The Israeli war Cabinet is in raucous disarray. One of its three members, who is also the minister of defense, has openly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for lacking a clear strategy to defeat Hamas and restore order in Gaza. (In doing so, he has repeated a similar public broadside leveled by the army chief of staff.) The other member of the war Cabinet is threatening to resign if Netanyahu doesn’t change course in his war aims by June 8.

Some speculate that these divisions could bring down the government, triggering new elections. Though a majority of Israelis (as well as many pro-Israel U.S. officials) would welcome the ouster, it isn’t likely to happen. Still, the three-man war Cabinet was assembled after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, precisely in order to instill trust among the public. That trust is now crumbling, even as its edifice—along with the larger government-wide Cabinet that Netanyahu heads—stays standing.

This Cabinet’s likely political survival is a shame, as the main dispute between Netanyahu and his critics indicates that he misunderstands not only the scope of the current war in Gaza but the nature of war in general.

Netanyahu is facing much criticism, from all over the world, for his plan to mount a major offensive in Rafah, the southern city in Gaza. The town is where the remaining Hamas leaders are thought to be hiding in tunnels, but it is also where more than 1 million Palestinian civilians—many of them refugees from earlier offensives in the north—are crammed with inadequate food, shelter, or sanitation.

Yet even the critics in Netanyahu’s Cabinet support his plan to attack Rafah. Benny Gantz, the war Cabinet member who is threatening to quit, told U.S. officials not long ago, “Ending the war without clearing out Rafah is like sending a firefighter to extinguish 80 percent of the fire.” The issue of contention concerns what happens after the war—who occupies, governs, and rebuilds Gaza?

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