Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Defense Minister Yoav Gallant not to travel to the Pentagon for talks on Iran until such time as US President Joe Biden calls him, a source confirmed to The Jerusalem Post.
Gallant had been scheduled to fly to the United States on Tuesday night to meet with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The trip comes as Israel is weighing the scope and substance of its retaliatory strike against Iran.
Biden did not speak to Netanyahu in the aftermath of that strike just before the Jewish New Year, even though the United States took to the skies along with four other armies – the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and Jordan – to defend Israel against Iran’s ballistic missiles.
When it came to reaching out to Israel to mark the anniversary of October 7, Biden called President Isaac Herzog, a move that underscored the absence of a Biden-Netanyahu call.
Biden as well as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre have both said that such a call would be forthcoming, but it has not yet occurred. The absence of phone calls and visits is often a sign of stress in the relationship. Netanyahu was invited to the White House for the first time only last summer, even though he has been in office since the end of December 2022.
The US and Israel have been at odds over the tactics of how the IDF should battle Iran and its proxy groups, even though they broadly agree on the needed outcome.
Netanyahu and Gallant have also been at odds politically.
The relationship between the prime minister and the defense minister deteriorated after Gallant publicly warned Netanyahu in March last year that the government’s judicial reforms were a threat to national security. The relationship remained strained and even worsened during the war. Last month, Netanyahu approved a move to replace Gallant with MK Gideon Sa’ar, but that step was not completed.
Gantz comments
National Unity chair MK Benny Gantz wrote on X that the cancellation “harmed national security at a critical time to our security, due to personal and political considerations. A prime minister for whom Israel’s security was the top priority, would have sent the defense minister and coordinated the messages, and enable him the use of ‘Kanaf Zion’ [Israel’s version of Air Force One] so he can be fully available and head home quickly.”
ביטול טיסתו של שר הביטחון לארה״ב - פגיעה בביטחון המדינה בעת קריטית לביטחוננו, משיקולים אישיים ופוליטיים.ראש ממשלה שביטחון ישראל בראש מעייניו היה שולח את שר הביטחון, מתאם איתו את המסרים, ומעמיד לרשותו את מטוס ״כנף ציון״ כדי שיהיה בזמינות מלאה וישוב במהרה ארצה.
— בני גנץ - Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) October 8, 2024
Sources indicated that Netanyahu had probably canceled the flight to prevent Gallant from getting any credit for solidifying a joint US-Israel strategy on Iran.
This seemed to be a naked political maneuver, said the sources, given that it was known that Gallant and Netanyahu had the same views about how to respond to Iran’s October 1 attack at this time.