MOSHE “BOGIE” Yaalon is no shrinking violet. Over a 40-year military career the former lieutenant-general led some of Israel’s most daring, and bloodiest, offensives. Yet on May 20th, wearing his customary dark shirt and no tie, he announced his resignation as defence minister, citing “difficult disagreements on moral and professional matters” with the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
Mr Yaalon warned that “extreme and dangerous elements have taken over Israel and the Likud Party”. The bluntly-delivered speech was the culmination of months of tension between him and the prime minister over Mr Yaalon’s public criticism of what he sees as “trends of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society, which are endangering its resilience and filtering through to the army”. He also publicly backed senior army officers who made similar warnings in public, despite Mr Netanyahu’s insistence that the officers should voice such criticism only “in the relevant forums”.
The last straw for Mr Yaalon had been Mr Netanyahu’s plan to replace him in the next week with a far-right politician, Avigdor...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1U5Pekt
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