Why did Gallant, after pleading for compromise, vote in favor of ‘reasonableness’ bill?

Not breaking coalition discipline means he can “stay behind the wheel” and work to repair fractures in the IDF, the defense minister said.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wants to stay in charge of the army and therefore voted with the coalition to pass the emendation of the reasonableness clause even though he led the failed effort to arrange a compromise with the Opposition before the vote, Ynet reported Monday evening.

“I tried to lead to a compromise,” Gallant told colleagues behind closed doors, said the report. “If I had left [the plenum] it would not have changed anything. It’s better that I stay behind the wheel these days.”

Some coalition members had reportedly threatened to get the defense minister fired if he broke coalition discipline to vote against the bill, which restricts the Supreme Court’s ability to use “reasonableness” as a yardstick for overturning government decisions and appointments. The bill passed 64-0 after the Opposition walked out before the roll call.

The report also quoted a source in the Likud who, like Gallant, belongs to the more moderate camp in the party, as saying that resigning was not an option for the defense minister.

“Gallant understood that this would be the worst choice because at such a time of crisis, it’s preferable that the Defense Ministry stay in his hands and not be transferred to one of the more extreme members of the government.”

Gallant sees his job now as overcoming the “dangerous” phenomenon of reservists’ threats not to volunteer for service if the reform passed.

“The former generals who supported call-up refusal did a very dangerous thing,” he said. “They activated the doomsday weapon. And for what? Can the State of Israel exist without its reserve army?”

“What we are going to do now is calm the reservists, formulate a complete and true picture and explain to them that our hope is not lost, because we cannot do without them. I know that their threats are real, and I urge them not to carry them out – I promise that I will not lend a hand to harming democracy.”

The minister seemingly objected more to the outcome of the law as it could affect the country’s security rather than to its contents, saying, “There is no danger to democracy, and there is no room for insubordination…. It can severely harm the IDF and Israeli society.”

During the hours before the Monday vote, Gallant could be seen arguing with Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the main architect of the whole judicial reform package of which this bill is only one small part.

“Give something,” he was heard pleading, but Levin refused.

Reports surfaced that a compromise on the wording of the bill had been found, but the deal-breaker was the demand that the coalition would freeze all further judicial reforms for a year or more and not pass anything without consensus. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly willing to put a six-month hold on legislation.

After the vote, Netanyahu maintained that the Opposition had turned down every single compromise suggested, even “at the height of the vote, until the last moment,” a claim that Opposition leader Yair Lapid called a “lie.”

Benjamin NetanyahuIDFJudicial reformYoav Gallant