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Netanyahu-Gallant row just latest in PM’s long history battling defense chiefs
Benjamin Netanyahu has had eight different defense ministers serve under him in just over 15 years as prime minister, going back to his first stint in 1996.
Of them, three were fired publicly, though only two of them — Yitzhak Mordechai and Moshe Ya’alon were actually removed from their posts. The third, current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, never actually left the job and was officially reinstated after weeks of backlash.
Another defense minister — Benny Gantz — agreed to join Netanyahu in a power-sharing rotation government only for the premier to later dismantle the coalition by refusing to pass a state budget, preventing Gantz from taking his turn as prime minister.
Three other defense ministers — Ehud Barak, Moshe Arens and Naftali Bennett — ended their terms with the dissolution of the government. And one, Avigdor Liberman, resigned, leading to the dissolution of the government a month later.
While the eight vary in ideological background and personality, almost all have something in common: tumultuous relationships with Netanyahu, sometimes tinted by old animosities or rivalries.
Netanyahu’s conflicts with his defense chiefs have rarely stemmed from professional differences on policy planning or security disputes. Rather, they have been driven by personal and political considerations.
For instance, in 1999, Netanyahu fired Mordechai, saying that the defense minister did not deserve to be in the government because he did not share the same principles as Likud voters.
Mordechai was taken by surprise, though he had already been considering leaving the Likud party when Netanyahu took the preemptive strike against him. He responded with harsh criticism, saying Netanyahu did not deserve the people’s trust and had endangered the country for his own political needs.
After Mordechai’s dismissal, Netanyahu’s first government lasted several more months before collapsing. Moshe Arens replaced Mordechai as defense minister. Netanyahu lost the ensuing election to Ehud Barak, with Mordechai moving to a different party and serving as deputy prime minister and transportation minister.
Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, forming a government with the Labor party, and Barak — who had already been defense minister under the previous government of Ehud Olmert — continued in the role during Netanyahu’s second government.
Barak held the position the longest of any defense minister under Netanyahu and seemingly managed to get along with him better than the others. During their three years in office together, the pair worked to plan a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. They were later accused of colluding to help Barak’s electoral chances in the run-up to the 2013 vote. In late 2012, the former Labor head announced he was leaving the post and political life.
In 2013, Ya’alon replaced Barak as defense minister, and he and Netanyahu appeared to be on the same page for a while. But in 2016 ties began to sour after Ya’alon expressed support for a top general — future Meretz MK Yair Golan — who had spoken out against Jewish extremism at a Holocaust Remembrance Day event.
Days later, Ya’alon found out through the media that Netanyahu had offered his job to then-opposition leader Isaac Herzog to woo him into the coalition. Then Ya’alon again had to hear from the press that Netanyahu had decided to instead tap Avigdor Liberman as defense minister, bringing Yisrael Beytenu into the government.
Netanyahu reportedly planned to offer Ya’alon the Foreign Ministry portfolio, but the former IDF chief quit instead.
He later wrote in his memoir that during the final months of his tenure, Netanyahu had been looking for reasons to clash with him. One example was the premier publicly scolding him over a speech he gave to senior IDF commanders advocating for open and frank criticism of political leaders, a position he said he had been repeating for years, but which Netanyahu had interpreted as encouraging military officers to challenge the government’s authority.
Ya’alon described how he came to fear the premier’s unpredictability and fickleness, such as in the case of Elor Azaria, the IDF soldier who shot dead a Palestinian attacker who had been injured and disarmed. Azaria was convicted over the killing, but he was also strongly supported by large segments of the political right. While Netanyahu initially backed Ya’alon and IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot in rebuking Azaria, he reversed course days later once opinion polls showed widespread support for the soldier.
When Liberman was appointed defense minister, he became a key player in a narrow coalition that would likely have been doomed had he not joined. Netanyahu needed Liberman, despite his near total lack of military experience. Liberman’s insistence on a far more aggressive military policy, especially in regard to the Gaza Strip, contrasted sharply with Netanyahu’s approach.
