Netanyahu fires Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on day of US elections
FM Israel Katz has been offered the defense minister role • Gideon Sa’ar offered to join government as new foreign minister
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday evening that he was removing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant from his position and replacing him with Israel Katz, citing a “crisis of trust” that “gradually deepened.”
The move is a stunning shift after the prime minister nearly made a similar move in September but made an about-turn. United Right Chairman MK Gideon Sa’ar, who joined the coalition in late September as a Minister-without-portfolio, will replace Katz as Foreign Minister.
Netanyahu made the announcement in a video statement on Tuesday evening.
“My supreme commitment as Prime Minister of Israel is to safeguard Israel’s security and lead us to an absolute victory,” he began.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, there needs to be full trust between the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister.”
“Unfortunately, although in the first few months of the campaign there was such trust and very fruitful work, over the last few months, this trust has cracked between myself and the Defense Minister,” Netanyahu said.
“Significant gaps have emerged between myself and Gallant in the management of the campaign, and these gaps have been accompanied by statements and actions that contradict the government’s decisions and the decisions of the Cabinet.
“I made many attempts to bridge these gaps, but they widened. They also reached the public in an unacceptable way, and worse, they reached the enemy – our enemies took satisfaction from this and derived a lot of benefit from it,” Netanyahu said.
The announcement came just hours after a crisis with the United Torah Judaism party deepened over the prime minister’s decision to backtrack on a bill that would incentivize haredi yeshiva students to avoid IDF service.
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Netanyahu Fires Yoav Gallant – Video:
