HAARETZ EDITORIAL

Haaretz

Former Israeli Defense Minister Says Netanyahu Must Be Declared Unfit
Moshe Ya’alon, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party throughout his political career, said the prime minister has put his political survival over Israel’s national interests

Haaretz

Oct 31, 2024 9:12 pm

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has called on the leaders of the military and Shin Bet security service to join forces with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and declare that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unfit to serve.

Ya’alon, who also served as the military’s chief of staff, said in a recent appearance on a podcast on the Israeli news site Ynet, “In my view, the necessary step is for all the top security officials to meet with the attorney general, explain that, in their view, [Netanyahu] should be declared unfit for office.

“If it happens – and I believe it should have happened already – it must have the backing of the attorney general…” he added.

Ya’alon said Netanyahu was subordinating the country’s interests to his own political and legal survival. “To think that the most important thing, over all of Israel’s interests, is your personal survival, even if the country burns? Call it what you will,” he said. “We must consider that this war is, first and foremost, a war of survival for the [governing] coalition.”

Later in the interview, Ya’alon voiced support for volunteer soldiers who, prior to the October 7 attack by Hamas, refused to serve in protest of the Netanyahu government’s controversial judicial overhaul plan. “I would have done the same as they did,” he said.

He said their decision was instrumental in stopping what he described as a “Hungarian-style blitz” aimed at completely reshaping Israel’s judicial system.

Ya’alon, who served as chief of staff from 2002 to 2005 and was later appointed defense minister, was a lawmaker in Netanyahu’s Likud party for much of his political career. Recently, he’s become known for his vociferous opposition to the prime minister.

In the same interview, Ya’alon said regarding soldiers deciding to refuse to serve, “As the son of a Holocaust survivor, if I were an officer in Hitler’s German army, what would I have done? I hope I would have refused.”

After facing pushback from the interviewer, Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Moran Azoulay, over the comment, Ya’alon said he did not intend to equate Netanyahu’s government with that of Adolf Hitler or the Israeli military to the Wehrmacht. He said he was merely trying to emphasize the moral duty he felt to resist what he views as actions that are destructive to the character and future of Israel.