Is Gantz headed for the exit? with Anshel Pfeffer
On Wednesday, Benny Gantz announced he was calling for new elections to take place in September. What is the significance of this announcement? Is it a sharp turn for Israel’s Government? What are the implications for the war and the War Cabinet? What does it mean for the protest movement?
Anshel Pfeffer — who has covered Israeli politics, Israeli national security, and global affairs for over two decades — joins our conversation very late at night in Jerusalem. He is a senior correspondent and columnist for Haaretz and Israel correspondent for The Economist. Anshel is the author of the book: “ Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
For Gantz, the question here is a question of timing. Gantz himself is not that powerful. He's only got eight Knesset members. But if he times it right, and if he frames it right, that moment in which he decides to leave could be pivotal. It could also be a trigger for much bigger protests as well. He's not doing that much good by remaining, and the damage of this terrible government is bigger.
It is just before 5 p. m. on Wednesday, April 3rd in New York City. It is just before midnight. In Israel as Israelis get ready to turn to April 4th. When I spoke with Anshel Pfeffer, who has covered Israeli politics and Israeli national security and global affairs for over two decades for Haaretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers.
And he's also the Israel correspondent for The Economist. He's also the [00:01:00] author of the book, Bibi, The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu. Anshel Pfeffer joins us from Jerusalem, where he tries to answer the question. Is Benny Gantz headed for the exit? This is call me back
And i'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my longtime friend Anshul Pfeffer from Haaretz Who joins me from jerusalem? I wanted to get a hold of Anshul at the last minute before his day completely winds down in israel to find out how to make sense of today's events with Benny Gantz calling for the first time since he's joined this emergency cabinet for elections, albeit not till September.
Anshul, what actually happened today and why did it happen? Benny Gantz called a press conference this evening, uh, relatively short notice and Came out with a bunch of, of messages which I think were more as expected that it was against the Knesset going [00:02:00] on recess and it was against the various alleged acts of violence in, uh, in San Demos, uh, last night in Jerusalem.
violence in response to the demonstrations. There's been some claims that there was a bit of rowdiness in the demonstrations against the government on onto what it was Tuesday night. And, um, I think it was very much exaggerated and certainly was hyped up by the pro Netanyahu smear campaign. Just try which, which brands anything which challenges his leadership as being divisive and helping Hamas and so on.
all kinds of really nasty stuff that they do, and accusing everybody else of, uh, of playing politics at war, while of course this was something which would never even occur to, to our Prime Minister, who would never do such a thing. So Gantz, you know, came out with his, uh, statement, and he said towards the end that also there needs to be a renewal of trust of the nation and its leaders, and therefore the nation should be [00:03:00] allowed to once again you.
Uh, chooses leaders and therefore should early elections. He suggested the date of September. You know, Gantz has been in this dilemma for a few months now. On one hand, according to the polls, he's the most, he's the person who is most likely to, to benefit from an election now, because he's doing well.
People say that they'll vote for his, for his party, but at the same time, People are in fact, many people are in favor of Gant because he's not a rushing to hold election because he's bringing this very vague idea of some kind of unity at wartime. He personifies that. He's also benefiting from the fact that trust in it in the out.
Is it an all time low? You know, Israeli people, including many who voted for Netanyahu in the election back in November 22, have totally lost trust in him. Hard to see him regaining that trust. And the kind of party which [00:04:00] perhaps would be successful in the election right now, which you would say would be a right wing party, but at the same time an anti Netanyahu party, there aren't There aren't really many parties like that in the current, now you've got Gidon Sarr.
Mainly the, uh, Gant is getting a lot of that soft right vote, and most important thing to say is that Gant hasn't got any real way of, uh, of forcing this election to take place in September, he's only got eight Knesset members in his party right now and uh, the rest of the coalition and suddenly the opposition don't have to go along with whatever he says.
