Former defence minister warns Israel on path of ‘ethnic cleansing’

A former defence minister who served under Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Israel of trying to implement "ethnic cleansing" in the northern Gaza Strip.

Moshe Ya’alon told Israel's Channel 12 that Israel was no longer the world's most moral army and that its evacuation of Palestinians in areas of Gaza amounted to an attempt at ethnic cleansing.

“I don’t say anymore [that the IDF is] the most moral army in the world,” precisely because of “the interference of politicians, who are corrupting the army,” Ya’alon said. “It’s not the most moral army today, and it’s hard for me to say that.”

Ya'alon is a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and Israel's Defense Minister under Netanyahu from 2013 until his resignation on 20 May 2016.

In subsequent interviews Ya'alon, stuck by his assessment and said there was “no other word for it” but ethnic cleansing, given that government lawmakers speak about how “the Strip will be cleansed of Arabs”.

When it is put to him that one of the definitions of ethnic cleansing is “mass murder as a means of diluting the population of a specific group in a specific area,” Ya’alon said, “I’m not talking about mass murder” but rather about “a different definition… evacuating a population from its homes, destroying their homes — that’s what’s happening in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya”.

Ya’alon said it is “not the IDF” he is charging with carrying out ethnic cleansing, but “the politicians,” notably those on the far right of the coalition, who he says are instructing the IDF to “carry out what are defined as war crimes” and ordering it to “evacuate the population for [ostensible] operational activities,” but are acting out of ulterior motives such as the desire to revive Jewish settlement in the strip.

He warned IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi to “pay attention” to what is happening around him, when given orders to evacuate the population of large swathes of the Gaza Strip.

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Netanyahu’s ex-defense minister Ya’alon says IDF ‘not most moral army in the world,’ stands by accusation of ‘ethnic cleansing’ (Times of Israel)