Right after Shabbat I got a phone call from my daughter who lives in Samaria. She and her husband are firmly on the Israeli Right. And this is what she tells me. She just heard Benny Gantz make an announcement on television and wow, how wonderful and isn’t it about time!

I’m thinking to myself: Huh? What? Gantz, who everyone just recently said was selling Israel out to Joe Biden? That Gantz?

So I hurried to see what he could possibly have said to produce such enthusiasm in my daughter. And this is what I found. While praising Israel’s soldiers who “are demonstrating supreme heroism at the front” he called out some government members for “behaving in a cowardly and irresponsible manner.” He wasn’t specific, complaining that “personal and political considerations have begun to permeate the holy of holies of Israel’s security.

“We must all understand and inwardly digest: It’s true that war is won through determination and power on the battlefield. It’s true that war is won out of love of Israel, commitment to the heritage of Israel, and devotion to the unity of Israel. Alongside this, war is won with a clear and realistic strategic compass. War is won when all Israelis make their contributions and take part in the war effort. War is won, and a long struggle is maintained, with true strength that is not based on divisiveness, contention, and vainglory. War is won with wisdom, daring, sacrifice, judgement, and robust national strength.”

Can’t argue with that. But then comes this, an ultimatum: “The war cabinet must formulate an action plan by June 8 that will lead to the attainment of six strategic goals of national importance:

1. To bring the hostages home.
2. To dismantle the rule of Hamas, to demilitarize the Gaza Strip, and to ensure Israeli security control.
3. Alongside Israeli security control, to form a US-European-Arab-Palestinian administration that will run civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip and lay a foundation for a future alternative that is not Hamas and not Abbas [Palestinian Authority chairperson Mahmoud Abbas].
4. To return the residents of the north to their homes by September 1 and rehabilitate the Western Negev.
5. To advance normalization with Saudi Arabia as part of a general move to create an alliance with the free world and with the Arab world against Iran.
6. To adopt a plan for service that will lead to all Israelis serving the country and contributing to the supreme national effort.”

I could see where the enthusiasm was coming from. A speech with a date and a deadline. Israelis have been feeling that we are marching in place without any progress for months now. But is the threat to bring down the government in the middle of the harshest fighting in Gaza really in the national interest? Or just another political ploy by Netanyahu’s enemies?

Netanyahu responded by saying Gantz had chosen to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister instead of to Hamas and called his conditions “euphemisms for Israel’s defeat.”

Gantz, a longtime political rival of Netanyahu, joined the coalition and the War Cabinet in the early days of the war in a gesture of national unity. His departure would leave Netanyahu even more beholden to far-right allies who take a hard line on negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release, and who believe Israel should maintain control over Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there.

In the meantime, this disunity has given our enemies reason to celebrate.

After all the handwringing and threats over our invasion of Rafah –  in a similar manner to how Israel’s invasion of the al Shifa hospital was treated –  one can see what they were hiding in Rafah: 700 terror tunnels, 50 of them going into Egypt. Was Egypt all along cooperating with Hamas? They closed the border, but allowed the underground movement of people and weapons and who knows what else to keep on flowing. No wonder Egypt is angry enough to join the antisemites in the ICCJ!

And even as our hostages suffer underground, Israel is selling fruits and vegetables to Gaza, lowering the prices there. America is using its newly opened port to ship in truckloads of “humanitarian” aid.

This is why my daughter and I like Gantz’s speech. Enough already! I’m in favor of timelines. I’m in favor of deadlines. I’m in favor of clarity.

If only our government would stop issuing ultimatums to each other and finally issue a few to Hamas and Hizbollah.

It’s intolerable.

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