From ‘Moral bankruptcy’: Lapid slams plot to oust Defense Minister Gallant
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Opposition leader Yair Lapid slams efforts to oust Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in favor of New Hope chief Gideon Sa’ar, calling out the leaders of the Knesset for their “moral bankruptcy.”
“Politics has become the country’s biggest problem,” Lapid declares at the Social Justice for the Rehabilitation of Israel conference.
If Shas leader “Aryeh Deri is capable, in the middle of a war, to try to replace a defense minister, to remove an experienced security professional like Yoav Gallant, and replace him with a defense minister who has no experience in the field, this means that our politics has lost its sanity,” he states.
“The fact that Deri and [United Torah Judaism leader Yitzchak] Goldknopf imagine that they can replace a defense minister during a war that their constituents are avoiding, while we already have ten thousand wounded and seven hundred dead, just so that Gideon Sa’ar will help them pass an evasion law, is moral bankruptcy. This is a complete breach of trust.”
Sa’ar has denied reports that he is in touch with Haredi leaders to find a compromise on the enlistment issue.
Talks to bring him into the government appear to have been put on hold during the recent escalation in the north.
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