Well to be clear on that point, even before Gantz joined This Netanyahu led government in this to form this emergency cabinet. Netan Netanyahu had 64 seats, so gon walks even if he does walk. Netanyahu still has a 64 seat majority, which may seem small, but it's the largest majority I think a government has had in, in [00:05:00] a number of years.
So, um, it's not clear how much political leverage he has. Well, yeah, de now still has his majority on paper, but at the same time, you know, you have 64. That means that all all is necessary. It's for five coalition MKs to join the opposition and there's a majority to dissolve, to dissolve the Knesset and to hold early elections.
And we don't yet know if there are five such, uh, MKs, but it's, uh, you know, there are various ways in which you can predict that happening, whether it's a handful of Likudniks who don't want to go down with Netanyahu and have some kind of, you know, Minimum decency and understand what a terrible failure, unprecedented terrible failure his, his, his government has been and therefore they understand that, that Israel should halt the election, or it's one of the coalition parties, whichever, for whichever reason, decide to break with Netanyahu, it could be with Haredi parties, who are now rather [00:06:00] angry at Netanyahu for failing to fulfill He's, uh, promising the coalition agreements to pass a law, uh, regulating the exemption to receive students from, from military service.
It could at some point turn out to be the far right who won't like the terms of what we can hope that there'll soon be some kind of an agreement for, uh, for the release of hostages and a temporary ceasefire. So that, that's also going to be a reason that there could be grounds for a party leaving the coalition.
None of that is happening yet, but these are very likely scenarios, which could happen in the next Knesset session, the Knesset session, the winter session is about to end, so nothing's going to happen right now until after Pesach and after Independence Day, but when the Knesset reconvenes on May the 19th, that's going to be a two month or so period of, you know, the summer session, which I think Netanyahu's coalition will be sorely tested.
Anshul, if [00:07:00] I'm thinking that Gantz has thought this through very strategically, and maybe I'm thinking about it more strategically than maybe he or his advisors are, or maybe I'm, I'm wish casting in terms of how they're thinking it, could it be that the reason they picked September is because if you assume Rafa, the IDF operation into Rafa is still a few weeks away, And, and then the actual operation will take a few weeks.
So you blink and you're into the summer. And so what Gans is effectively saying is, we're going to do Rafa, we're basically going to end the war after Rafa, and that's the time to go to elections. There is no Rafa operation right now on the cards. Um, to carry out the Rafa operation, there are three conditions that need to be fulfilled.
The main thing is that you have to find a way to move a million and a half Palestinian civilians who are currently gathered in and around Ravach, to move them away to currently non existent safe areas. So you [00:08:00] need to set up safe areas which are large enough To contain and to shelter a million and a half people, that's, that's quite a major undertaking.
Then you've got to convince these people to move. That's not going to take a few weeks, it's going to take months. The IDF hasn't even begun to do that, there isn't, there are no real preparations yet for these areas and there's no Call to the, uh, to the population to start moving there. That's going to take months.
The other thing you need is you need some kind of de confliction coordination with the Egyptian army, which is right there on the border. Wherever, once again, something that the Egyptians haven't even prepared to, haven't agreed yet to start talking with each other about. And the third thing is, you need a certain level of IDF forces to both be there in that operation.
And we're talking at the least division level, five, six, uh, brigade, the combat brigade teams, you know, the, the scale of the forces used in Khan Yunus. [00:09:00] which is probably a smaller operation in size. That will take perhaps not the same scale of mobilization of reservists that we saw at the beginning of the war with 300, 000, uh, soldiers being called up, but certainly a much larger force will have to be on hand than the one the IDF currently has in and around Gaza.
So these three things will take time. We're not seeing them happen yet. And the most important thing to say about the Ravach campaign is that It's for now, just words. Is in no rush to go into Rafa, but he wants you to think that Rafa is the be all and end all of this campaign. And if, if the idea doesn't go into Rafa, then it can't win.
