Transcript: Netanyahu defies the west on Gaza

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Netanyahu defies the west on Gaza’

Henry Mance
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Henry Mance, chief features writer at the Financial Times, and I’m standing in this week for Gideon while he’s on holiday. This week’s podcast is about Israel and what’s really going on, as the government faces mounting international pressure over civilian casualties in Gaza. My guest is James Shotter, the FT’s correspondent in Jerusalem who’s been covering the events of the past five months. How is the Gaza conflict reshaping Israel’s politics? And does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the great survivor of Israeli politics, have a way to cling on to power?

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Yuval Noah Harari
In Israel at the moment, there is really a battle for the soul of the Israeli nation, between patriotism on the one side and ideals of Jewish supremacy on the other side.

Henry Mance
That was the historian Yuval Noah Harari, talking to Sky News last week about the divisions that have opened up in Israel’s political landscape.

Yuval Noah Harari
And now there is a huge titanic struggle within Israel between these two forces. And this is my greatest fear. It’s not from Hamas. It’s not from Hizbollah. It’s not from Iran. It’s from this inner struggle that, we might lose this struggle.

Henry Mance
Let’s start by taking a step back. A few days after the Hamas attacks on October the 7th, Benjamin Netanyahu set up a five-man, cross-party war cabinet, bringing his arch-rival and former defence minister Benny Gantz back into government. Splits in that cabinet have been clear ever since, but they came to the fore this week when Gantz visited Washington to meet senior figures in the Biden administration. Gantz’s trip infuriated Netanyahu, who has been stonewalling the US’s demands for more aid and more restraint. But it plays into hopes in the West that Gantz, who is currently leading in opinion polls, would oversee a more sober military response than Netanyahu, who is dependent on far-right parties. James Shotter, FT Jerusalem correspondent, welcome to the podcast.

James Shotter
Thank you very much.

Henry Mance
Now, can you explain to us how Gantz and Netanyahu disagree over the Gaza war?

James Shotter
Sure. So on the highest level, Gantz has been just as insistent as Netanyahu that the war can only end when Hamas is completely destroyed. But beneath that, there’s been differences on a couple of things. One of the most important ones is the question of how to bring back the hostages that Hamas still holds in Gaza. Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that only overwhelming military force would induce Hamas to release them, whereas Gantz and his ally Gadi Eisenkot, who joined the war cabinet with him just after the start of the war, have been arguing for the last couple of months that this approach has reached its limits and that, you know, there has to be a sort of a diplomatic attempt to get them home. So that’s one thing. And the second thing is the question of what happens once the war is over. Netanyahu has repeatedly put off discussion of the day after in Gaza, partly because it’s politically difficult for him within his coalition, whereas Gantz has been pushing for some sort of planning for the day after. I think there’s also a sense that in the negotiations about resolving the conflict, he would likely be a more emollient interlocutor for the Palestinians and the international community than Netanyahu.

Henry Mance
Yeah. And we heard at the beginning of this podcast, Yuval Noah Harari talking about patriotism versus Jewish supremacy, and really saying that the internal divisions in Israel worried him more than almost the external threats, whether from Hamas or from Iran. Is that how it feels? These divisions within Israeli politics, do they go very deep at the moment?

James Shotter
Yeah. I mean, I think since the start of the war and given how deep the shock was that Hamas’s attack caused, I think at the moment most people in Israel are more concerned about the external threats. You know, the fighting with Hamas is now contained in Gaza, but the trauma of October 7th is very alive in the Israeli public sphere. You know, there’s also fears about the possibility of the conflict escalating to include a war with Hizbollah in Lebanon. But of course, before the war, there were deep divisions in Israeli society between more religious parts of society and the more liberal, more secular parts of society over what sort of a state Israel should be. And those haven’t been resolved. And I think the big question for the time after the war is at what point those resurface. So I think in the long term, those divisions are absolutely still there.

Henry Mance
Many listeners who’ve been following Israeli politics will remember this huge street protest against Netanyahu. They remember him clinging on despite those. And then in the aftermath of October 7th, he did seem to suffer this sharp drop in popularity, people blaming him for the attack, you know, as the commander-in-chief for not stopping it. Can you bring us up to speed on what the position is now? Has he in any way recovered the popularity that he might have had, partly by overseeing this long military conflict, which many Israelis seem in favour of?

