Firing Gallant was Netanyahu’s Nixon moment - analysis

On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had his “Saturday Night Massacre” moment.

In American political lore, the Saturday Night Massacre refers to October 20, 1973, when then-US president Richard Nixon ordered the dismissal of special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. Nixon’s attorney general and deputy attorney general both resigned rather than carry out the order to fire Cox, which was finally completed by the third in command at the Justice Department.

These events marked a turning point in the Watergate saga, as the public was infuriated by Nixon’s heavy-handed actions. The public largely viewed this act as a blatant abuse of power, and it led to widespread public calls for Nixon’s impeachment. This was a pivotal moment in a traumatic saga gripping the country.

The Netanyahu government’s effort to push through the judicial overhaul is not Watergate. The two situations are vastly different.

Yet the tone-deaf manner in which Netanyahu announced the dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday is reminiscent of Nixon’s actions 50 years earlier. This, too, represents a pivotal moment in a traumatic saga gripping the nation.

Gallant, like Cox, was viewed by the public as someone who was just doing his job – and was fired because of it. Gallant was fired because he called for a halt to the judicial reform process after warning that it was presenting a clear and present danger to Israel’s security; Cox was fired because he demanded that Nixon turn over the secret White House tapes, something the president was loath to do.

Netanyahu and Nixon's miscalculation

Both Nixon and Netanyahu badly misread the impact their actions would have on the public.

Some historians have argued that Nixon’s erratic behavior during the scandal – including the Cox firing – showed that he was detached from reality. Some in Israel today would argue that Netanyahu’s sacking of Gallant shows that he has lost touch with public sentiment and what is happening on the ground.

That Netanyahu failed to foresee the anger the sacking of his defense minister would cause raises questions about who – if anyone – is advising him.

Did no one warn the prime minister that this move would only energize the protest movement and launch it into a different orbit? Did no one warn him that Histadrut labor federation head Arnon Bar-David, who up until Sunday stayed out of the fray, would call a general strike? Did no one warn him that this could lead to a strike at the airport, in hospitals and in the local municipalities – even those headed by Likud supporters?

Netanyahu’s announcement of his intent to fire Gallant seemed rash and impulsive, not attributes that characterized the prime minister in the past. If anything, the Netanyahu of old – the one who served as prime minister from 1996-1999 and from 2009-2021 – was always cautious, both in using military force and in moving forward on any diplomatic process with the Palestinians. The “old” Netanyahu was always concerned about unknowns, about what could happen, about unintended consequences.

The “new” Netanyahu, the Netanyahu who has served as prime minister since December 29, seems to have thrown caution to the wind and is not considering unintended consequences.

The “old” Netanyahu would have foreseen the shock waves that were sure to result from firing Gallant. The “new” Netanyahu was blind to them. But those shock waves spread with great intensity the minute Netanyahu said he would dismiss his defense minister.

Why? What happened now – 12 weeks into the demonstrations against the judicial overhaul – that sent the intensity of the protests up a notch and compelled Bar-David to declare a general strike?

First, because the legislation altering how judges are selected is moving forward and – were it not for Netanyahu’s announcement Monday evening that he would halt the process – would have come to the Knesset for its second and third readings later this week. In other words, a very significant part of the reform was about to become law.

Second, Netanyahu’s announcement of his intent to fire Gallant made it appear as if the country’s security considerations were only of secondary importance to the prime minister.

Gallant, on Saturday night, addressed the nation and said, “The source of our strength [the IDF] is getting weaker.

“As Israel’s defense minister, I say clearly that the breach within the nation has penetrated deep into the IDF and the defense establishment. This is a clear, real and immediate danger to the security of the state.”

He sounded the alarm in a public way. He said out loud what heads of the security service have been whispering for weeks. For Netanyahu to then ignore that warning, and to seek to fire the man who sounded it, was for much of the public a bridge too far.

The question now is whether Netanyahu’s reversal, his call for a halt in the process and for dialogue, will be enough to douse the flames. Will the country “return to normal?”

The answer is yes and no. A halt in the process, if accompanied by a genuine goodwill effort to reach a compromise, will take much of the sting out of the protests. But it will not end them completely.

If there is a sincere effort to reach common ground – and this will necessitate goodwill by both the coalition and the opposition – then threats by pilots and soldiers in elite units not to show up for reserve duty will lose much of their legitimacy.

The threats not to show up for reserve duty spread because there was acceptance in wide swaths of the public of the idea that steamrolling through this reform was a genuine threat to democracy, and that all means are justified to “save Israel’s democracy.”

However, if that is not the case, if there is an effort to reach a consensus and the process does not seem like one side trampling the rights of the other, then that argument will lose much of its appeal, and those who say they are unwilling to serve – something widely viewed as a doomsday weapon – will no longer enjoy public support.

A halt to the process will likely put an end to the Histadrut’s strike.

What it won’t end, however, are protests against Netanyahu and this government.

The protests over the last 12 weeks have attracted many people with different agendas.

A minority comes demonstrating “against the occupation”; most come demonstrating against the judicial reform – genuinely believing that diminishing the role of the courts would deliver a death blow to civil rights in the country; and many come demonstrating against Netanyahu and the character of his government.

Those in the first and third categories will continue to protest regardless of a halt in the process – but those protests will not attract hundreds of thousands of people. And those who came out because they wanted to stop the judicial overhaul are now likely to wait and see what happens in this new interim period.

Had Netanyahu done two months ago what he announced he would do on Monday, the nation could have been spared much trauma. But he didn’t see at the end of January what became clear to him at the end of March. It took Netanyahu’s own “Saturday Night Massacre” for the public anger to reach new heights and compel the prime minister to finally halt the process.