And if it goes into Rafa, then victory is, is secure. The most important thing that now wants is for. Everyone to be blaming these, these terrible people who are, who are preventing Israel from going into Rafah, Joe Biden, who doesn't want Israel to win, you know, the famously hostile to Israel, Joe Biden, who [00:10:00] we all know just wants Israel to lose and has, hasn't done anything for Israel since October seven and everyone else, Benny Gantz and anyone else who, who, who dreams of, of replacing Netanyahu.
And there may have been an RAHA operation, and there may are many reasons to justify a, a RAHA operation, but we're not talking about a real operation. Now we're talking about yet. Trick I was when I was in Israel over the last couple months, and I'd meet with different members of the government, including members of the war cabinet.
It wasn't just Netanyahu that was talking about Rafa. Ganz was talking about Rafa. Gallant was talking about Rafa, you know, and Ganz famously, when he was in Washington, he, he said. to the administration asking us to finish the war without going into Rafa is like asking a fire department to show up at a burning house and stop extinguishing the flames when only 80 percent of the flames are extinguished.
If you ask us to leave, we're going to have to come back. So it does seem more widespread than just Netanyahu. No, I said just, [00:11:00] just now there are technical and strategic reasons that very valid reasons for carrying out an operation in Rafa, but it's not. Part of the political equation right now except to be used as another is another reason to keep The worst government in Israel's history in power and it would make much more sense to replace the government and then Seriously sit down and talk about what are Israel's strategic options and necessities because this isn't me hasn't been done for the last six months So does this What you're saying that the IDF is in this holding pattern, does this, I mean, I have a feeling I know the answer, but I have to ask the question, does this mean any talk of Israel opening up a front or, or, uh, more robustly responding to a front that already is a little hot in the north against Hezbollah?
Does it make that possible? possibility completely unrealistic in the near term? None of Israel's [00:12:00] decisions in Gaza and up north with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that's, you know, we're talking about with Iran, none of these are easy decisions. And we've seen previous Israeli governments and previous Israeli prime ministers make bad decisions there.
You know, we saw oil dolmen basically going to war when perhaps it wasn't. the right thing to do. Back in 2006 and Menachem Begin in 1982 and we've got a whole history of how Israel hasn't really dealt with, with the Gaza issue going back to 1948 when the Egyptians created the Gaza crisis by basically sticking 160, 000 refugees there instead of allowing them into Egypt.
But nothing is made easier by this chronic indecisiveness, which is Netanyahu's style of doing business at the best of times, and his, you know, him being in survival mode. Let's, you know, let's kind of go through what, what, what, what are the challenges up north? You've [00:13:00] got Hezbollah, which is not as strong as the IDF, but it's still, you know, a force which has the bit one of the biggest missile arsenals in the world.
So taking on Hezbollah will not, it will not be destroyed by Hezbollah have the firepower to cause massive damage to Israeli cities and civilian infrastructure. So that, you know, that, that is Always has to be part of the decision making and then you've got the level of forces you need to fight, uh, continue fighting and to expand to Rafah and other places in Gaza while fighting a war up north.
Israel will have to mobilize yet again, 300, 000, perhaps even more reserves than it mobilized on October 7th. It means, once again, paralyzing the Israeli economy for months to come. It means eroding the resilience of the reserve units. It's a huge undertaking, and it's not just a question of what you're going to [00:14:00] do to do that.
What is the result you're going to have at the end of the day? Because at the end of the day, Hezbollah will probably still continue existing in Lebanon and there, you know, and Iran will still try, will still be there trying to, to set up. So what's your alternatives? Do you allow Hezbollah to continue shelling and launching rockets at Israeli, uh, villages and towns up the, you know, up in the north?
Was it, you know, what do you do with 80 or 90, 000 Israelis who have, for six months now, have been uprooted from their homes there? Which was, which now is a decision that many people are saying was a very bad decision to make in those first few days. But, you know, people were very worried that something like, like what happened in October 7, and in the communities around Gaza, could also happen in October.
