Moshe Ya'alon
Moshe Ya'alonCouncil for Peace and Security

Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Thursday criticized some of the ministers of the Israeli government.

Speaking at a conference of the Council for Peace and Security in Herzliya, Ya'alon said, “We did the right thing by not taking a stance on Syria. When our Housing Minister [Yoav Galant] came out and said that Assad should be eliminated, I am sure that the Prime Minister let him have it.”

Ya'alon also blasted current Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman for publicly calling in the past to topple Hamas's rule in Gaza.

"When someone comes and says, 'Let's destroy Hamas'...so let's say we destroyed Hamas. What do we do next?” he said.

"When someone comes and says, 'Let's embark on a preemptive strike against the tunnels' and then attacks, would the Arab countries give Israel 50 days to bring Hamas down on its knees? And when they would have fired at us in response, because we attacked first, what would we say? Why does that minister not launch a preemptive strike? Because a security policy is not made up from likes on Facebook,” continued Ya'alon, without naming Liberman.

Ya'alon also spoke about the Arab-Israeli conflict and predicted that no peace agreement will be reached in the foreseeable future.

“As such,” he continued, “the Palestinians should be allowed some kind of political independence. The Palestinians have decided to separate into two entities, Gaza and Judea and Samaria. [Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud] Abbas does not want to take responsibility for Gaza, so he also fled the negotiations we had with him in April 2014 and therefore he continues to fund terrorists.”

"I supported Oslo, I sanctify human life more than land," Ya'alon acknowledged, before adding, “But then I was appointed head of Military Intelligence and I discovered that the Oslo agreement is like Swiss cheese with more holes than cheese, because as far as the Palestinian leadership is concerned, even the 1967 borders and dividing Jerusalem is not the end the conflict. They want the 1948 borders."