Following Gantz’s departure, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir expressed the desire for his Otzma Yehudit Party to join the War Cabinet, saying, “I will demand that our power be expressed. I need to go back and be a leading force like we were before Gantz came in.”
Speaking to journalists at the Knesset in Jerusalem last week, Ben-Gvir said that he believed “the solution is really that we will enter this [War] Cabinet and be able to have even more influence.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the right-wing Religious Zionism Party, has also repeatedly demanded that the War Cabinet be expanded to include representatives from each coalition party.
Decisions made by the new war management forum, which Channel 12 News said would be called “Hamitbahon,” will be submitted to the broader Security Cabinet, which includes Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
The word “Hamitbahon” translates as “The Kitchen Cabinet” and has been used in the past to refer to smaller advisory forums to the Security Cabinet. The term comes from former Prime Minister Golda Meir’s custom of summoning senior officials to her kitchen on Friday nights.
