Israeli defense minister announces resignation

Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, leaves a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, May 20, 2016.

On Wednesday, when negotiations were still ongoing, Herzog described the decision faced by Netanyahu over who to appoint to the post as a “historic choice” between a future of “wars and funerals” with Lieberman or “hope for all [Israeli] citizens” with the Zionist Union.

Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak criticized the political upheaval.

After divisive statements by Maj.

Last week Netanyahu, summoned Ya’alon after he said IDF commanders should continue to speak their minds on issues of morality and ethics, in an apparent reference to the controversy that followed Golan’s Holocaust Remembrance Day comments.

Yaalon, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, has a long and distinguished military career. While Yaalon has backed the military, hard-liners have backed the soldier.

Announcing his resignation on Friday, Yaalon said, “In general, Israeli society is a healthy society, and the majority of it is sane and aims for a Jewish, democratic and liberal country. But to my great regret extremist and risky elements have overrun Israel as well as the Likud party, shaking up the national home and threatening harm to those in it”, he said, in a hint he might defect from the party.

It comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to bring hardliner Avigdor Lieberman into the coalition, possibly as defence minister.

Lieberman has served in previous coalitions with Netanyahu, but declined to join his coalition a year ago.

Lieberman rose to prominence as the engineer of Netanyahu’s successful run for prime minister in 1996, and he later became Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He has held a number of Cabinet posts in the past, including stints as foreign minister. He has questioned the loyalty of Israel’s Arab minority and brashly confronted Israel’s foreign critics. He has expressed scepticism over pursuing peace with the Palestinians, and is now pushing a proposal to impose the death penalty against Arabs convicted of acts of terrorism.

Yehuda Glick, a Temple Mount activist and Likud party member, is set to take Ya’alon’s place in the Knesset. The inclusion of his Yisrael Beitenu party into the coalition is yet to be officially confirmed.

The 50-year-old US-born rabbi is an outspoken campaigner for a change to rules governing Jerusalem’s most sensitive site, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, to allow Jews to pray as well as visit.

Since then, Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, shootings and vehicular assaults, have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans. “Such a decision is extremely unsafe – Liberman, who has called for the beheading of Palestinians and for their transfer outside the state of Israel, is a serious threat to peace and stability, and his appointment will generate a culture of lawlessness, extremism, violence, and hate in Israel”.