James Shotter
No, he hasn’t is the short answer. So, as you said, there was this really bitter fight in Israel before October the 7th over Netanyahu’s government’s plans to weaken the judiciary, which had already seen some of the support that they had when they won the election in the preceding December ebb. And then obviously, after the October the 7th, it nosedived further. So if you look at the polling data, the last few polls before October 7th suggested that if elections have been held then, Netanyahu’s coalition would have got about 54, 55 seats in the Knesset, which has 120 seats. So short of a majority and short of the 64 that Netanyahu’s coalition had in the wake of the election. After October the 7th, you know, it really cratered further and went as low as 42 or 43 seats.

You know, that is, you know, obviously, because Israelis blame, as you said, Netanyahu, for the failures that led to October the 7th, both the short-term intelligence failures and the longer-term strategic failures. He was the guy who pushed the strategy of strengthening Hamas as a way of weakening the Palestinian Authority and undermining the chances of a Palestinian state ever being created. And that strategy obviously totally failed, as you know, October the 7th showed.

So, yeah, there was definitely an intense backlash against him in the weeks as well. And that hasn’t really eased much since then. I mean, there’s a poll earlier this week which put Netanyahu’s coalition on 47 seats, so it’s marginally above where it was in the immediate aftermath of October 7th. But still, you know, far away from being able to form a government in the next elections and way behind the opposition parties that formed the previous government, which in the same poll that Netanyahu had and then the coalition had 47, they had 69. So at the moment, the war hasn’t reset his popularity at all.

Henry Mance
So we have this position where Gantz is not on board with some of the handling of the war, where he’s leading in opinion polls. How does he handle that? Has he been trying to steer a course between being loyal to Netanyahu and sort of carving himself out as distinct?

James Shotter
Yes. As you said, you know, the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s attack on October 7th, he basically crossed the political divide and joined this five-man war cabinet that’s basically overseeing the war. And there was a, you know, in the early weeks of the war, there was this relatively brief period where political fights were put on hold and there was a semblance of unity. But that has begun to fray in January. Eisenkot, who is one of Gantz’s closest allies, gave an interview in which he declined to say that he trusted Netanyahu, in which he said that elections would be held within months because the public had lost faith in the government. Yeah, and although Gantz has been less outspoken, he’s also criticised Netanyahu on various occasions, one being when Netanyahu publicly criticised security chiefs for the failures of October 7th, Gantz admonished him after that. And obviously this latest trip to the US, which wasn’t sanctioned by Netanyahu and which has sparked a lot of criticism from Netanyahu’s allies is the latest sign of these divisions and, as you say, of Gantz’s attempt to sort of position himself as an alternative to Netanyahu.

Henry Mance
I mean, another issue that divides Gantz and Netanyahu is the question of whether the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel should perform military service, and that is potentially an issue that could collapse the government, could make this unhappy marriage of convenience intolerable.

James Shotter
I mean, it’s a really difficult question for Netanyahu’s coalition. His coalition is basically his Likud party, plus two ultra-Orthodox parties and then two extreme right parties. And within that, there is a real spectrum of views on the question of this exemption. So the ultra-Orthodox parties are obviously in favour of Netanyahu needs him for his coalition. But other members of his coalition, such as defence minister Yoav Gallant are in favour of increasing number of Haredi who serve in the military. It’s an issue that’s brought down coalitions in the past, and it definitely has the potential to provoke deep splits in this coalition as well. Whether there’s a way for the government to kick the can down the road as they’ve done in the past, or whether they really do have to deal with it by the end of this month, as the Supreme Court ordered them to do, you know, it’s hard to say at this point. But if they do have to deal with it this month, then it definitely has the potential to be a big showdown between these two very different camps.

Henry Mance
Yeah. And people will know that Israeli Jewish men are faced with very long military service by international standard. Two years, eight months. Women serve for two years. I mean, is the urgency around this or is the pressure on this really a question of principle? It’s not that Israel desperately needs these soldiers to fight in Gaza, or indeed to be on the northern border. It’s a question of: what is the principle of this nation? Is it one where people are equal in front of the law, where you have religious communities with quite large exemptions?

James Shotter
No, I think it’s both at the moment, obviously at a time of war, it is a much more pertinent question than in times of peace. And, you know, the military has recently called for the period during which Israelis do reserve duty to be extended. So, you know, there’s clearly pressure on the Israeli military than there would be in peacetime. But obviously, as you say, it’s also a question of equal rights. You know, it’s sort of a lightning rod issue for frustration within secular Israeli society about the position that the Haredi enjoy and the extent to which they’re able to live a lifestyle that doesn’t expose them to the same burdens, is secular, is ready to go to the military, basically, as a matter of course.

