To protect its future, Israel must listen to its Defence Minister, not its Prime Minister

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant broke ranks yesterday and publicly challenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the conduct of his government.

Hardly a ‘dove’, Gallant’s position indicates broader dissatisfaction amongst Israelis with the current government’s vision, or lack thereof, for Israel’s exit plan from Gaza.

His barely-veiled view is held by much of the security establishment – Netanyahu is favouring his far-right coalition partners over Israel’s security interests.

The words not spoken in Gallant’s statement should be spoken: Israel needs to talk to the Palestinians. Now.

No-one gets to choose their ideal partners in the road to peace. While the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) remains the official representative in Palestinian rhetoric, in practice there are currently two different representatives for the Palestinians.

Hamas, with which Israel is in essence already negotiating a hostage release, or the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah, with whom Israel cooperates and coordinates on a range of issues, including security in the West Bank.  

While the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and lacks support amongst its people, the same can be said about other Arab governments that Israel partners, and hopes to partner, with.

Moreover, Israel's refusal to engage with the Palestinian Authority is endangering its relations with regional Arab states and puts the promise of normalisation with Saudi Arabia into deep freeze.

The vacuum Netanyahu is creating will be filled one way or another: by a resurgent Hamas or similar actor, by a chaos of competing warlords or ongoing Israeli military occupation.

These are all calamitous for Israel’s security.

Without negotiations, the vacuum of Palestinian statehood may well be filled by the international community.

Already Australia has broken with longstanding tradition last Friday, voting at the UN General Assembly in favour of a resolution that strengthens the standing of Palestine as a non-member observer, although it stopped short of recognising Palestine as a member state. 

The UN resolution is significant because of the message rather than the mechanics: Israel may decline to pursue a two-state solution, but the rest of the world won’t wait.

As painful as the timing of that resolution is, it is not so much of a success for Palestinian terrorism, as it is a failure of Israeli strategy.

The international community, including Australia, has shown that it is not abandoning its two-state policy just because Israel and the Palestinians don’t agree.

Israel stands to lose military gains against Hamas and its much-needed regional alliance against Iran.

We call on Netanyahu to listen to Israel’s Defence Minister and defend the future of Israelis.

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