The unbendable Defense Minister
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is caught in a bit of a political bind: While he isn’t leftist, he’s also an outsider in many right-wingers’ eyes.
In politics generally, and in Israeli politics particularly, one must sleep with their eyes open. Any time you fall asleep at the wheel, every blink of an eye, any momentary lack of attention, could cause a maelstrom for a politician, who couldn't even imagine one word, and certainly not one order or decision, bringing political disaster on them and the State of Israel. There are too many enemies lying in wait for the politician's every slip.
This is what Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon learned firsthand this week. He ordered that two buildings in Hebron, occupied by Jewish residents who claimed they legally bought the houses, were to be evacuated - igniting a firestorm of scathing criticism. It's safe to assume that next time he will be that much more careful. So, what, he is a spitting distance away from the most important job in the country, the prime minister’s, and now he's going to fall?
To Ya'alon's credit it should be said that he will continue slipping, a little bit at a time, until he eventually falls into the hands of those seeking to end his political career. That's the kind of man he is. He's the kind of man we used to describe as someone "with a stick up his butt." He's not a manipulator or a hustler, not a schemer or a trickster. The prime minister gave an instruction, the Supreme Court gave a ruling, Ya’alon himself made a decision and he’s going to follow it through. A direct order’s been issued, and he got used to following orders during his IDF years.
Defense Minister Ya'alon. An outsider. (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
There’s no need to feel sorry for him: The years he’s already spent in politics have taught him something about the habits of settlers, Judea and Samaria, and more. He’s no longer a small boy, but he doesn’t understand the lower levels of politics. His government is the world champion at making statements that can’t be backed up. “If you said it – you did it” used to be a way Foreign Ministry workers described the place’s atmosphere. Ya’alon probably understands now that he should have settled for a few warnings, threats, some harsh words. Why call in the IDF? Doesn’t he remember that “a Jew does not evict a Jew” (a popular slogan used by settlers opposing the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza. -ed)?
And that’s the thing: Ya’alon is an outsider in the Likud party. The fact that he is preceded by men and women for whom Jabotinsky is merely the name of a street and Beitar is just a soccer team. The man was an instructor in a HaNo'ar HaOved Vehalomed (an Israeli youth movement. -ed) branch in one of the northern Krayot (five small cities in Israel’s north, founded in the 1930s), a Red Haifa man – and a kibbutz member to boot. I’ll put my hand in the fire if he turns out to know even one line of the Beitar vow song, but he’s exactly the example described in said song’s line that reads, “In a day of service I am like a bar of copper.” He’s a copper bar, for better or worse. An old-school Mapai kind of man.
Yasser Arafat. Ya'alon saw him as a liar and crook. (Photo: AFP)
Ya’alon sees the Oslo accords as the root of all evil. As head of IDF intelligence at the time, he saw the avalanche of information regarding the Palestinians’ hatred for the Jews of Israel. He thinks Arafat was the source of defilement, a liar and crook who deceived Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. He’s convinced that incitement and wild Palestinian hatred are what’s causing knife-wielding children to stab Jews, and he seems to only believe in long-term processes involving the Palestinians; processes that involve managing the conflict rather than ending it.
But Ya’alon’s problems now aren’t limited to just the Palestinians. He has problems with the Jews as well. They don’t see him as the Hno’ar Haoved guy who hasn’t memorized the lord’s highest orders and doesn’t know or understand the words “to your descendants I give this land.” He’s far from being a man after their own hearts – and the worst thing is it seems as if he doesn’t care. He doesn’t bend, and not just because he’d have to bend quite far.
