Ben-Gvir’s man on the hostage deal

Photos: Flash90; SHUTTERSTOCK/GILCOHENMAGEN

Otzma Yehudit MK Tzvika Fogel is the party’s lead security figure. In contrast to party chair Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom the left-wing media portrays as an extreme far-right “hilltop youth,” Tzvika Fogel is a brigadier general in the IDF reserves and a former artillery coordinator for the Southern Command. Among the many Israeli generals who have entered politics, Fogel was seen as a real asset that any party would be glad to add to its ranks. His appearance projects “security,” and it’s easy to imagine him starring on the Likud list, or even on a centrist list like Blue and White.

Which is why Tzvika Fogel was the main target of Netanyahu’s unsuccessful attempts to split Otzma Yehudit after Ben-Gvir’s resignation from the government. Like a falling domino, Ben-Gvir’s resignation immediately triggered Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s announcement that he’d topple the government if Netanyahu proceeds with the second phase of the hostage deal.

Caught between the hammer of Trump and the anvil of the Israeli far right, Netanyahu managed to extract MK Almog Cohen from the six-strong Otzma Yehudit faction. But per Israeli law, only a third or more of a faction’s members can split off from their parent faction, meaning that Bibi needs two defectors to tear the party apart. The serious Fogel, with his image as a security man, seemed to Bibi the obvious candidate. Instead of cooperating with the scheme, though, Fogel chose to very publicly blow it up.

“I have received overtures to split from Otzma Yehudit,” Fogel confirmed in a conversation with Mishpacha. “But I made it abundantly clear: I was elected [to the Knesset] on behalf of Otzma Yehudit, I’ve found an ideological home in Otzma Yehudit, and a friend and partner in Itamar Ben-Gvir. I have no intention of betraying that friendship, that partnership, or that ideology.”

Fogel’s views regarding the hostage deal are especially significant at the moment, given the potential ramifications of a split within Otzma Yehudit. If the war isn’t renewed and Ben-Gvir doesn’t return to the government, Bezalel Smotrich will have a hard time justifying remaining in the coalition.

Given that Netanyahu stood his ground against the Biden administration for over a year, why don’t you trust him now that he’s decided to go for a deal under Trump?

“Because the people of Israel didn’t elect Trump. The people of Israel chose the right-religious bloc to lead the Jewish people in our land. At the moment, Binyamin Netanyahu is our leader because he had a majority in the national camp, but I can’t continue to lend my vote to a policy that effectively expresses a triangle of American, Qatari, and Egyptian interests.”

Isn’t that a little extreme? Ultimately, the deal was signed by the prime minister of Israel with the full support of the defense establishment.

“I said a triangle of American-Qatari-Egyptian interests because they’re the ones who actually drew up this agreement, which was ultimately signed on Israel’s behalf by three people who don’t know how to negotiate. In my view, this deal isn’t just another wrong turn. It’s a surrender that endangers the existence of the Jewish people in its homeland. No less.”

You oppose the deal with all your might, but what’s the alternative? After all, we saw that the IDF couldn’t free the hostages during a year-long war, aside from four.

“I’m not saying not to make a deal. On the contrary, we should have made a deal, rather than an agreement. The deal we should have made was much simpler. In November 2023, I said: give us back all 250 hostages and take all 8,000 terrorists in our prisons — and we’ll eliminate them in Gaza later. Back then we had tools, we had power, we had levers, and they were desperate for fuel. We made a bad deal then, and we’re making a worse one now.”

Still, most generals in office today support the deal, and you were a general yourself. You can’t say that their argument has zero merit.

“I’m not someone who lies to himself. I didn’t lie to myself when I was a general, and I’ll tell the truth now, too. In this war, we learned that we have amazing soldiers, a victory generation. We learned that we have field commanders at an unbelievable level. But we also learned that we have a general staff conducting the war contrary to the directives and goals of the political echelon. We squandered the time we were given to achieve the goals of the war. I say good on Chief of Staff Herzi for a long-overdue resignation.”

But if we do resume the war, this whole deal will turn out in retrospect to have been a reversible process that saved hostages….

“Let’s be real here. By the end of the first phase, we won’t be able to resume the war. Why? Because first we have to replace the general staff, prepare new plans, prepare the army, and wait for the munitions supposed to come from the Americans. It won’t happen.

“And meanwhile hundreds of thousands are returning to the north of the strip, still in arms, and Hamas is recruiting new members to replace its losses. We’ll encounter an enemy who’s much stronger and better armed, an enemy that has studied us and learned our tactics. Am Yisrael isn’t being told the whole truth. And that’s why I’m telling you clearly: We won’t be able to resume the war, and if we do, we’ll pay a price that will cast a dark shadow on this terrible deal that endangers our existence in our land.”

The Scoop: Is Bibi a Short-Timer?

“I don’t see the government holding on,” a Shas minister told me this week.

In Netanyahu’s world, 40 days are an eternity. Netanyahu hopes to go to the White House and get the ball rolling from there before the second phase of the deal, but he isn’t the only player on Trump’s golf course.

The Qataris from the left and GOP mega-donor Miriam Adelson from the right are giving Netanyahu a fight at home and abroad. Adelson in particular is seen by the prime minister’s office as pushing to topple Netanyahu’s government with the aim of crowning the next star, Naftali Bennett.

In Netanyahu’s view, to paraphrase the late Henry Kissinger’s famous remark, Israel’s supporters in Washington have no foreign policy, only domestic policy.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1047)