Senior members of the army and intelligence services are leading the protest against Benyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, who is accused of leading the country to ruin. What if salvation were to come from the army?

“The entire Mossad is in the street “. In the crowd of demonstrators crowding in front of the Habima theatre in the heart of Tel Aviv, Eitan, a former intelligence officer in his fifties, proudly points to a tight row of protesters. On this evening in March, more than 35,000 Israelis have gathered to protest against the status of the ultra-Orthodox, who are exempt from military service. At a time when war is raging in Gaza, this inequality is condemned by 70% of the public. But Netanyahu’s allies are threatening to leave the coalition if the Prime Minister gives in to the demands of the majority of Israelis.

Never before has a head of government been so contested, while Israel is at war, diplomatically isolated and almost abandoned by Washington. The Hebrew state is experiencing the worst crisis in its history. Day after day, demonstrators in Tel Aviv are calling for Netanyahu to step down and for new elections. Emerging from a sea of blue and white flags, the placards display the Prime Minister’s pale face with this accusation: “You are in charge! You are responsible!

At the podium, one man embodies the revolt. Reserve General Noam Tibon, aged 62. His popularity is immense. With tears in his eyes, visitors are constantly told the saga of those who, on 7 October, as the state was collapsing, rushed south. Noam Tibon, for his part, rushed to the kibbutz of Nahal Oz where his son, Amir, a journalist with the left-wing daily Haaretz, lived, to save his family, evacuate the wounded and fight the terrorists.

By a tragic irony of fate, I had met Amir, our colleague, outside Gaza, a month before 7 October. A dusting of heat rose from the Arab city so close to us at the same time as the muezzins’ call to prayer. Like most of the peaceful kibbutzniks who would be massacred, Amir had no hatred of Palestinians. At Nahal Oz, the closest point to the border, “I see and hear Gaza every morning,” he told me, “whereas most Israelis have forgotten it exists…” Amir, his wife and their two young daughters stayed in their shelter for ten hours, while Hamas killed, burnt and raped all over the kibbutz.

His father, Noam Tibon, now dismisses the fatal day out of hand. He prefers to look to the future. It is not the war that he objects to, but the way in which it is being waged. In a café, a few hours before the demonstration in Habima Square, he explains: “Tsahal is bogged down in Gaza and everything the army has achieved risks being lost if we don’t find a solution immediately. We don’t have enough men to guarantee the country’s security. We need ten thousand more. Under these conditions, the agreement negotiated by David Ben Gurion with the Chief Rabbinate when the State was founded, on the exemption of clerics, no longer makes any sense. On the contrary, it threatens the country’s very existence. Instead of looking for a way out of the war and our domestic political crisis, Netanyahu is entering into conflict with the President of the United States, a supporter of Israel”.

The general is an adversary of the Prime Minister. The majority of those who have held the highest positions in the army and the intelligence services are calling for Netanyahu to resign and for early elections. They had already formed the “Forum of 170 Generals for the Defence of Democracy” before 7 October. Since the massacre, the movement has grown even stronger. Its representatives have a plan, confirms General Ilan Mizrahi, former deputy director of Mossad: “Once Hamas has been eliminated militarily, it would be a terrible mistake for Israel if settlers moved into Gaza. We must stop promoting this idea, which is in the minority in Israel. But the Tsahal must stay for some time to organise humanitarian aid and ensure that it reaches civilians and not the last Hamas supporters. There are plans for a Euro-Arab force and a Palestinian administration, but not under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. How can he govern Gaza when he is incapable of running Ramallah?”

According to the latest poll conducted by Khalil Shikaki, a sociologist who has worked in the West Bank for over forty years, 60% of Palestinians support Hamas and only 34% are in favour of a two-state solution.  Various names are being bandied about to replace Abbas. Mohamed Shtayyeh or the economist Salam Fayyad, two former Prime Ministers of the Palestinian Authority? Majed Faraj, the Authority’s head of intelligence, who was close to the CIA? In any case, the new Prime Minister appointed in Ramallah, Mohammad Mustafa, has just condemned Hamas in the strongest possible terms (see page 16).

The reconstruction would be financed by the United States, Europe and the Gulf States. Negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia will resume.

We are not very far from Joe Biden’s proposals. And with good reason: ” The most important thing is to rebuild a strong relationship between Israel and the United States, Europe, the Gulf States and Egypt, against Iran “, insists General Tibon.

The crowd included the families of serving soldiers, reservists and numerous civil society organisations such as the “Brothers in Arms” movement. Opposition to Netanyahu is growing daily, as the main objective of the war becomes more and more remote: to free the hostages while destroying Hamas militarily. The cries of the relatives of the missing – “Akhshav! Now!” – resound regularly on the Tel Aviv shoreline. “If the hostages are not brought back alive, something will be broken in the soul of Israel”, says Ilan Mizrahi. And Noam Tibon asserts: “I support a temporary ceasefire so that they can return. Even on Hamas’s terms.”

The conditions dictated by Yahia Sinwar, the Hamas leader hiding in the tunnels, General Ofer Dekel has no trouble imagining how the man came up with them. A former head of the Shin Bet, the internal intelligence service, Dekel was part of the team that negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit, exchanged in October 2011 after five years in captivity for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Sinwar. I spent a lot of time with him in prison,” recalls Ofer Dekel. Sinwar is not a brave man, a fighter who risks his life. He made his career not by exploits but by torturing and killing Palestinians accused of collaboration. I think that today a channel of discussion remains open to free our hostages because Sinwar wants two things: to get us to release prisoners and to save his own skin”. A member of the “Generals’ Forum” from the outset, Ofer Dekel is counting on a fracture in the ruling coalition to bring down the government.

This is also the hope of “Frères d’armes” (Brothers in Arms), co-founded by Colonel Ronen Koehler, a 50-year-old naval commando officer. This movement organised solidarity in the aftermath of 7 October with a logistics and efficiency that have made it ultra-popular. It has up to twelve thousand volunteers. In a huge disused cinema complex on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, they set up a number of emergency schools, from nursery to sixth form, for the children of refugees from the north – displaced by Hezbollah attacks – and from the south. The day after the massacre, their headquarters were set up in a matter of hours at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Centre. What the government didn’t do, they did”, says Dafna Altschuler, a therapist involved in the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers. The list of the 250 hostages at the beginning was provided by them by cross-checking all the information, videos and software. They are the real Israel.”

According to a poll broadcast by Channel 12 television, if the elections were held right now, the right and far right would be in the minority with 46 seats out of 120. And the new Prime Minister would probably be Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet and leader of the National Unity party, who was recently received with honours in Washington and London, much to Netanyahu’s fury. A former chief of staff, Gantz is favoured by the Forum of Generals, like Gadi Eizenkot, who sits at his side, was also head of Tsahal and has just lost his son, killed in action in Gaza. Should they slam the door on the War Cabinet, even if it means triggering a crisis? “There is no greater crisis than the one the Prime Minister has thrown us into,” sums up General Tibon. The past has taught us that anti-Semitism is weak when Israel is strong, and strong when Israel is weak. Netanyahu’s strength is an illusion.”