Netanyahu vs. Gantz: Debate over security focus and Iranian threat - analysis

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to reduce Israel’s strategic security issues to the Philadelphi Corridor and dubbed the defense establishment blind leftists for saying that withdrawing was worth it to cut a hostage deal with Hamas. He pointed to a large map zoning in on that small part of Gaza.

In response, on Tuesday, former IDF chiefs, war cabinet ministers, and now top opposition figures Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot struck back and refocused the nation’s attention on the much larger threat of Iran and its region of proxies.

All this, in front of a large map of the Islamic Republic and the entire Middle East, in an effort to draw a parallel – different leaders and their different priorities.

Gantz and Eisenkot brushed off Netanyahu’s claim that withdrawing from Philadelphi would be an existential threat to Israeli security, calling it a complex operational issue – but not a strategic one.

They said Netanyahu is distracted and stuck in the Gaza quagmire and is therefore missing the growing Iranian nuclear and conventional threats – threats that, for years, were his own central message.

Former IDF chiefs accuse Netanyahu of deception

The former IDF chiefs said the prime minister was lying about fully pursuing a hostage deal, and about presenting himself as being tough about using the military. Rather, they said Netanyahu had acted in cunning ways behind the scenes to frustrate a hostage deal over a large time period while pretending publicly to try to cut such a deal.

They also contradicted Netanyahu’s claim that Israel would never be able to return to the corridor if it withdrew. In contrast, they said that this was just Netanyahu again showing his own personal fears of using force, just as they said he had been afraid to invade Gaza in October and Khan Yunis afterward.

Whereas Netanyahu said that any solution for stopping Hamas smuggling was inadequate without boots on the ground, as proven by Hamas’s massive smuggling from 2005-2024, they said the IDF now has technological solutions that it lacked in the past. Further, they said Netanyahu has harmed relations with Egypt by blocking a hostage deal and ceasefire, with Cairo’s cooperation needed to stop smuggling in any scenario.

Most importantly, they said Netanyahu’s refusal to compromise to get the hostages home and to agree to the ceasefire – supported by the US and most of Israel’s allies – is losing Jerusalem support globally in ways that are much more dangerous than threats posed by Hamas at Philadelphi.

Israel needs US and allied support to handle the Iranian nuclear and conventional proxies threat, they charged. The speech was intended to remind the public that defense expertise has meaning, and is not worthless naivete, contrary to its common politicization.