So all these questions are massive. And by the way, there's the Biden administration, because it sounds to me like the last thing the Biden administration would want is Israel to go open, go, go to war with Hezbollah before [00:15:00] November. Yeah. And the Biden administration made it easy for Israel and putting easy in, in quote marks in the first weeks of the war by sending those two carrier groups to, uh, you know, off, off Lebanon shore.
First of all, because. It was a deterrence. If Hezbollah was, was planning or thinking at any point to, to join in, then there was this added deterrence against Hezbollah from doing that. And Israel could say, okay, well, the Americans have those carrier groups there. We have this sort of, uh, uh, temporary insurance policy that we don't have to worry that much about, about Hezbollah doing, well, you know, doing something.
So the, And that kind of gave Israel a bit of a breathing space, but also meant that Israel didn't have to make any tough decisions. And that, and those tough decisions will have to be made at some point. Currently, they're not being made and everybody's still pinning hopes on this, uh, Israeli American diplomat who refuses to speak in Hebrew, but everybody knows, knows that he grew up here [00:16:00] and went to high school here in Jerusalem.
Uh, who goes back and forth to, to Beirut to try and reach some kind of, of, of magic formula. So far, unsuccessfully, do I sleep better knowing that there are serious Israeli ministers and, uh, and decision making, uh, process going on about what's happened north? No, I don't. It's very, you know, I, I was up north last week and, and it, it's.
You know, you really despair when you see the empty communities that you talk to, the few people who are still taking care of places like Metula and Shlomi, and the most basic questions of whether the schools can reopen there in the next school year in September, you know, you're talking about. September of elections for Israelis.
September means the new school year and families have to make the most basic of basic decisions. They're stuck in temporary housing. Do they still hope that they can go back home with their kids and [00:17:00] restart their lives or on time to look for you for a new home? And that means that these places, these people seem in these small towns, and I'm sure you've you've been to places like Kiryat their future, even if there is no war.
Or no bigger war because what we're seeing now is a low intensity war with Hezbollah. There's no bigger war with Hezbollah. It may mean that these places will never come back from from this period, essentially take them years until they'll be flourishing again. Okay, Anshu, I want to Talk about the current protest movement within Israel and try to understand what it represents.
And you have described in a piece you've written and in other conversations these, these sort of three waves of the protests in Israel. They call them the anti Netanyahu protests in about the last five years. The first being May of 2020, which is when Netanyahu was trying to form a government. Benny Gantz ran against Netanyahu.
Benny Gantz said he'd never serve with Netanyahu. [00:18:00] Then Benny Gantz joins Netanyahu's government back in May of 2020, forms a government with him. And there was protests already brewing against Netanyahu and people were furious that Benny Gantz kind of saved Netanyahu. And that was like a period of something like 20, 000, somewhere in that neighborhood protests.
And that lasted regularly until June of 21 until that. Not to know who government fell. Then the second wave was January of 23, really up until October 6th, which was the new Netanyahu government protests were against judicial reforms, and now we're in the third wave, as you put it, which is what? What is this wave of protests now that we saw?
It seemed to be at a different level, maybe not as high a level of intensity as some of the social media commentary would have suggested following it from last weekend, but it does seem to be ratcheting up. What, what, what is it? Well, let's just remember you, you, you, you mentioned those previous two waves.[00:19:00]
It seems almost quaint now that back in May of 2020, three and a half years ago, almost four years ago, the protests were just about the issue of. Can a man who has been indicted for corruption charges be the prime minister? I mean, at the time, the idea was so monstrous. It was so clear to Ariosha and to Theo Dolmert, and back in the 70s, it's like Rabin, if you're indicted then you can't be Prime Minister.
And now, you know, we've been inude to this by Netanyahu, but then there was a large number of people who went out every Saturday night to Paris Square. in Jerusalem, came from from around the country and also did smaller simultaneous, uh, vigils and demonstrations near where they lived. It was also periods of of COVID social [00:20:00] distancing, so you couldn't gather in the same way.