Henry Mance
And looking at this from Europe, from the point of view of European governments, and I think the US as well, Netanyahu has proved a very difficult person to work with over the last few months. They felt that their various calls for more aid to go into Gaza, or for restraint to be shown, or a plan for Gaza’s future, you know, have fallen on very deaf ears. And they would presumably welcome the opportunity to work with almost anyone on the more moderate side of Israeli politics. And I suppose for western public speaking at this, they might say, well, why doesn’t Gantz simply look for an opportunity in the next few weeks or months to collapse the war cabinet and to offer perhaps a more pragmatic vision of where Israel goes now and of how to handle this conflict? Is he simply looking for the best possible time to do that? Is there any doubt in observers’ minds that Gantz’s preferred option would be to topple Netanyahu, whether that requires an election or not?

James Shotter
Yes. I think when Gantz and Eisenkot joined the war cabinet, they made clear that they were just doing so for the duration of the war. And the expectation on all sides of the political spectrum is that, you know, as soon as the war’s over, they will jump ship, and that will be the sort of starting gun for an election campaign. I mean, it wouldn’t automatically trigger an election because Netanyahu’s coalition would still have the 64 seats in parliament that it had before. That would definitely be seen, as, you know, the point at which everyone else begins gearing up for an election. I don’t think Gantz would do that while the war is going on, because it would leave him open to accusations that he was playing politics at a time when Israeli soldiers were fighting and dying.

So I think he will wait until the war ends. But then obviously begs the question, how does the war end? You know, if it doesn’t end from one day to the next with some sort of big agreement, but instead sort of peters out from high-intensity conflict to low-intensity conflict, to sort of Israeli raids into Gaza. At what point does he draw the line? But I think, you know, at some point he and Eisenkot will lead to war cabinets. And I think the expectation in Israeli political spectrum is that that will be at some point this year, that the government won’t drag out its mandate until 2026, which is the time that formally, the next elections would be due.

Henry Mance
Right. And I guess the question is how cynical observers should be here. But from what you’ve said, Netanyahu has a pretty clear political incentive not to negotiate a settlement to this war, not to obey the demands for a temporary or indeed a permanent cease fire, which coming out of the US and Europe, partly because that will give his rivals an opportunity to trigger an election. So, you know, he’s 74. In the ordinary political course of things, one might expect him to step down at some point, but we see that he’s got this incentive, not least to avoid corruption allegations.

James Shotter
Yeah, I mean, he would obviously deny that string of the corruption allegations, which he’s facing. But it’s certainly an accusation that his critics levelled at him, just as they accused him of trying to weaken the judiciary during the battle last year as a means of dealing with his legal problems, which, of course, he also denied. But there is obviously a sense among Israelis and Netanyahu he’s not averse to letting personal political calculations influence his policy. I mean, there was a poll earlier this week which found that, you know, the plurality of Israelis think that the way he’s manoeuvring around the hostage deal is motivated by political considerations rather than substantive issues. But I think there is a broad consensus in Israel’s political cost of the war has to go on until Hamas is defeated. So even if you don’t want to be cynical, I think the expectation that the war will go on until Israel can claim some sort of military victory is probably well-founded.

Henry Mance
That poll you mentioned is interesting, right, because it shows that Israelis, although they seem heavily in favour of the war, they understand that the person who’s overseeing that war may have very self-interested motives for the way in which he’s prosecuting him.

James Shotter
Yes. I mean, that’s been an accusation that’s been levelled at Netanyahu for a while, and particularly during the last five years, where this sort of political deadlock in Israel has basically revolved around questions of whether Netanyahu is or is not fit to continue to lead the country.

Henry Mance
And I mean, in terms of stringing out the war, I think, as Netanyahu would put it, pushing for total victory. I mean, what are the prospects for an expansion of the conflict in the north with Hizbollah if one were looking for self-interested motives that would enable Netanyahu to continue a good deal longer in power.

James Shotter
You know, and clearly, if the conflict does expand to a war with Hizbollah as well, then that would be a much, much bigger scale than what we’re seeing at the moment. I mean, Hizbollah is one of the world’s best-armed, non-state actors, and the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah would be on a totally different scale from anything we’ve seen before. I think the question of whether that happens or not is still up in the air. There’s a big diplomatic push, being that by the US to try and find a diplomatic solution. But Israel has been totally adamant that in the wake of a nice attack in the south, there are fears in Israel that Hizbollah could do something similar in the north. And Israel is totally adamant that they’re going to do everything they can to make that impossible. And that requires Hizbollah to withdraw from the immediate surroundings of the Israeli border.

