The Cauldron Boils Over: As Israel Fights Hamas and Other Militants, It Fights Itself

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been fighting some bruising internal battles lately. On the surface, it looks like he’s winning, according to author David Horovitz, the founding editor of the Times of Israel:  

“Coalition restabilized? Check. 
Far-right ideologue (National Security Minister Itamar) Ben Gvir again helming the police force he had been busily brutalizing? Check. 
Independently-minded security service chief Ronen Bar, inconveniently insistent on documenting all the failures related to October 7, on the way out? Check. 
Independently-minded Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, unwilling to let the government play fast and loose with the law, discredited ahead of dismissal? Check. 
Judiciary subjugated? In progress.” 

“But what of the price?” he added. “Well, the nation is roiling.” 

As Israel continues to fight a war in Gaza and conduct missions in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, trouble at home has been growing.  

For months now, Netanyahu has faced weekly protests – including some of the largest since the war began in October 2023 – court injunctions, open revolt from the military and intelligence services, a corruption probe, a criminal trial, a scandal involving aides, and other issues.  

“Israel’s ‘King Bibi’ has trouble in his palace,” wrote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  

The most recent headache for Bibi, as the prime minister is known, is coming from the military.  

Earlier this month, almost 1,000 air force pilots – some reservists, some retired – urged the military in a letter to make a deal with Hamas to release the remaining hostages, even if it means withdrawing completely from Gaza. 

“As has been proven in the past, only a deal can bring back the hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of the hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers,” the pilots wrote. “Currently, the war serves mainly political and personal interests, not security interests.”  

The document, which ignited a political uproar in Israel, urged all Israelis to demand an end to the war.  

The Israel Defense Forces responded by promising to fire the signatories. Netanyahu backed their dismissal, and criticized the pilots as “a marginal and extremist group that is once again trying to break Israeli society from within,” and topple the government.  

Upset at the government’s reaction, more than 10,000 Israelis responded with new missives critical of the war in solidarity with the pilots. The signatories included paratroopers and tank corps reservists, doctors, educators, academics, veterans, former diplomats, and about 250 former Mossad spies and three former chiefs.  

“We were all part of this war, and we all felt that it was just that we needed to be part of the military effort to crush Hamas,” Or Goren, 51, a reserve medical officer who served in the war and helped organize one of the letters, told the Washington Post. “But now people have come to understand that the military goals of the war were achieved a long time ago.” 

“We are saying we are at the edge, and that we can’t take it anymore,” he added. “We believe the war is just being kept alive to serve Netanyahu’s political purposes.” 

Critics have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war in a bid to keep his administration intact and remain prime minister. The far-right ministers in Israel’s government want the war to continue, saying Hamas is not defeated, putting pressure on Netanyahu, who needs the far-right parties for his political survival.  

At the same time, the war had delayed his corruption trial. It resumed in March after judges refused his plea for another delay. Netanyahu is facing charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three cases. 

The renewed fighting has also delayed the launch of a state commission to investigate the failures of the government, military, and security services regarding the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people and left about 250 more as hostages of Hamas. Netanyahu has resisted such an inquiry, saying it would be a distraction from the war.  

Still, families of Israeli captives, former captives, and their supporters have been urging Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire with Hamas and pave the way for the hostages’ release. Those calls are growing. 

“Instead of stopping everything and bringing them home, this government chooses to turn its back, chooses to abandon (the hostages),” said Ilana Gritzewsky, who was captured with her partner but released alone in November 2023, speaking at a large protest in Tel Aviv this month. “And I ask you: How can this be? How can a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust forget its sons and daughters who are being held in Holocaust conditions?” 

“The government has given up, but we’ll fight,” she added. “Because it’s not a political issue. It’s a matter of life and death.” 

According to polling by the Israel Democracy Institute in April, support for prioritizing “the release of the hostages has been increasing steadily over time over continuing the war, with 68 percent prioritizing the hostages and 25 percent prioritizing toppling Hamas,” it wrote.  

However, it added that the public is “divided” on the issue of whether achieving both war goals simultaneously is possible. 

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that while returning the hostages is important, “it’s not the most important goal.” 

What the public isn’t divided on, the institute added, is rolling back democracy and the rule of law. That’s why protests erupted over the firing of Bar, the chief of the internal security service Shin Bet, in March because of a “loss of trust,” analysts said, with many seeing the termination by the prime minister as a conflict of interest. A majority wants Bar held responsible for failing to prevent the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, just not by Netanyahu, analysts said. 

The push to replace Bar started after his agency began investigating members of Netanyahu’s staff accused of improperly accepting influence payments from Qatar, in a scandal known as Qatar-gate. Those staff members have been detained.  

The Supreme Court of Israel has temporarily halted Bar’s termination, which also caused angry protests, with supporters of the government saying the court was interfering in government business.  

This week, Bar’s affidavit to the court was made public and detailed instances in which the prime minister pressured the Shin Bet chief to “abuse” the agency’s powers to serve Netanyahu’s political needs. That set off new calls for an investigation by the attorney general, who is responsible for prosecuting elected officials. 

However, the government moved to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara weeks ago because she opposed the firing of Bar, the government’s controversial changes to the judicial system, the appointment of Aryeh Deri, who has a conviction, to the cabinet, and interference by the national security minister in police investigations.  

More protests followed that attempted termination.  

Meanwhile, Netanyahu says he’s being targeted because of politics. 

“In America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will,” Netanyahu wrote on X. 

Researchers say that many in Israel are worried about Israeli democracy, as they were before the war broke out.  

Then, mass protests went on for months over the government’s controversial judicial overhaul that would have reduced the power of the Supreme Court.  

Now the government is trying again, specifically attempting to change how the attorney general and senior judges are appointed in order to assert more government control over the judiciary. Meanwhile, the justice minister had refused to recognize the election of a new chief justice or fill three vacancies on the court’s bench. 

“The red flags could not be bigger,” wrote constitutional law professor Suzie Navot of the Israel Democracy Institute. “Those keen on protecting the security and democracy of the state of Israel should heed the warning.”  

At the same time, some Israelis are concerned that Israeli unity is hanging by a thread. 

“Israel is very close to civil war,” former chief justice Aharon Barak told Israel broadcaster Channel 12. “The rift in the nation is enormous – no effort is being made to heal it, and everyone is trying to exacerbate it.”  

Netanyahu disputes that Israel’s democracy or Israel itself is in trouble. 

“You recycle the same worn-out and ridiculous slogans about ‘the end of democracy,’” he told his opponents. “Well, once and for all: Democracy is not in danger … Perhaps you could stop putting spanners in the works of the government in the middle of a war. Perhaps you could stop fueling the sedition, hatred, and anarchy in the streets.”