Earlier this week it emerged that one of Israel’s politician Avigdor Lieberman had been offered the post, the Guardian reports.
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Yaalon accused the prime minister of political opportunism in offering Lieberman his job in a bid to add a few seats to the coalition’s majority in parliament.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to reassure moderate Israelis and the world that he remains interested in peace with the Palestinians, despite the addition of another hardline party to his government.
Noting that he worked harmoniously with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a long time, Ya’alon said in his speech that “unfortunately, I recently found myself in strong disagreement on moral and professional issues with the prime minister, a number of ministers and several MKs”.
Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and defense minister, said in an interview on Israeli TV on Friday night that fascistic, extreme right-wing politics are on the rise in his country, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
During the election campaign, the controversial politician had said that Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who were “disloyal” to the Jewish state should be beheaded.
Netanyahu added, “I assume that if Yaalon had not been asked to leave the defense ministry”, the resignation would not have occurred.
Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz, who will be one of the featured speakers at Sunday’s Jerusalem Post Conference, has a written commitment from Netanyahu that would require him to be appointed foreign minister, but Netanyahu is expected to wait with the appointment, which could upset other senior Likud figures, in part because Katz opposes a Palestinian state and Netanyahu is already receiving global criticism over the Liberman appointment.
Netanyahu’s offer of Ya’alon’s cabinet post to Lieberman emerged this week after talks failed on bringing center-left opposition leader Isaac Herzog into the government.
“To my great sorrow, they have taken over Israel, and the Likud movement, risky and extremist elements, that upend the house and threaten it. This is not the Likud movement that I joined”. The comments, made at a Holocaust memorial event, infuriated Netanyahu, while Yaalon backed the general’s right to express his opinion.
Netanyahu and Lieberman’s factions were in intensive negotiations on Thursday to finalize the details of the deal, which would pave Lieberman’s party way into the cabinet, expanding the coalition government from 61 to 67 in the 120-member parliament. The prime minister also said the political shakeup was not because of differences with Yaalon but out of the need to widen the coalition to “bring stability to Israel against the big challenges it faces”.
Yaalon, a former chief of Israel’s armed forces, had shored up relations with the Pentagon that provided a counter-weight to Netanyahu’s policy feuds with U.S. President Barack Obama over peace talks with the Palestinians and Iran’s nuclear programme.
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Current rules governing the site allow Jews to visit during set hours but not to pray there, for fear of stoking tensions. About 200 Palestinians have been killed during that time, most of whom Israel says were attackers.