Things came to a head in November 2018, after a major flareup in Gaza that included barrages of hundreds of rockets fired at Israel and other violence by Palestinian terror groups. Liberman fumed over Israel agreeing to an Egypt-mediated ceasefire with the Strip’s Hamas rulers and swiftly resigned, pulling his party out of the coalition, which shrank to a bare majority of just 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats.
Though Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett threatened to bring down the coalition if he was not given the defense portfolio, Netanyahu shrugged off the ultimatum and appointed himself defense minister, on top of his existing roles of prime minister and foreign minister.
Up until then, through all of his years in power, Netanyahu had never helmed the Defense Ministry, unlike many of his predecessors. Though the reason for that is unclear, some have speculated that Netanyahu wanted someone else to fill the role so they can serve as scapegoats and divert public criticism away from him.
In November 2019, after two consecutive indecisive election campaigns, Netanyahu reluctantly appointed Naftali Bennett as defense minister of the transitional government to keep him from joining forces with the rival Blue and White party.
Bennett held the position for about six months, but his relationship with Netanyahu was perhaps the worst among defense ministers, thanks to their long history. Bennett, a one-time chief of staff for Netanyahu, has long drawn the ire of his former boss. Netanyahu has repeatedly tried to torpedo Bennett’s political career, and only caved to his ultimatum to be appointed after running out of options. While much of the animus was personal, Netanyahu was also still upset by Bennett’s maverick campaign during the 2014 Gaza war to pressure the government regarding the threat of Hamas attack tunnels.
Despite the bad blood, the tenure was too short for a major scuffle to develop.
In May 2020, Gantz became the seventh defense minister to serve under Netanyahu, after agreeing to form a power-sharing government with the Likud party. A former IDF chief of staff under Netanyahu, Gantz threw his hat into the political ring in 2019, teaming up with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and posing a real threat to Netanyahu’s rule.
Over three consecutive electoral campaigns, Netanyahu and allies attempted to humiliate Gantz, spreading salacious rumors about the former army chief and his family life, including allegations of sexual misconduct. Gantz has said that the smear campaign nearly tore his family apart.
Under the rotation deal, Gantz was slated to take over as premier in 2021. Instead, Netanyahu used a loophole in the agreement to avoid handing over power as agreed and instead dissolved the government and called new elections, keeping himself in power in the interim. The resulting election left Gantz in place as defense minister, but saw Netanyahu booted to the opposition.
After retaking power for a second time in late 2022, Netanyahu tapped Gallant, a former Southern Command head who narrowly missed out on leading the entire army, as his defense minister.
But it took less than three months for the premier to announce that he was firing Gallant after the defense minister publicly urged the government to halt its judicial overhaul package until compromise talks could take shape.
The announced firing set off unprecedented demonstrations that resulted in Netanyahu freezing the overhaul as Gallant had suggested.
At the same time, the prime minister’s aides tried to sell reporters on the idea that the firing was due to Gallant’s inability to stem a wave of insubordination among reserves volunteers refusing to serve in protest against the overhaul. The claim was a mirror image of Gallant’s contention that he had gone public after the cabinet refused to hold a discussion on the security ramifications of the controversial legislative drive.
Yet despite the announced firing, Gallant never actually received a pink slip, leaving him with an unclear status as the nation underwent a security gauntlet that included multi-front rocket barrages and a wave of terror attacks.
Netanyahu met with possible replacements for Gallant but ultimately, after trying and failing to extract an apology and retraction from the defense minister, on April 10 Netanyahu announced that he had decided not to fire him, ending two weeks of limbo.
The fact that Netanyahu was apparently swayed by public protests and not security concerns during an especially fraught period is key to understanding how the prime minister relates to his defense chiefs and why Gallant avoided the fates of Mordechai and Ya’alon.
When it comes to appointing defense ministers, Netanyahu usually finds someone with experience in dealing with security challenges (Liberman being a possible exception). But when it comes to sending his defense ministers packing, history shows he is driven by personal frictions or political horse-trading. He may not be done with Gallant yet.