Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir this week amid reports they are having a rift.
The meeting was reportedly aimed at resolving their latest crisis, when Ben-Gvir was not invited to a security cabinet meeting that was said to have involved issues under his auspices as national security minister.
The Prime Minister’s Office initially indicated that the meeting did not concern Ben-Gvir because it was mainly focused on Iran. But accusations from Ben-Gvir’s associates against Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, indicated that Ben-Gvir should have been invited and was intentionally snubbed to stop him from bringing up issues that Netanyahu did not want to discuss.
The meeting on Tuesday was Netanyahu’s latest attempt to appease Ben-Gvir and maintain stability in his government.
“Netanyahu highly values stability,” a key senior government figure told The Jerusalem Post.
Over the past eight months, however, some of Ben-Gvir’s coalition colleagues have not seen him as a stable force within the government.
“Ben-Gvir is a significant burden on the government,” said the source, who called him an anarchist. “His behavior is highly impulsive, causing unrest. Leading his team is challenging, and it is no coincidence that his ministry’s director-general resigned. He creates a lot of headaches for the government, and other ministries struggle to work with him.”
Amid Ben-Gvir’s failure to stall rising murder rates in the Arab sector, former National Security Ministry director-general Shlomo Ben Eliyahu resigned a few weeks ago for “personal reasons.” But sources in the ministry said the real reason was Ben-Gvir being overly controlling.
Calls for Netanyahu to fire Ben-Gvir have made their way through the coalition, especially over the past few weeks, as there have been nearly 200 Arab murder victims this year – a significant increase compared with last year.
On Tuesday, during a tour of towns in the North that have suffered from the crime wave, National Unity leader Benny Gantz called on Netanyahu to take control of appointing a new Israel Police inspector-general when Kobi Shabtai leaves office.
Dissatisfaction and impatience with Ben-Gvir was also coming from within his Otzma Yehudit Party, another government source told the Post.
Troubles in the coalition
Otzma Yehudit members were among the coalition members who urged Ben-Gvir to cancel the prayer service he had planned in Tel Aviv as a protest against the anti-religious disturbances on Yom Kippur, which many coalition members said would be provocative, the source said.
Ben-Gvir canceled the event at the last minute, but he said it was because a counterprotest service that was planned for the same day was moved to a different location.
Meanwhile, as the Knesset’s winter session is set to begin on October 14, the government’s ability to rely on Ben-Gvir might be tested. In September, he said his party would not be bound by coalition discipline in votes. If he does not change his mind, the government might find it hard to legislate without Otzma Yehudit’s six votes.
Zvika Klein contributed to this report.