Moshe Ya’alon’s public trashing of Netanyahu harms Israel worldwide
Moshe Ya’alon’s public trashing of Netanyahu harms Israel worldwide

It is shameful for a “nationalist” politician to create headlines which harm Israel all over the world. 

The Washington Post headlines today read  “Israel’s defense minister abruptly resigns in slap at growing ‘extremism.” 

The paper goes on to note that, In a press conference Friday, [Moshe] Yaalon, a fellow member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, warned that Israel was drifting dangerously toward extremism.“I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society, which are threatening its sturdiness and trickling into the armed forces, hurting it already,” he said.”

I don’t know defense but I do know PR – and I know that Israel’s opponents today don’t know Likud from Labor, don’t know former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon from MK Tamar Zandberg of Meretz.
Is this something which someone who cares about Israel’s Defense wants American elected officials and the Obama administration reading? Mr. Ya’alon I ask you - Is this good for Israel?

Today’s BBC headline reads, “Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has resigned, warning that Israel has been taken over by ‘dangerous and extreme elements'”.

This article – and countless other media outlets worldwide – included Ya’alon’s quote that “extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants.”  Surely, one cannot possibly think that anti-Semites in Europe will use this to mean that there should be a government compromised of the Labor Party rather than Avigdor Lieberman...

IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan compared Israel to Nazi Germany on Holocaust Day this year: “It is frightening to see horrifying developments that took place in Europe begin to unfold here,” he said, and was backed by Ya'alon.

These statements simply harm Israel worldwide. I don’t know defense but I do know PR – and I know that Israel’s opponents today don’t know Likud from Labor, don’t know former Chief of Staff and Defense Minister  Moshe Yaalon from MK Tamar Zandberg of Meretz. 

Those who boycott Israel do not differentiate between Ma’aleh Adumim and Tel Aviv – and those who beat Jews in the streets of Europe do not ask their political affiliation when blaming Israel for the world's ills.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is right that these accusations would never have been made had Ya’alon not been removed from his role.  Israel is a democratic nation – and elected officials who bash the country and create world headlines against Israel do the State no favors.

Mr. Ya’alon, I quote Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the forefather of the Likud who often wrote that words were like weapons, he noted in a famous essay, “Our passion is to speak, to proclaim—“Shouting” is what the same audience calls it, ‘we have no need for words, give us actions.’" 

"One thing that audience forgets is that speech is also an action – Perhaps the most authentic of all other actions. Cities have been destroyed, and more will fall, but what was shouted in the wilderness thousands of years ago is alive and still relevant. The world was created by the Word. The world will be mended by the Article.”

The world heard your words – and will use them against Israel.   Trashing the Netanyahu government is trashing the State of Israel in the war for Israel.