Former defense chief Ya’alon announces new political party
Hawkish former Likud member, who left after he was ousted from ministry by Netanyahu, promises his electoral slate ‘won’t have any shenanigans’
Former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon announced Tuesday that he’s forming a new political party and will run in April’s elections.
“I’ve made a promise and I’ve kept it,” said Ya’alon in a video posted to his Facebook page. He said he’ll head the party and will soon unveil its slate of candidates.
“This party won’t have any shenanigans,” he said.
Ya’alon, a hawkish former IDF chief of staff and former Likud member, has vowed to challenge Netanyahu since he was ousted from the Defense Ministry in 2016 by the prime minister, to be replaced by Avigdor Liberman. He quit the ruling Likud party and the Knesset shortly thereafter, and has since frequently criticized Netanyahu and indicated he will return to politics to run against him.
Ya’alon has in the past cited Israel’s economic and social woes, including racism and sexism, as issues he would seek to address in a leadership position.
In November, former prime minister Ehud Barak reportedly met with opposition leader Tzipi Livni and Ya’alon at his Tel Aviv home amid speculation over the possibility of a political unification move for the country’s center-left camp. Barak and Livni met in the morning, while Ya’alon arrived at Barak’s home in the afternoon, Channel 10 news reported at the time.
Retired IDF Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch, a former candidate to be Israel’s police commissioner, is set to be one of Ya’alon’s key candidates on his party’s electoral list, Kan news reported Tuesday.
Hirsch was nominated for the position of police commissioner by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan in August 2015, but shortly after his nomination was announced, media reports surfaced saying that the FBI and Israel Police had been conducting a two-year undercover corruption investigation into businesses linked to him.
Hirsch’s nomination was revoked a month later by Erdan after then-attorney general Yehuda Weinstein said that he could not be legally appointed until the conclusion of the investigation against him, a process that Weinstein said at the time could take months.
In October, state prosecutors closed an investigation into how Hirsch gained a contract to clear mines from Rishon Lezion beach for the company Defensive Shield, owned jointly by him and others. Prosecutors said they had found no evidence of wrongdoing in the case.
The coalition party chiefs announced Monday in a joint statement that they would dissolve parliament and hold elections April 9, several months before the scheduled November 2019 date.
Barak on Monday said he may return to political life if a center-left political bloc were formed to challenge Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.
