THE ISRAELI war cabinet minister Gantz has threatened to resign and completely split the ruling Israeli group unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sets out a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
Gantz set an 8th June deadline for a plan to achieve six ‘strategic goals’, including the end of Hamas rule in Gaza and the establishment of a multinational civilian administration in the occupied territories.
He told the Israeli war cabinet: ‘If you put the national over personal, you will find in us partners in the struggle, adding: ‘But if you choose the path of fanatics and lead the entire nation to the abyss, we will be forced to quit the government.’
Netanyahu dismissed the comments as ‘washed-up words’ that would mean ‘defeat for Israel’.
The fact is that the Israeli general staff considers that Israel is heading for the abyss. The growing rift comes as fighting rages at both ends of the Gaza Strip, with Israeli forces operating in the southern city of Rafah and the northern town of Jabalia, one of Gaza’s historic refugee camps, and an area the Israeli military previously said it had cleared of Hamas fighters.
Gantz was speaking just days after another war cabinet member, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, urged Netanyahu to state publicly that Israel had no plans to take over civilian and military rule in Gaza.
Gallant said he had raised the issue repeatedly for months but had received no response.
He and Gantz say that maintaining military control in Gaza would increase Israel’s security risks, while others, including far-right members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition in the government, believe continued control is necessary in order to defeat Hamas.
In a televised address on Saturday, Gantz told Netanyahu that the ‘people of Israel are watching you’.
‘You must choose between Zionism and cynicism, between unity and factions, between responsibility and lawlessness, between victory and disaster,’ he said.
Also among the six strategic goals he set out were the return of all Israeli and foreign hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinian civilians to northern Gaza by 1st September.
He also said Israel should continue to seek the normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia as part of a ‘comprehensive process to create an alliance with the free world and the West against Iran and its allies’.
Responding to the speech, Netanyahu said that to meet Gantz’s demands would lead to ‘the end of the war and a defeat for Israel, the abandoning of most of the hostages, leaving Hamas intact and the establishment of a Palestinian state’.
Israel’s war cabinet was established after Hamas attacked Israeli settlements near Gaza on 7th October, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostages.
Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed 35,386 people, the Hamas-run health ministry says.
The return of the Israeli military to parts of northern Gaza, like Jabalia, that were previously declared clear of Hamas has raised doubts about the government’s strategy for eliminating the group.
Halevi is said to have argued that, in the absence of a diplomatic process to establish a governing body other than Hamas, the military will be forced to launch repeated campaigns to keep the group at bay.
Gantz proposed an American, European, Arab and Palestinian administration that could manage civilian affairs in Gaza while the foundations are laid for a future alternative government.
The trade unions internationally must now move into action to support the masses of Palestine. At the moment, the student youth of the US, UK and EU are leading the struggle and have shown the way.
The trade unions must see to it that no US, UK or German armaments reach Israel. They must call general strikes in the UK, EU and USA to bring in Workers Governments, a qualitative change in regimes, that will support the arming of the Palestinian masses to establish the state of Palestine and strike a huge blow at the remnants of the imperialist
powers!