electoral system.
Ultimately, Netanyahu would be the big loser if he dared to take this step. With his defenestration and his replacement by Israel Katz, also a member of Likud and until now Minister of Foreign Affairs, Netanyahu guarantees primacy in the conduct of the war and the continuity of the heterogeneous ministerial cabinet over which he presides.
Seen from this angle, the electoral victory that Donald Trump has just won corresponds perfectly to his plans. He knows, on the one hand, that he will continue to benefit from the unequivocal support of Washington, both in the diplomatic, economic and military fields. Thus, he will be able to count on strong political cover to continue the massacres in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the invasion of Lebanon, shamelessly violating international law to the extent he deems necessary.
Likewise, also in the political field, he calculates that Trump – who has already transferred the American embassy to Jerusalem (from Tel Aviv) and recognized the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as Israeli territory – will return to the idea of completing the agreements of Abraham. . Agreements which, in their first phase (2020), pushed Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan to dare to take the step of normalizing their relations with Israel, and which now point directly towards Saudi Arabia .
It is expected that the new Trump administration will increase pressure so that Riyadh – leader of the Sunni Muslim world – ends up taking a step that the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 temporarily blocked, which would end up completely abandoning the Palestinians. out of play.
And we must also add Iran to this equation, knowing that Netanyahu does not hesitate to assert forcefully that he will do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran, which he identifies as the main threat to national security , to acquire nuclear weapons. A perception of threat also shared by Trump, the same one who denounced in May 2018 a nuclear agreement that Tehran respected and who reopened the door to the Iranian regime to insist on its controversial program, without the International Agency for atomic energy now has an effective means of tracking the progress made.
It cannot be ruled out that, in his hawkish drift, Netanyahu decides to enter into an open confrontation with Iran, counting on the fact that Trump would be willing to collaborate directly in what could end up triggering a large-scale regional war .
In short, a Prime Minister determined to retain power at all costs – in defiance of his own country’s interests –, to stifle any Palestinian hope of having an independent state and to cancel Military Man the Iranian regime and which has Trump as decisive support. Can anyone think that this is the path to peace in the Middle East?
