Bibi has yet to make an IDF chief of staff hire that he hasn't come to regret 

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Binyamin Netanyahu has yet to make a senior military appointment that he hasn’t come to regret. The clash between the prime minister and IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir, his own appointee, predates the dramatic cabinet meeting last Thursday night at which the decision was made to occupy Gaza (or, as the cabinet euphemistically phrased it, “control” it).

A week before the cabinet convened, the chief of staff had thrown down the gauntlet. According to a report that drew only a half-hearted denial from him a week later, Zamir warned Netanyahu that he wouldn’t hesitate to resign if the decision was made to conquer the Gaza Strip.

When Zamir was appointed in March this year, Netanyahu lauded him as an “attacking commander,” despite the fact that he saw him as a last resort — just another general from the same clique as Herzi Halevi and his predecessors, whom the 2025 Netanyahu sees as holdovers from an outdated elite.

Bibi would much rather have parachuted in his military secretary Roman Gofman, or Major General David Zini, the kippah-serugah-wearing Shin Bet-chief-designate. But neither was an option. With left-wing voters constituting half the mobilized reservists, a shrinking force amid war fatigue two years in, sending in his own man, or a general perceived by some as borderline messianic, would have put the nail in the coffin of the IDF’s apolitical image.

During the 12-Day War with Iran, we witnessed complete alignment between Netanyahu and the chief of staff, with Zamir going out of his way to publicly praise the political echelon and the prime minister, after two years of near totally negative briefings from the general staff.

The music stopped during bein hameitzarim. Since then, we’re witnessing a fresh spate of leaks from the 14th floor of the Kiryah designed to embarrass the prime minister.

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The seeds of the discontent between chief of staff Zamir and Prime Minister Netanyahu were sown with Operation Gideon’s Chariots, the latest of a series of inconclusive (and oddly named) Gaza operations.

The political echelon’s expectations when they authorized the operation on the advice of the newly appointed Zamir was that the military pressure on Hamas would crush the organization’s spirit and bring it to the negotiating table, broken and humiliated. Netanyahu wanted to end affairs in Gaza as soon as possible after the end of the 12-Day War, so the stagnation in Gaza wouldn’t overshadow the brilliant achievements in Iran.

In reality, the opposite occurred. The intelligence predicting that Hamas would bend was flawed yet again. The worse things got for Gazans on the ground, the firmer the Hamas leadership became, egged on by its Qatari sponsors. The Qataris’ starvation media campaign turned the Israelis, the victims of October 7, into the villains, responsible for starving the children of Gaza. In a remarkable turnaround, with zero prior planning, Netanyahu was forced to call on the world to airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza, with the operation switching from Gideon’s Chariots to “Gideon’s aid trucks,” as thousands of tons of aid flowed into Gaza on a daily basis.

This breaking point would lead to a head-on clash between Netanyahu and Zamir down the road. Faced with the chief of staff’s proposal to surround but not conquer Gaza City, to avoid endangering the hostages, Netanyahu laid down his own plan for the occupation of Gaza.

Reading the headlines, one gets the impression that the tension between the political and military echelons is back to where it was under former chief of staff Herzi Halevi. But one minister who participated in the latest cabinet meeting cautioned me that “the view from here, inside the cabinet, isn’t the view from there, in the headlines and carefully timed leaks.

“The impression I got is that Netanyahu wants to talk about occupying Gaza without actually doing it,” the cabinet member told me, citing a number of clues. “When we discussed the Iran plans months ahead of time, not a word from the meetings was leaked. But this time, everything’s out in the open, with a bizarre delay of two months before the decision will be implemented.

“At the same time, Aryeh Deri, who’s seen as one of Netanyahu’s closest confidants, openly cut short his Swiss vacation to attend the meeting in support of the chief of staff’s position. That’s not how a cabinet that’s preparing to occupy Gaza acts.”

I asked the minister whether the public spat between Netanyahu and the chief of staff is staged, an attempt by Netanyahu to keep rightist factions in the coalition by siding with them over the chief of staff.

“I don’t think Netanyahu orchestrated the leaks — that’s too conspiracy-minded, and it doesn’t help his public image,” he replied. “But politically, he definitely has benefited. The chief of staff’s opposition paints him as standing up for rightist principles, without actually paying the price of occupying the Strip. The problem is that world believes the tough talk and is taking steps against us, despite the fact that rather than occupying Gaza, we’re flooding it with aid. Netanyahu believes that Hamas will flinch a moment before the operation begins, but that’s exactly what we were told before Gideon’s Chariots, and we saw what happened.”

For now, then, we’re left with a kibbush (occupation) for purposes of gibbush (unification) — of the coalition. Finance Minister Smotrich did issue a rare statement after the meeting expressing lack of confidence in Netanyahu’s ability to win the war, but he didn’t say anything about leaving the coalition, at least for now.

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It’s not just with respect to Gaza that the war plans are unclear. L’havdil elef alfei havdalos, the chareidi street is wondering the same thing, as the party media organs came out over the weekend with headlines declaring “war” after yeshivah bochurim were arrested in their homes by military police.

Last week, I took to the streets to meet countless bochurim on bein hazmanim at their wits’ end. They all asked the same thing: What’s next? How is it that we never prepared a contingency plan for this scenario?

Others brought up the chief of staff’s promise, cited by chareidi MKs, that he wouldn’t allow the attorney general to force the IDF to carry out mass arrests, a policy he viewed as unconstructive. Incidentally, Zamir hasn’t walked that back. According to chareidi sources, he passed them a message this week that the arrests carried out were part of a wider operation, not one specifically targeting chareidim.

The stagnation continues on this front, as well, with the meetings of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee under its new chair, MK Boaz Bismuth, being delayed to the start of September, when Knesset staff return from their summer vacations.

This coming Elul, the approach of Yom Hadin will be felt more strongly than ever. All that remains is to hope that in the meantime, the legislation will be advanced in the Knesset without further delays, delays that would turn next month into a black September of arrests and demonstrations.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1074)