Yaalon Next "Israeli" War Minister: Iran, Hizbullah Top of Concerns

Local Editor

"Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose Sunday Moshe Yaalon, an ex-general and vice premier from his right-wing Likud party, to be the Zionist entity's next war minister.

Yaalon, 62, spent the past four years in Netanyahu's inner circle of ministers, routinely boosting the right-wing prime minister and his strategic outlook. He was widely seen as Netanyahu's first choice for the position.
Yaalon is best known for sharing the prime minister's hostility towards Palestinians.

In a 2002 interview to Haaretz newspaper, Yaalon said of the second Intifada that the "Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it's necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy."

In January, Yaalon spoke out against the creation of a Palestinian state. He has also come out as a strong supporter of settlements in the West Bank.
Officials say that he has been more cautious than Netanyahu about a possible war between "Israel" and Iran, without excluding the possibility altogether.

"Yaalon is hawkish about the Palestinians like Netanyahu, but he is cautious on Iran," said Amotz Asa-El, fellow at the so-called "Israeli" Hartman Institute, who has followed the incoming war minister's military and political career.
The government official said Yaalon was appointed to the post by Netanyahu, who was assigning cabinet positions two days after agreements were signed to form a new coalition government, which is expected to take office on Monday.
Yaalon will replace Ehud Barak, who headed the Labor Party in the outgoing coalition and ran the "Israeli" war Ministry for the past seven years. Barak was not a candidate in a January 22 election.

Yaalon led "Israeli" commandos in the 1988 assassination in Tunis of Fatah founder Abu Jihad. As general, he favored tough tactics against Palestinians revolting in the West Bank and Gaza - putting him in the sights of war-crimes lawsuits abroad.
He served as "Israeli" armed forces chief from 2002 until 2005, when his term was not extended after he opposed "Israel's" withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that year.
According to "Israeli" media, the new war minister provided the "Israelis" with a glimpse of his priorities on Sunday, when he used a Facebook post to list the war issues he will soon be tackling.

First on the list was, naturally, the Iranian nuclear program, which Yaalon claimed "threatens "Israel", the Middle East, and global security as a whole."
Secondly, Yaalon made reference to the Middle East instability.
Hizbullah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are threats that cannot be separated from the regional instability. "Hizbullah, armed with over 60,000 rockets and well trained guerrillas, remains the most formidable enemy in "Israel's" immediate area," he mentioned.

The last issue mentioned by Yaalon is the "Israeli" - Palestinian issue. Yaalon's position on this issue is well known - he holds that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is not a viable peace partner at this time.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org