What happened?
Israeli Cabinet minister Benny Gantz traveled to Washington on Sunday without authorization from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gantz, a centrist and Netanyahu’s main political rival, will meet several high-ranking officials on Monday, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who called Sunday for an “immediate cease-fire for at least six weeks” to ease the “immense scale of suffering in Gaza.”
Who said what?
“Gantz personally updated” Netanyahu “of his intention to travel, in order to coordinate the messages to be transmitted in the meetings,” Gantz’s office said. An angry Netanyahu “made it clear to Minister Gantz that the State of Israel only has one prime minister,” a source close to Netanyahu told Ynet.
The commentary
Netanyahu’s “staggering strategic incompetence” has already cost him “the trust of most voters,” and his government is “embarrassingly indifferent and unfocused when it comes to managing relations with Israel’s most important ally, the United States,” former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in Foreign Affairs. Between the Gantz visit and airdrops of aid into Gaza, Yossi Verter said at Israel’s Haaretz, the White House wants to “show Israelis and the world that the U.S. sees Netanyahu as a burden and obstacle for his country and the entire region.”
What next?
Recent polls show that a majority of Israelis believe Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political survival, and that Gantz “would earn enough support to become prime minister if a vote were held today,” The Associated Press said. No elections are scheduled.