On the face of it, it’s hard to make sense of the rift within Israel’s government over the “day after” in Gaza, which led Benny Gantz to quit the coalition on Sunday. In a press conference announcing his decision, Gantz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “preventing … real victory” by failing to present a viable plan for the Strip’s post-war governance.
Gantz, who joined the government and war cabinet after October 7 as a minister without portfolio, has been urging Netanyahu for months to lay out his “day after” plan. The prime minister, who has a personal and political interest in prolonging the war, has so far refused to produce one; instead, he has only repeatedly insisted that he rejects both the continued existence of a “Hamastan” and its replacement with a “Fatahstan” run by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Yet Gantz doesn’t have a viable plan either. His proposal — replacing Hamas with an “international civilian governance mechanism” that includes some Palestinian elements, while maintaining overall Israeli security control — is so far-fetched that its practical significance is to continue the war indefinitely. In other words, exactly what Netanyahu and his far-right allies want.
The same can be said of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was Gantz’s closest ally in the war cabinet. Gallant reportedly walked out of a security cabinet meeting last month when other ministers castigated him for demanding that Netanyahu rule out prolonged Israeli civilian or military control over Gaza. But the defense minister’s alternative proposal is essentially the same as Gantz’s: to establish a government run by non-Hamas “Palestinian entities” with international backing — which no Palestinian, Arab, or international actors will accept.
It’s true that Gantz and Gallant have also demanded that Netanyahu prioritize a deal with Hamas to bring back the hostages, while the prime minister is dragging his feet. But this apparent disagreement also collapses under scrutiny: any deal would entail a significant, if not complete, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a months-long, if not permanent, ceasefire. Such a scenario would result in one of two possibilities: a return to Hamas rule, or the reimposition of the PA — both of which are unacceptable to Gantz and Gallant on the one hand, and Netanyahu and his far-right allies on the other.
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