Um, It was clear then what they were protesting against, and it was clear yet again with the second wave of protests, which began in January last year following the inauguration of Netanyahu's current government, and Yair Levin, the Justice Minister, promised, uh, presented his, his plan to eviscerate the Supreme Court, once again, it was clear what Israelis were they were fighting for.
We're demonstrating against, and the organizers did a very, very good job, especially in the second wave, of focusing the protests and the public anger and the growing numbers. And we, you know, we were at hundreds of thousands on the streets at one point in focusing specifically on these issues. of how Israeli democracy works and how the government was trying to assault the Supreme Court and the very delicate balance of Israel's increasingly fragile democracy.
That was clear. What we're seeing now is something much less coherent. [00:21:00] What are they? Demonstrating against first of all, it's much more difficult and what is still even though the war has winded down even though most of the reservists are back home and there was this kind of idea. Just wait for the reservists to come back from the war.
Then you'll see this incredible outpouring of anger on the streets now. That may happen, but it's still, we're still far from hundreds of thousands of reservists on the street. I think now maybe thousands, perhaps 10, 20, 30, 000 at the most. There's a protest which is calling for the release of the hostages now.
Who doesn't want to release the hostages? So what are they calling for? Are they calling for a release of the hostages at any price? Hamas are the ones who need to release the hostages. So yeah, there's the feeling that Netanyahu isn't. Pushing this deal as much as they should. I think that feeling is justified, but what do you demand?
Do you demand it to now agree to give up everything to get the hostages back? Obviously, that's not what they're asking [00:22:00] for. So that is a not well defined cause. Can we stay on that? Because I think there's some confusion about that. Slogan of the, I hate to use that word, the call to action of the hostage families movement is bring them home now.
Exactly, that's meaningless. Right, well also it's meaningless because it, the implication is as they protest the streets in Israel saying bring them home now, as though it's up to the Israeli government to just bring them home. Well it is, it is, it is partly up to the Israeli government, the Israeli government is negotiating to with Hamas.
The Israeli government is at least theoretically giving the orders to the army and the army is with its pressure on Hamas is also influencing the decision making of Hamas and the, you know, the, the considerations that Hamas has. So Obviously the Israeli government is a party to that, but yeah, you're right, it's not the Israeli government which needs to let the hostages go home, it's Hamas.
[00:23:00] But there is a very real feeling, and I think a very justified feeling, and so the International is not doing enough, and every day that passes, as we know, more and more of the hostages are dying, and those who are still alive are undergoing terrible things that we don't even want to describe. Okay, but Bancho, I want to stay on that, because there's a tendency There's a tendency to, again, personalize all of this to Netanyahu, and I just, Herzl Halevi, the IDF Chief of Staff, was just somewhere in Gaza, maybe he was in Khan Yunis in the last 24 hours, I saw it reported, and he told the soldiers he was visiting, and I quote here, a hostage deal will be achieved by applying stronger pressure, as much as necessary.
And then he says, the more battalions we take out, the more infrastructure we destroy, that's how we will increase the pressure on them. To release hostages. Now he may be wrong. He may be right again. I've, I've heard that view. That was Galant's view. Or he may be sticking to his pay grade. His job is to, but Galant has made the same point early on.[00:24:00]
And, but at the same time, Galant and Heretie agreed to the previous agreement, which, which, which meant, meant a pause in the fighting and in the closed rooms, they're also in favor of the broad contours of. the deal, which may be, which may be at some point on the table of a six week pause. Now, the six week pause means for six weeks, they won't be dismantling battalions.
So heresy says what he needs to say as the leader of the army, whatever recommendations he's giving to cabinet. Not necessarily the same, exactly the same thing. Any, uh, type of hostage agreement or exchange, you know, it's very difficult even to, even to, to give the right words because it's not a hostage exchange.
