Netanyahu’s calibrated security approach stokes cabinet tensions

Benjamin Netanyahu has long cultivated an image as Israel’s “Mr Security”, and the ultranationalist partners in his coalition government campaigned relentlessly on the need for a hardline stance against Palestinian militants.

But as the administration faced missiles salvos from Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip during the Passover festival that ended on Wednesday, as well as a series of deadly attacks at home, it came under fire from its own supporters for not mounting a more aggressive response.

The latest flare-up, Israel’s biggest security crisis since an 11-day war with Gaza militants in 2021, was the first big test of how Netanyahu would manage his coalition, widely regarded as the most rightwing in Israeli history, in the face of attacks on multiple fronts. This time, it was Netanyahu’s more risk-averse approach that prevailed, but at a cost of fanning tensions with his ultranationalist allies, notably Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

“They [the government] have been forced to reconcile the gap between political campaigning and the reality of governance,” said Shalom Lipner, who worked under Netanyahu and is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think-tank.

When Netanyahu and his partners took office in December, they inherited a tense security situation. 2022 was the bloodiest year in the occupied West Bank since 2005, according to the UN, with Israeli forces killing 151 Palestinians during a series of near nightly raids launched in response to a spate of attacks by Palestinians that killed 31 Israelis last year.

But tensions spiralled to new levels as Jewish and Muslim festivals overlapped, after footage of Israeli forces beating Palestinians in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, sparked outrage in the Arab world.

Within days, Palestinian militants were launching rockets at Israel from multiple fronts, fuelling worries of a broader conflagration. The situation deteriorated further after a shooting in the occupied West Bank and a suspected car-ramming in Tel Aviv killed three Israelis and an Italian tourist in the space of a few hours.

Coalition hardliners called for a harsh response. Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, demanded Israel “lower heads in Gaza” while Danny Danon, an MP from Netanyahu’s Likud party, said Israel should “pummel” its enemies. “Our region only understands force and the time has come for us to use it,” he told Army Radio.

But the government’s response was more calibrated. Amid fears that the rocket fire from Lebanon could draw Israel into a conflict with Hizbollah, Israeli officials quickly stressed that they did not believe the powerful Iran-backed militia was behind the launches. Israeli counter-strikes were instead aimed at relatively low-value targets in Gaza and Lebanon linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and did not result in casualties.

Netanyahu also took steps to ease tension at home, decreeing that — as in past years — non-Muslims would not be able to visit al-Aqsa during the final 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan.

The prime minister in addition announced that defence minister Yoav Gallant — widely seen as a counterbalance to more hot-headed members of the cabinet — would remain in office. Netanyahu had previously said he would fire Gallant after the minister spoke out against the government’s controversial plans to weaken the judiciary, warning that the polarisation the plans had caused posed a “tangible danger” to Israeli security.

But while the response helped usher in a few days of relative calm, it also brought to the fore the tension between Netanyahu and hardliners in his coalition that had already been laid bare as ministers debated whether to pause the judicial overhaul in the face of huge protests last month.

Ben-Gvir, a settler previously convicted of incitement to racism, wrote on Facebook that he was often “frustrated” by the government’s choices and lambasted the decision to allow only Muslims to visit al-Aqsa until the end of Ramadan as “capitulating to terrorism”.

Smotrich, an ultranationalist settler who serves as finance minister, told supporters that while he was trying “very hard” to be loyal to the government, “it can’t continue like this”, according to the Times of Israel.

The tensions within the coalition have been accompanied by polls suggesting voters are increasingly disillusioned with its policies. One recent survey found that just 27 per cent of respondents trusted it to deal with the security situation.

Aviv Bushinsky, a former Netanyahu adviser turned political analyst, said the slump in support for the coalition meant that, despite hardliners’ frustrations that Netanyahu had not taken a more aggressive approach on security, the government was likely to survive for now.

“They will not call for re-elections because everyone [in the coalition] would be on the losing side, and lose seats. And not only that, they most probably wouldn’t be able to [return to power],” he said. “And I think that Netanyahu knows that he can take the risk of antagonising his [hardline] coalition partners because he knows they have no alternative.”

However, others argue that the coalition remains inherently volatile, and that a further flare-up in violence, or issues such as the fight over the judicial overhaul — which is likely to resume next month — could test its unity once more.

“I think we can anticipate that the people on the receiving end of this, including Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, will be pushing back,” said Lipner. “It’s a juggling act for Netanyahu — and for them as well.”