Israel is the only place where a military operation that occurred almost five years ago could resurface and feature in a crucial election campaign, with the army and defense chiefs who commanded it — both running for high office — coming under intense fire from the politicians who directed them. The fallout from Operation Protective Edge continues.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his Security Cabinet have recently launched harsh attacks against Lt. Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz, the former military chief of staff now running for the premiership, and his running mate and former defense minister, Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya’alon. The accusations are absurd, especially given that the accusers themselves had previously declared clear and total victory over Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu and his senior ministers are reacting in part to viral videos from social media highlighting pronouncements they made in 2014. In the clips, they are seen praising the military operation and its commanders with the same passion with which they are now vilifying them. Others have also been caught up in the fray, among them former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a cabinet member during that war and now in the Knesset opposition, and Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant, former commander of the southern front now running in Netanyahu’s Likud. Then there are Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the New Right, whose current versions of 2014 events consistently contradict what they said at the time.
Gantz, founder of the new party Israel Resilience, saw this coming and launched a pre-emptive strike with three videos posted online. One video documents the horrific destruction wrought on Gaza by the Israeli army under his command, with a counter adding up the number of Palestinian “terrorists” killed, stopping at more than 1,300. Another shows images from the 2012 killing of Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari by the Israel Air Force, which was also under Gantz’s command at the time. For the sake of balance, and to snag the support of center-left voters, the other video has Gantz saying that Israel must keep striving for peace.
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