It was not holding hostages, holding prisoners, of course, will always involve. different types of messaging to troops, to, to, to the public and different things being said in closed rooms. One will always mean very difficult [00:25:00] concessions that, that you don't want to necessarily talk about publicly because you don't want to give the, you know, give the military, give the other side ammunition.
And, you know, it's, it's a very, very painful, very cynical type of, of psychological warfare going both, going both ways. And everybody's playing a different role here because the families obviously have their. One and only concern in getting their loved ones home. And there are different families, the families here, 134 hostages still on paper, though 34 or 40, at least we know are dead probably more, but these families represent a cross section of view of political views as well.
Not all of them are. Behind this maximalist demand of bringing them all home now, some say no, no, we, especially those who are politically on the right, are more sympathetic to a position saying Israel has to hit Hamas harder, and that's the only way to get them out. [00:26:00] But that's just one issue. And then you've got other issues that are being raised in the protest.
You've got this whole issue of the, what they call in Israel or Hebrew, the equal burden issue. Why? Is, uh, the mainstream Israeli society serving and both in regular and in, and in reserve duty and this community, which is 13 or 14 percent of Israelis, not, why are they exempt because of what was until Monday?
You're referring to the ultra Orthodox? The ultra Orthodox, the Haredi community, what was a 76 year old agreement that They would, they would remain exempt. That was obviously abused by the Orthodox for so many years. And this original quota of 400 students grew to 66, 000. That's another focus of the protests.
And then you have various protests which are, which are directly to do with the conduct of the war. You have people from the left saying Israel now has to end the war and [00:27:00] immediate ceasefire. Those were saying, no, no, no, the war has to be pursued and prosecuted much more vigorously. And, and, and why, why haven't we, why aren't we in Rafah already?
Why weren't we in Rafah already three months ago? Then you've got those who are saying it quite openly. The aim of the protest is to replace this, this terrible government. And Tillington, you know, goes, nothing good can happen. And they're saying that quite openly. So all these things are out there in this protest, and there isn't a clear idea which is the overall, and if they can be at this point, one overall cause, like we had in the previous two, uh, two waves of protests.
And I think that's one of the main reasons. Why the protests aren't growing beyond a few tens of thousands. I think another reason is, yes, we're still, we still are at war, and Taniel, even though he's lost the trust of Israeli people, is still very, uh, very skillful at framing debates in self serving [00:28:00] narratives.
This narrative that by protesting now you're somehow weakening Israel's resolve and giving soccer to Yehoshua Sinwar has, you know, has filtered through. So there's that as well. But, but you've pointed out that, you've pointed out, Anshul, that With the judicial reform, which was very well organized, the anti judicial reform protests, there were efforts to stitch on other causes to those protests, and the organizers of the anti judicial reform protests were very savvy about making it singular, it's just about the judicial reforms, and when there were these left wing protesters who want to stitch onto the movement and talk about a Palestinian state and want, and want to talk about the peace process, and that they, the organizers of the anti judicial reform protests Movement said no we are we have a singular focus let on the target.
It is just about judicial reform We're not going to confuse the message and it was it was that it was in that sense a singular call to action and what you're saying here is There are too many calls to action and people motivated by too [00:29:00] many different causes and once you have that it's too diffuse You, you summarize it much better than I do.
Okay, well you, you have a good excuse because it's almost midnight where you are, which is why we're going to let you go to bed in a minute. Before we do, two questions. One, what is your prediction, and I won't hold you to this, but I'm curious your current thinking, just looking at a crystal ball in the near term.
What is your prediction in terms of where the protest movement goes in the weeks ahead? And the second question is, what do you think Gantz actually does? So, I don't think the protest movement will develop or evolve that much, and I don't think it'll be the main reason for whatever happens next. We spoke, you know, we talked about the two previous waves.