You know, this US diplomatic push is trying to find a way to persuade them to do that, maybe in exchange for agreement to demarcate these very Lebanese border or maybe some economic carrots. But whether or not that’s achievable is hard to say at this stage. But not just Netanyahu. Also, other members of the war cabinet like Yoav Gallant, his defence minister, and indeed, Gantz actually have been clear that if Israel can’t achieve its goals on the northern border diplomatically, that it’s prepared to take military action. And yeah, that would obviously be a far, far bigger conflict than anything we’ve seen so far.

Henry Mance
I mean, there’s huge frustration internationally. The Western governments are, I think, hugely frustrated that they haven’t been able to exert more influence over the Israeli government since October. And I think one of the hopes was that the families of the hostages would also act as a moderating pressure on Netanyahu, that they would be a very powerful voice for negotiation with Hamas that would ultimately protect civilian lives. How is that playing out in Israel? Is the pressure from the families of hostages being held by Hamas? Is that telling on Netanyahu at all?

James Shotter
I mean, the pressure is definitely growing, and the hostage families are very organised. And, you know, their protests have become more and more forceful, but it hasn’t really had an impact on Netanyahu. His view throughout the conflict has been that the only way to bring the other hostages who are still in Gaza home is by applying overwhelming military force to Hamas to force them to release them. And he has stuck to that despite the pressure from the hostage families. And as things stand at the moment, it doesn’t really look like that’s going to change.

Henry Mance
And if we look into the medium term imagining, for example, a more moderate figure, albeit one on the right of Israeli politics such as Gantz takes over in Israel. Does that give any cause to believe that the two-state solution is workable over the medium, or indeed long term?

James Shotter
I think at the moment, if you look, there’s very little appetite in Israel for a two-state solution. Netanyahu has made clear that he’s opposed to this. And I think you can see that he’s already drawing up the battle lines to fight the next election on a debate about a Palestinian state, and he’s going to portray himself as the only person who can prevent it. And he’s going to try and portray Benny Gantz as someone who would be in favour of creating it. And there’s no doubt that Benny Gantz would probably be a more comfortable partner for the international community when it comes to this question.

But what exactly he would be prepared to do is also hard to say. I mean, in the past, he’s spoken of support for two entities, but what he means by that is not really clear in the extent to which his idea of a Palestinian entity would overlap with Palestinian ambitions for a state. It’s also quite hard to say, and I think that’s not by accident. I think at the moment his strategy is to be as non-committal as possible until he’s absolutely forced to be more specific, you know, in an election campaign. But it’s probably fair to say that he would be a more congenial partner than Netanyahu.

Henry Mance
CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria gave a pretty impassioned monologue about the conflict a few days ago. And he said, and I’m going to quote a little bit, he said, Israel is in trauma. And as a result, many Israelis are sanctioning policies that they will regret deeply. I thought those were pretty powerful words, and I think one could possibly argue that’s too strong. And maybe history, even quite recent history, suggests that when public moods do turn, it takes several years for them to do so. So I was thinking about the US opinion turning against the war in Iraq. That took three or four years. The UK public has turned against Brexit, but it wasn’t immediate regret. And I wonder, what do you think the possibility is that in a few years time, the Israeli public will look back on the response to the Hamas attacks and perhaps even agree with some of the international criticism that there is now that it’s gone over the top, that, you know, it’s actually not in the long term interests of Israel to respond so forcefully and with such a great deal of civilian loss of life.

James Shotter
It’s a good question. I think at the moment. Israel is still really in deep trauma, and it’s hard to overstate what a shock October the 7th was. I mean, this is the country that was founded in the wake of the Holocaust on the notion that it would provide a safe haven for Jews from persecution. And so to see that mission fail so catastrophically on October 7th has left Israelis really deeply shaken. And as a result, there’s this very widespread support for the war. You know, even if some people acknowledge that the idea of destroying Hamas totally is not realistic. But there’s certainly a very unbending desire to continue until there’s no question of an attack like October the 7th ever happening again. I think, you know, perhaps another thing that’s worth mentioning if we try to bridge the gap between how things look in Israel and how things look from abroad, is that the intense human suffering in Gaza that you referred to barely features in the Israeli media, and people here are not confronted with the level of awful destruction and death that the international community is seeing in Gaza.

So I think that’s also something you have to take into account when you’re trying to understand the Israeli mood. So I think in the short term there’s very little chance of that changing. In the longer term, you know, it’s hard to say, but I think, as you said, with the US since September 11th, with UK and Brexit, I mean, these things take a really long time. And I think the trauma in Israel is so deep that for the mood to shift in a significant way is really years and years and years away.

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Henry Mance
That was the FT’s James Shotter speaking to me from Jerusalem. And that’s it for this week. Please join me again next week for another edition of the Rachman Review.