TEHRAN - The resignation of Benny Gantz from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet has laid bare widening cracks within the Israeli establishment as the regime’s global isolation deepens over its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

"Unfortunately, Mr Netanyahu is preventing us from approaching true victory, which is the justification for the painful ongoing crisis," Gantz said in a televised statement on Sunday evening as he announced his resignation. 

Gantz is Netanyahu’s chief political rival. Polls suggest if snap elections were held today, he would be the winner. 
Hence, making such critical remarks are not surprising. 

Both Netanyahu and Gantz are criminals who have the blood of a large number of Palestinians on their hands.   

The slaughter of more than 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7 is just the tip of the iceberg.  

Gantz had already threatened to step down if Netanyahu did not lay out how Israel would achieve its “six strategic goals” in Gaza which include the end of Hamas rule in Gaza.

More than eight months have passed since Israel declared war on Gaza following Hamas’ surprise military operation in southern Israel on October 7. Israel has not only failed to bring Hamas to its knees but the regime has suffered major defeats at the hands of resistance fighters on the battlefield. 

Laying out plans for defeating Hamas is just wishful thinking because the resistance movement has become stronger and support for it has grown in the Palestinian territories over the past months. 

Hence, Gantz is playing the blame game when he accuses Netanyahu, known as Bibi, of denying Israel “true victory” because both of them want to see the elimination of Hamas from Gaza. True victory for them means defeating Hamas, but this dream will remain elusive even if Gantz or others succeed Netanyahu. 

Political ploy

Netanyahu and his coalition partners still have 64 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats. His cabinet will not collapse following the resignation of Gantz if far-right ministers, namely National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich do not make good on their threats to leave the cabinet. 

As a result, Netanyahu could safely stay in office till elections are due in October 2026. But he will become more heavily reliant on far-right ministers who now want a spot in the war cabinet to replace Gantz.  

Gantz’s decision to quit the war cabinet could be a clever ploy because he wants to shirk responsibility for Israel’s failure to achieve its military goals in Gaza. He wants to appear as a savior and woo voters in a future election. 

Domestic divisions 

Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid backed Gantz's decision to leave the war cabinet as “important and right”.

Netanyahu, however, criticized his move, saying in a post on X, “Benny, this is not the time to quit the campaign, this is the time to join forces."

Far-right ministers made a blistering attack on Gantz too.

 “There is no act less stately than withdrawing from the government during a war,” Smotrich said.

He accused Gantz of fulfilling the demands of Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Iran by his decision to leave the war cabinet. 

Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah have insisted on an end to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. Hezbollah has stressed that it will stop its attacks against Israel if the regime ends the Gaza war. 

Iran has also warned on numerous occasions that the Gaza war could spill over into the entire West Asia region. 

Nonetheless, the Netanyahu regime has vowed to continue the Gaza war in defiance of growing international calls to reach a deal with Hamas.  

Israel is accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his war minister Yoav Gallant for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. However, international pressure has so far failed to stop Israel’s killing machine.  

Good cop, bad cop

The United States and its allies blame Netanyahu for the continuation of the Gaza war. They have depicted Gantz as a centrist politician who can end the onslaught. 

A question arises here: Is Gantz different from Netanyahu?

Undoubtedly, it is a fallacy that Gantz would have acted any differently than Netanyahu if he had been in Bibi’s shoes following the October 7 Hamas attack.

Gantz is a former chief of staff of the Israeli military and also a former war minister. 

He was the army chief when the regime launched war on Gaza in 2012. The Israeli rights group B’Tselem said the Israeli army under Gantz’s leadership killed nearly 170 Palestinians during the war. 

In another war against Gaza in 2014, more than 2,000 Palestinians including over 500 children were butchered by Israeli forces while Gantz was still the army chief. 

The Israeli army also killed hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza in May 2021 and August 2023 when Gantz was the regime’s war minister. 

In his 2019 campaign for the Israeli Keneseth, Gantz put out a video of destruction in Gaza in the 2014 war. In that video, he bragged about sending parts of Gaza “back to the Stone Age”. 

This is in addition to the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank at the hands of Israeli forces during the era that Gantz held top military posts. 

The comments made by Gantz and the Israeli military’s brutalities when he was the chief of staff and war minister clearly show how he thinks about Palestinians. 

Now it seems Netanyahu is playing the role of the bad cop and Gantz is the role of the good cop.

But, in essence, they are members of the bogus apartheid regime. 

As long as the US and its Western allies continue to support Israel, the regime will not end acts of genocide in the Palestinian territories. The regime seeks to make the Palestinian territories uninhabitable for Palestinians and force them to leave their homes, which amounts to ethnic cleansing.