Inside look at White House reaction to Netanyahu's firing of Gallant on election night - opinion

On the night of the US election, November 5 into the early hours of November 6, there was more to be done than just follow the projections of which presidential candidate had won each state, and who was getting closer to enough electoral votes to become the next commander-in-chief. 

There was also a country to run that night.

Even as the political drama was unfolding, US officials from the White House, State Department, and Pentagon were monitoring the usual array of diplomatic and security developments that affect the United States, including how soon an Iranian attack against Israel might take place. 

There was also political drama not just in the US, but in Israel, as well, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defense minister Yoav Gallant on that same Tuesday when Americans were casting ballots to determine their own country’s future.

On the one hand, no one has to tell White House officials about the longstanding tensions between Netanyahu and Gallant. 

The Biden administration itself has exploited the strained relationship between the Israeli prime minister and defense minister for at least the past year, as Israel has fought its war in Gaza.

The administration has constantly consulted closely with Israeli officials on the military maneuvers and strategies, but openly preferred to do so with Gallant and MK Benny Gantz, when he served as a war cabinet minister. 

Netanyahu was often described in the administration as the “nemesis” in the Israeli landscape, even as the Jewish state was seen as fighting a “just war.”

Fired on election night 

On the other hand, the news that Gallant had been fired – this time in fact as opposed to Netanyahu’s threat during the judicial reform protests in Israel before the war – prompted some US officials to throw up their hands in despair. One Biden aide drew a very colorful response.

In our conversation Tuesday evening, the aide first attempted to keep his cool. 

Referring to ongoing Israel-US cooperation on matters relating to the Iranian regime, the hostages in Gaza, and the fighting in Lebanon, he said: “From the practical point of view, we can do this, no matter who your defense minister is, and we will.”

Then I sensed a crack in his voice, as he continued: “Call me emotional because I deal with these issues so much, and have been present during some very contentious conversations involving our two countries, but my immediate reaction when I heard the news that Netanyahu was firing Gallant was: WTF. Sorry for the language, but that was my gut reaction.”

For the record, he uttered those full words, but I’ve spared the reader by offering just the well-known acronym.

This is an aide who had earlier said that he intended to leave the White House on January 20, the date the next president is to be inaugurated, whether it would be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. 

It’s easy to understand that serving as a presidential aide is draining and can easily lead to feelings of deep frustration.

AS IT BECAME clear last Wednesday morning that Trump would become the president-elect, the aide and I spoke again, this time, he seemed more reflective. 

He had already been critical of Harris over comments she had made when she met with Netanyahu in Washington in July, and he expounded on it in this conversation last week.

“She didn’t go far enough in defending Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East,” he said as the election tallies were coming in making it clear that Harris would not be the next president.

“At times, she expressed the US policy as though what Israel represents as a democracy, which shares our values, and what goes on in Gaza were of moral equivalence. She didn’t sufficiently address the deeper issue that there is an ideology entrenched in Gaza to destroy Israel.”

As an aide, he is supposed to stay away from expressing political views, but then he reconsidered and said it was okay to quote him. 

“She tried so hard to get the Arab and Muslim vote, but that didn’t go so well in Michigan, did it?” His reference was to the state, in general, and a couple of cities, in particular, where the percentage of the Arab population is said to be the highest in the United States, and where Harris wound up losing to Trump in this election.

Some weeks ago, the Biden aide revealed that “a number of European countries and some other allies” had refused to cooperate with the US in the early days of the war after the October 7 Hamas attack. 

The American plan, he said, was to set up a unified front on the part of key players in the international community to impose various pressures on Hamas and Qatar in order to end the war, free the hostages, and force the Hamas leadership out of Gaza.

“The response was timid at best,” he recalled. He cited a few European countries that were either hesitant or refused to cooperate on the grounds that they would be “dragged into Netanyahu’s war, from which there would be no escape,” as the Biden aide quoted some European officials as saying. He refused to allow publication of how each government reacted. 

Nevertheless, I followed up, based on his information, and was told by a few officials in those European countries that there was, in fact, a US proposal, but that the Americans were not able to present any “realistic plan,” in the words of a few officials.

MY CONVERSATION with the White House aide on this issue occurred about a month ago. 

It was just before Yom Kippur, which gave him the peg to state emphatically: “These European officials have some atoning to do for not taking a more active role in trying to find a solution early on, and instead they now complain about the heavy death toll in Gaza. 

“It is, in fact, tragic,” continued the Biden aide, “but if we could have acted as an international alliance at that point, the carnage would no longer be taking place, the hostages would be home, the war would be over, and perhaps these countries could be participating in an international conference to bring peace to Gaza.”

Yet, the reality is what it is. “We are now in the homestretch,” said the aide.

“People will call us a lame duck government, but we have to keep our eye on the ball, and we will. And heck, Donald Trump says that he can prevent wars.

“Well, he won the election. Good luck to him. Good luck to all of us.”

The writer is the op-ed editor of The Jerusalem Post.