Bekhorot 25 - First Among Equals

decisions.[laughs] Well, uh, Yoav Gallant, Israel's defense minister, is pushing this, okay? So we're four days after October 7th.

Um, he is saying Hamas just attacked us, but Hezbollah could do even bigger.

Even bigger.

Uh, could do far worse in the north than even what Hamas did in the south of Israel, and therefore, Israel has to strike hard first.

Okay, fair enough argument.

In order to make this argument, though, he has to actually speak to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Given that he's the defense minister of the country, and this is a, a war, you figure that wouldn't be that hard of a thing to do.

You would be wrong.

You would be a naive American [laughs] looking at the situation, because Prime Minister Netanyahu was not taking Yoav Gallant's calls, and Prime Minister Netanyahu's aides were picking up and saying, "I'm sorry, he's busy." What could he be busy with? Uh, Gallant actually marched in person to the prime minister's office and still was turned away.

He only got Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's right-hand man, uh, in the waiting area.

He couldn't even get in, and he's the defense minister of the country in wartime.

So how's that for a taste right there of what getting things done actually looked like? And I should also just say, it wasn't just Netanyahu, it was Gallant as well leaking as much as anybody in the war cabinet.

Both of these guys are playing this game, are trying to look good, are trying to gain advantage over one another every way they can.

So you're basically, I mean, look, we're, we're very used to, here in America, uh, to the concept of commander in chief.

You know, the famous the buck stops here idea that there is one man in charge who takes into consideration everyone, but has complete and final say over everything.

Reading your book, you know, once I stopped hearing, uh, you know, the, the Benny Hill theme music, that da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, like, that really kind of funny, incompetent, you know, circus sound, uh, I started thinking seriously about this notion as like, yes, look, uh, things worked out very well, but w- what are we looking at? Are we looking at a sort of team of rivals situation in which all these scuffles actually bring better decisions and more kind of accountability, or are we looking at a freaking miracle that these guys got anything done while constantly also having, you know, one eye out on who leaked what to the media, and who said what because of the election that might come up, and the Americans, and the pressure, and all these kind of, you know, considerations that are not unimportant, but are not life or death matters?

I'd incline more to the latter.

We got lucky.

Because if you look at these three guys who lead the war room at the start, Netanyahu, Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz, who joins the unity government at the start, all three, it's not that they're rivals, okay? Uh, they despise each other in every possible permutation of that relationship, and they all have very good reasons.

And so you would get into situations where Gallant, say, would arrange a deal with the Americans at the Pentagon to resume certain weapons shipments to Israel, but he would not have let Netanyahu in on that information that he was making this deal.

So that once he finally surprises Netanyahu with this, the prime minister doesn't like it, doesn't like the idea that, you know, Gallant might get the credit for this sort of thing.

But at the same time, Gallant also hadn't told Benny Gantz, who would've been his ally in this fight, and they could've won this argument two on one because Gallant still hated Gantz from when Gantz, in this sort of complicated, murky process, elbowed out Gallant for the title of IDF chief of staff years earlier.

So they wouldn't actually work together, uh, in, uh, in that way.

That was happening constantly.

But what I would focus on just here is that there was the Benny Hill aspect, but not all the war was that.

decisions.[laughs] Well, uh, Yoav Gallant, Israel's defense minister, is pushing this, okay? So we're four days after October 7th.

Um, he is saying Hamas just attacked us, but Hezbollah could do even bigger.

Even bigger.

Uh, could do far worse in the north than even what Hamas did in the south of Israel, and therefore, Israel has to strike hard first.

Okay, fair enough argument.

In order to make this argument, though, he has to actually speak to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Given that he's the defense minister of the country, and this is a, a war, you figure that wouldn't be that hard of a thing to do.

You would be wrong.

You would be a naive American [laughs] looking at the situation, because Prime Minister Netanyahu was not taking Yoav Gallant's calls, and Prime Minister Netanyahu's aides were picking up and saying, "I'm sorry, he's busy." What could he be busy with? Uh, Gallant actually marched in person to the prime minister's office and still was turned away.

He only got Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's right-hand man, uh, in the waiting area.

He couldn't even get in, and he's the defense minister of the country in wartime.

So how's that for a taste right there of what getting things done actually looked like? And I should also just say, it wasn't just Netanyahu, it was Gallant as well leaking as much as anybody in the war cabinet.

Both of these guys are playing this game, are trying to look good, are trying to gain advantage over one another every way they can.

So you're basically, I mean, look, we're, we're very used to, here in America, uh, to the concept of commander in chief.

You know, the famous the buck stops here idea that there is one man in charge who takes into consideration everyone, but has complete and final say over everything.

Reading your book, you know, once I stopped hearing, uh, you know, the, the Benny Hill theme music, that da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, like, that really kind of funny, incompetent, you know, circus sound, uh, I started thinking seriously about this notion as like, yes, look, uh, things worked out very well, but w- what are we looking at? Are we looking at a sort of team of rivals situation in which all these scuffles actually bring better decisions and more kind of accountability, or are we looking at a freaking miracle that these guys got anything done while constantly also having, you know, one eye out on who leaked what to the media, and who said what because of the election that might come up, and the Americans, and the pressure, and all these kind of, you know, considerations that are not unimportant, but are not life or death matters?

I'd incline more to the latter.

We got lucky.

Because if you look at these three guys who lead the war room at the start, Netanyahu, Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz, who joins the unity government at the start, all three, it's not that they're rivals, okay? Uh, they despise each other in every possible permutation of that relationship, and they all have very good reasons.

And so you would get into situations where Gallant, say, would arrange a deal with the Americans at the Pentagon to resume certain weapons shipments to Israel, but he would not have let Netanyahu in on that information that he was making this deal.

So that once he finally surprises Netanyahu with this, the prime minister doesn't like it, doesn't like the idea that, you know, Gallant might get the credit for this sort of thing.

But at the same time, Gallant also hadn't told Benny Gantz, who would've been his ally in this fight, and they could've won this argument two on one because Gallant still hated Gantz from when Gantz, in this sort of complicated, murky process, elbowed out Gallant for the title of IDF chief of staff years earlier.

So they wouldn't actually work together, uh, in, uh, in that way.

That was happening constantly.

But what I would focus on just here is that there was the Benny Hill aspect, but not all the war was that.