Moshe Ya'alon
Moshe Ya'alonYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

Outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud) spoke Monday morning about the Palestinian Authority (PA) resolution to be submitted this Wednesday to the UN Security Council, demanding recognition and a two-year deadline for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria.

"The Palestinians are trying to get without giving anything," Ya'alon said in an Galei Tzahal radio interview. "They won't be able to get anything without us."

The statement may strike some as ironic given that the PA did "get something" in return for nothing on at least two recent notable occasions, and in both instances it was with, and not without, Israel.

During the peace talks that the PA torpedoed in April Israel released 78 Arab terrorists, many of them murderers, as a "gesture" for the talks receiving nothing in return - Ya'alon himself voted for the releases. The release of terrorists in return for the mere "right" to talk is a first for Israel.

Likewise the government has been instituting a covert building freeze on Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem for many long months amid a severe housing crisis - there too, Ya'alon has said he "understands" the move, and under his position has allowed discriminative practices against Jews in the region. The freeze without a formal demand or reason to do so is also a first.

In the interview on Monday, Ya'alon expressed his support for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, saying "there are things that aren't seen and aren't obvious which brought quiet on the borders. What is needed of us is stable and responsible leadership."

"This is apparently the spin season," Ya'alon said of reports that Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant was being a secured a spot on Likud, rumors which Galant himself denied. "We aren't dividing up the bear's fur before we hunt the bear. What's between me and the prime minister stays between me and the prime minister and all the rest is spin."

Regarding spin, Ya'alon has taken pains to debunk rumors that Netanyahu promised his post of defense minister to Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett as a reward for forming a coalition government in the coming elections.