At a time when the Israeli army was massing massively and preparing to launch a ground offensive against Rafah, Israel's internal strife began to become open, and Defense Minister Gallant directly quarreled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to the Observer, on the 15th, Gallant held a high-profile press conference to openly question Netanyahu's post-war plan for Gaza, oppose Israel's post-war military "control" of Gaza, and hope to establish an alternative to a non-hostile Palestinian government to replace Hamas. In response, Netanyahu responded strongly that he would not consider Gallant's plan, saying that the retired admiral was "making excuses" for his incompetence. After the defense minister and the prime minister "opened fire", Israeli politics has entered a state of "choosing sides" and seems to have forgotten to attack Rafah. In this regard, we will talk about three topics.
The first, Gallant and Netanyahu quarreled, is not the first time.
As prime minister, Netanyahu has ruled Israel for a long time, and compared the president of the United States, he was the same during the Obama era, he was the same during the Trump era, and now he is still the Biden president. In Israeli politics, Netanyahu is an absolute "old qualification", but this time, his ruling position is no longer as stable as before, and even within this government, there are many people who are dissatisfied with him, such as Defense Minister Gallant.
In fact, as early as last year's "judicial reform turmoil", the two had already "confronted" once. At the time, Gallant, as he did this time, issued a "bombshell warning" in a televised speech, saying that Netanyahu's judicial reforms were threatening the cohesion of the Israeli army. Later, a furious Netanyahu ordered Gallant to be dismissed as defense minister. However, against the backdrop of massive demonstrations in Israel and the criticism of judicial reform, Netanyahu did not revisit Gallant's dismissal.
But unexpectedly, in less than a year, the two broke out into a fierce quarrel again. This time, the topic of the quarrel was "who will run Gaza after the war." It is worth noting that in the "three-person team" of Israel's wartime cabinet, in addition to Netanyahu and Gallant, another former defense minister with voting rights Gantz also believes that Gallant "told the truth".
It also shows that in this "three-person group", Prime Minister Netanyahu has been isolated by the other two, because the other two are military, and the military's dissatisfaction with Netanyahu has reached its peak. At the same time, Israeli Chief of Staff Halevi also accused Netanyahu of failing to develop a plan for the post-war management of the Gaza Strip, which led to the Israeli army fighting for no reason. Barr, the head of Israel's General Directorate of National Security (Sinbet), has also had a dispute with Netanyahu.
But outside the "group of three," Netanyahu is not alone, with some right-wing lawmakers supporting him and wanting him to remove Gallant from office immediately. In other words, Israel is now divided into two factions and has begun to take sides, and infighting is on the table.
Second, what is Netanyahu's calculation for the post-war management of Gaza?
According to Israeli media, Netanyahu's current consideration is to drive out Hamas and even the people of Gaza, move in the new immigrants with his own permission after Israel occupies Gaza, and then set up a pro-Israel regime to "take care" of Gaza for Israel, on the one hand, he will never have to worry about security; On the other hand, "territory" was added to Israel. If such war dividends can be reaped, Netanyahu will have little resistance to his re-election.
Today, Israel's insistence on attacking Rafah, the last city in Gaza, implies that it will "drive the refugees to Egypt", because Rafah is only "separated by a wall" from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and the refugees themselves have fled to Egypt without being driven away by Israel.
In order to achieve the goal of occupation, the Israeli side has also disclosed two plans to the outside world: one is to build artificial islands in the Mediterranean Sea to relocate the people of Gaza; The other is the relocation of the entire population of Gaza to the African country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with which Israel has even consulted.
However, against the backdrop of Netanyahu's plan, Hamas firmly disagrees, saying that as long as there is one person alive in Hamas, Israel will not be allowed to rule the Gaza Strip. But he also knows that it is impossible to completely eliminate Hamas, for example, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently made it clear that Turkey has treated more than 1,000 Hamas to treat their wounds, which is clearly against Israel, and in the Middle East, there are many countries similar to Turkey.
Therefore, if Gaza is occupied, only the Israeli army can control it to ensure that there are no problems in security, which is also what Netanyahu hopes to do, but the military basically disagrees, they think that Netanyahu's idea is for his personal benefit and to win votes for his re-election, because the Israeli army is fighting hard with Hamas in Gaza, which has become a political achievement for Netanyahu.
Third, the United States hopes that after the ceasefire in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Middle Eastern countries will send troops to maintain peace.
There will always be a ceasefire in the conflict, so how does the international community think about the post-war governance of Gaza? Recently, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on "Palestine's accession to the United Nations" by an overwhelming margin of 143 to 9, that is, the international community hopes that Palestine will join the United Nations and truly implement the "two-state solution" after the establishment of a state belonging to the Palestinians.
However, despite the adoption of the resolution, the United States and Israel voted against it, which also shows that the United States and Israel have other considerations for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations, Erdan, has made it clear that Israel will not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state, which is "rewarding terrorism" and that Hamas cannot manage it or Fatah. The Biden administration of the United States has called on Arab countries to deploy peacekeeping troops to the Gaza Strip after the end of the current round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco are considering this proposal.
In this regard, I am afraid that the Israeli side will not cooperate, is the Arab coalition capable of countering Israel? It's hard to say. So what about Israel's insistence on a non-stop fire in Gaza? The Colombian president proposed that the United Nations send a peacekeeping force to forcefully stop Israel's military action. But first, the United States will not agree; Second, if Israel persists, won't Gaza become more and more chaotic?