I think the first wave between May 20 and the fall of the, of Netanyahu in June I think the protests then were mainly an outlet for frustration. I don't think that they were, that they were in any way a major cause of Netanyahu's [00:30:00] short term downfall then. And on the other hand, I do think the protests, the second way, the protests against the judicial overhaul, I think they were successful because they were more focused, because they were stronger, because they managed to kind organizers around such a broad consensus of so many parts of Israeli society, they were indeed successful in blocking the assault on the Supreme Court in its tracks.
This time around, I think it'll be more like the first wave in which there will be people who will go, there'll be medium sized, let's say, protests, they'll be angry, they'll be emotional, but they change. They won't be the main Uh, the main engine of change on the political scene, and the change will obviously have to happen in the Knesset.
At the end of the day, Israel's a parliamentary democracy. We vote. We don't vote for a prime minister, even though Netanyahu likes to talk of himself as an elected prime minister. He's not. The only other thing we elect in Israel is the Knesset, and the Knesset has to decide [00:31:00] who Who it, uh, appoints as, as Prime Minister and when to get rid of that person and hold an election again.
And it really is all down to this, these 120 men and, uh, and women who, who a majority of whom are going to at some point agree. Agree a. Upon bringing the election forward and for Gantz, the question here is a question of timing, you know, it's been clear from the moment, you know, from October the 10th when he, him and he agreed with Netanyahu on joining the emergency coalition, that it will all be a question of when he chooses to leave.
And I said before, Gantz himself is not that powerful. He's only got eight Knesset members, but he could. If he, if he times it right, and if he frames it right, that moment in which he decides to leave could be pivotal. It could also be a trigger for much bigger protests as well. And I think Gant is very slowly, very reluctantly getting to [00:32:00] that moment where he has to make that call.
He was hoping that he would be able to somehow precipitate an early election without having to resign. Once the commission is dissolved, the prime minister becomes a caretaker prime minister and he can't fire any of his ministers. I think that Gantz is beginning to realize that now he's not going to give him, you know, that gift of, uh, of, uh, of remaining minister while going for an early election.
So I think Gantz is, is going to have to reach that point where he realizes that he's not doing that much good by, by remaining and the damage of those, this terrible government is bigger. And it just has to be, be replaced as soon as possible. And from, you know, from speaking to people close to Gantz in recent weeks, for Gantz, the main question is, is there still a prospect for a hostage agreement, which will save maybe 30 or 40, probably not all of the remaining hostages.
Can 40 people still be saved? [00:33:00] And an agreement reached for a temporary ceasefire and for their, which will obtain their freedom, and this is certainly something which is worth staying a few more weeks, even a month, another month or two, in this useless government. Once that's, either once it's achieved, or once Gantz realizes that this government will never reach another ceasefire agreement, that will be the moment of truth for him.
And, I can't predict if it's going to be in another week or two. There's no point, really, in leaving the government until the Knesset is once again in session anyway, because, uh, you know, the speaker of the Knesset, Amir al Khanna, is, you know, is Netanyahu's tool. He won't agree, even if there is a majority of Knesset members demanding it, he won't agree to convene in an emergency session.
So, Gantz will be in decision time from May 19th onwards, and I think that he'll be forced, and he may be forced by other opposition parties [00:34:00] or other groups within the coalition preempting him to do so, but I think he'll be forced. at some point between May 19th and the end of July, there's the summer session to make that decision.
But the challenge, it seems, is so much of his popularity is he's perceived to be above politics, which is especially appreciated during such tumultuous times, 2023 and 2024. And then he's going to have to get into the muck of politics one way or the other. Yeah, and we know, you know, he's not a great politician.
And even if he was a better politician, he'd still be, he'd still be up against the master politician and the man who has not stopped for a moment doing politics since October 7th. Anshu, we will leave it there. Thank you. I'm going to let you go. Go to sleep. Uh, you were kind enough to call me back. Uh, it's such a late hour with so many, so much going on in Israel.
Hope to see you soon. Good night.[00:35:00]
That's our show for today. To keep up with Ancho Pfeffer, you can find him on X at Ancho Pfeffer. And you can also find him at Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alon Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Dwergo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.