Moshe Yaalon Picked as Israel Defense Minister
Moshe Yaalon Image by getty images
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday chose Moshe Yaalon, an ex-general and vice premier from his right-wing Likud party, to be Israel’s next defence minister, a government official said.
Yaalon, 62, spent the past four years in Netanyahu’s inner circle of ministers, routinely boosting the rightist prime minister and his strategic outlook.
He shares the prime minister’s distrust of the Palestinians, but in the past, officials say, he has taken a more cautious line about the timing for a possible Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites.
The government official said Yaalon was appointed to the post by Netanyahu, who was assigning cabinet positions two days after agreements were signed to form a new coalition government, which is expected to take office on Monday.
Yaalon will replace Ehud Barak, who headed a centre-left party in the outgoing coalition and ran the Defence Ministry for the past seven years. Barak was not a candidate in a Jan. 22 national election.
Yaalon served as armed forces chief from 2002 until 2005, when his term was not extended after he opposed Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that year.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
