The extreme heatwave that has hit our region this week does not distinguish between Israelis and Palestinians. But while we Israelis hide in our air-conditioned houses, offices and cars, the besieged residents of Gaza can only add the unbearable hot and humid atmosphere to their struggle to eat, drink and sleep, in constant fear of death. The starvation crisis that has exploded in Gaza this summer, following Israeli-imposed restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid, continues to worsen despite mounting international pressure to allow in more food, medicine and critical supplies. And the killing has never stopped, while Israel is preparing for the next stage of the war to “annihilate Hamas”.
Most Israelis are self-immunised to the horrors being endured by Palestinians in Gaza. Told by our government and mainstream media that there is no starvation, only Hamas propaganda and fake news spread by antisemites in the western media, they see no moral dilemma. And so, after almost two years of fighting, life in Tel Aviv recalls the antebellum days of endless partying. The beaches and restaurants are packed and Ben Gurion airport is busy again with summer vacationers flying to Greece. Israel’s economic data is outperforming expectations. Antiwar sentiment is limited to fear for the plight of Israeli hostages in Hamas tunnels, decreasing motivation to re-enlist in reservist unitsand growing PTSD and suicide cases in the military. Nevertheless, most Israelis, even diehard critics of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would give him carte blanche to continue with the ongoing punishment of Gaza.
This public complacency allows Netanyahu to focus his attention on his favourite territory of political power-plays and media manipulation. His current aim is subordinating the militaryand the ongoing war gives him an unprecedented opportunity.
Zoom out: throughout his long, embattled political career, the chief rivals of Israel’s prime minister have been former military leaders. Having led the country’s most revered institution, they have been the epitome of its old liberal establishment, which Netanyahu vowed to crush and replace with new elites composed of his socially conservative and religious supporters.
Beginning with Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s, Netanyahu has fought them all – military heroes such as Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak and uniformed apparatchiks including Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot – and survived at the helm. But in a country fighting a permanent war, political control of the military is the key to leadership, and Netanyahu had been restrained by the de facto veto power of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and intelligence community over war-and-peace decision-making.
Then came the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which the military and intelligence services had failed to anticipate and to contain in time. To most Israelis, it was the worst disaster in the country’s history. But not to Netanyahu, who sensed an unprecedented opportunity to consolidate his power and push aside his long-term rivals. He put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the military and intelligence top brass and prevented an independent inquiry. As the war has dragged on, security chiefs have been purged one after another, to be replaced by the prime minister’s loyalists. The purges have enabled him to spin the story and credit himself for the more successful moves against Hezbollah and Iran, and even for the downfall of the Assad regime in Syria.
But self-praise was not enough to make the IDF an offshoot of the “Bibist” personality cult. Netanyahu could only envy his political partner and far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had turned Israel’s police and prison service into his private militia by manipulating the senior appointments process. In March, Netanyahu made his move to take over the Kirya, Israel’s answer to the Pentagon, in central Tel Aviv, nominating Lt Gen Eyal Zamir as the new IDF chief of staff. A broad-shouldered tank commander who had served as the prime minister’s military aide a decade earlier, Zamir had close-up knowledge of his former boss and his inner circle. The rightwing politicians and twitterati praised him as an “offensive” commander who would defeat Hamas, unlike his unlucky predecessor, Herzi Halevi, who carried the burden of the 7 October failure. And he was widely expected to preserve the draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox men, relieving Netanyahu of a political hot potato.
At first, Zamir was quick to adapt. On 18 March, Israel breached a short-lived ceasefire with Hamas, intensifying its attacks and temporarily halting the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza. In May, the military launched another operation to “eliminate Hamas” and appeared in sync with the stated goal of Netanyahu and the right wing: ethnic cleansing of Gaza by relocating its 2 million Palestinians into guarded enclaves, from which the only way out would be abroad.
But it didn’t take long for the supposed Netanyahu crony to expose a different set of priorities. While showing no mercy for the Palestinians, Zamir behaved like the older, risk-averse version of his boss, putting the safety of his troops – and of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza – above all. And he stuck to his predecessor’s support of Haredi conscription, issuing thousands of draft notes to ultra-Orthodox youth. By early August, as Hamas would not surrender, Netanyahu and his far-right coalition pledged to occupy the remaining Palestinian enclaves even at the risk of harming the hostages. This was Zamir’s moment of rebellion. He reportedly threatened to resign if forced into a risky operation that would entail long-term occupation.
Netanyahu was quick to seize the power-play opportunity, leading as usual from behind. Yair, the prime minister’s son and alpha dog whistler, accused Zamir of a banana-republic military coup.
Matters came to a head in a heated security cabinet meeting on 6 August, at which the chief of staff warned against sending his troops into what was “tantamount … to a trap” and risking the hostages’ lives. The compromise was a decision to occupy only Gaza City, force its million inhabitants out and raze it – just as the IDF had already done in Rafah and Khan Yunis. A two-month deadline was given before implementation, leaving time for a last-minute hostages-for-ceasefire deal.
The power struggle, however, did not stop after the cabinet decision, as defence minister Israel Katz kept up his pressure on Zamir to bow or leave. The once unthinkable idea of sacking the military chief after less than six months in office, an almost Stalinist pace of purging, has now been normalised in the public sphere. The supposed potential successor candidates are “more offensive” generals committed to obeying the prime minister and working towards Gaza’s total destruction.
All this unfolds amid Gaza’s starvation crisis and hostages suffering in Hamas tunnels. On Sunday, a mass protest and strike has been organised, calling for an end to the war and the return of the hostages. It enjoys wide support in opinion polls, which Netanyahu is trying to ignore. Instead, he is doubling down on his dual mission of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and consolidating his autocracy in Israel. And so, in an unpredictable twist, Lt Gen Zamir has cast himself as the unlikely leader of resistance to both goals – just like Netanyahu’s age-old military rivals.
True to form, Netanyahu likes to keep his options open, while leaving his opponents with uneasy choices and telling different, and often contradictory, stories to different people. Israeli pundits debate whether he wants to end the war, reach a partial deal, or keep a low-level and less costly fight. Only two things are clear: the prime minister has an insatiable quest for power and longevity in office; and the death toll in Gaza from bombing and malnutrition keeps rising, while Israelis keep looking the other way.
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Aluf Benn is the editor-in-chief of Haaretz
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