Moshe Ya'alon at Cabinet meeting
Moshe Ya'alon at Cabinet meetingEmil Salman/POOL

A senior Likud official on Thursday afternoon spoke about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to give Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon's (Likud) portfolio to MK Avigdor Liberman, as part of bringing his Yisrael Beytenu party into the coalition.

The official sharply criticized Ya'alon, saying that his recent conduct has harmed the Likud party.

"He thinks that he's above us all and that we're here to do his dirty work," said the official. "He acts independently. Ya'alon forgot that he is Defense Minister thanks to the coalition and thanks to his comrades in Likud. He cannot work alone without cooperating with us."

The criticism would seem at least partially to relate to Ya'alon's recent faceoff against Netanyahu, when the Defense Minister supported IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan who compared Israel to Nazi Germany at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, and told IDF officers to give their personal opinions regardless of whether they countered the policy of the political echelon.

According to the official, "Ya'alon has done damage that harmed Likud and its coalition partners. There are fires that can be put out - the fires that he lit were difficult (to extinguish)."

In addition the official spoke about the bad relations between Ya'alon and his deputy, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan (Jewish Home), as well as Ya'alon's decision not to honor the coalition agreement between Likud and Jewish Home regarding Ben-Dahan's authorities.

"What maliciousness (lit. bad-heartedness - ed.). How badly can you act? Ben-Dahan is a man of action, how bad do you have to be in order to try and harm him? 'Boogie' (Ya'alon) is not a man of his word and he cannot honor agreements," said the official.

Ya'alon responded for the first time to his imminent replacement on Thursday, when he struck out at Netanyahu for losing his "moral compass," without referencing the Prime Minister by name.