A fan of shock formulas, Moshe Yaalon, former Israeli defense minister (2013-2016) and deputy prime minister, before resigning in 2016, following disagreements with Benjamin Netanyahu, then prime minister, caused an uproar within the Israeli political class. “The road we are being led on is conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing”declared Mr. Yaalon during an interview on the private channel DemocratTV.
Revived by the journalist who asked him if he thought Israel was heading towards a “ethnic cleansing”Mr. Yaalon replied: “What’s going on over there?” There is no more Beit Lahya, no more Beit Hanoun, the army intervenes in Jabaliya, and in reality the Arabs are driven out”in reference to several towns in the Gaza Strip bombed by the Israeli army.
Reactions abounded, with the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, calling it ” shame “ the fact that Israel had “such a character as head of the army and minister of defense”.
Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reacted in a press release castigating Mr. Yaalon “whose words (…) lies are a gift to the ICC and the camp of Israel’s enemies”.
Mr Yaalon, 74, was the head of the Israeli army between 2002 and 2005, just before Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Considered a hawk during his political career within Likud, he allied himself in 2019 with the current leader of the opposition Yaïr Lapid before retiring from political life in 2021.
He had recently supported soldiers who had threatened not to report to the army as reservists, saying that if he “had been an officer in Hitler's army”he allegedly refused to do certain things, while adding that he “did not compare” with the situation in Israel.
