Israeli media reported on Sunday that an “unprecedented confrontation” is unfolding between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, as the army chief is resisting an order to take unspecified military action related to Iran ahead of Tuesday’s Knesset elections.
It’s unclear exactly what Netanyahu has ordered, but the report from Israel’s Channel 12 said that the clash between the two is related to the “Iranian issue” and “the concern of Zamir and the military echelon that the political echelon could lead Israel into a scenario of miscalculation facing Iran just before the elections.”
According to The Times of Israel, a military source said that it “relates to an action that could lead to a lightning confrontation with Iran, at a sensitive and dramatic moment, creating this [potential] miscalculation.” Other sources said military leaders were concerned about an effort by political leadership “to utilize the Iranian issue for political benefit,” while a political source was quoted as calling the allegations a “lie.”
The report came after Netanyahu shared an AI-generated image of an atomic blast in Tel Aviv that included comments made by Yuval Blumberg, an Israeli political commentator, that said Israel is in “real and tangible existential danger” over the alleged threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb.
Netanyahu has ramped up his rhetoric about Iran as the election approaches and has gone back to claiming Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, a claim he’s been making for decades. While both Netanyahu and President Trump frame the conflict with Iran as being about preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current war that Tehran had decided to pursue nuclear weapons, and that was the consensus of the US intelligence agencies.
In the post on Sunday that quoted Blumberg, Netanyahu wrote that Israel has “another two years of Trump to finish the work in Iran, and there’s no telling what will come after that—whether it’s Kamala Harris or some other mediocre figure.”
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that some US officials were concerned that Iran could take the statement as a threat and that it could lead to an Iranian attack on Israel.
