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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’

December 2, 2024

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Moshe Ya’alon tells Channel 12 that he will not apologize for his comments accusing Israel of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in the northern Gaza Strip, and counters the oft-repeated statement that the IDF is “the most moral army in the world.”

In the sit-down interview, Ya’alon says, “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.”

“It’s not the most moral army today,” he repeats. “And it’s hard for me to say that.”

Then which army is? he is asked. “Leave that aside. What difference does it make? I’m not making comparisons,” he replies.

Doubling down on his comments from the previous evening, he says he believes his assessment to be “accurate,” and that there is “no other word for it” but ethnic cleansing, given that government lawmakers speak about how “the Strip will be cleansed of Arabs.”

Asked whether he wants to take back his use of the phrase, given that it is “extremely harsh,” Ya’alon reiterates that he spoke the way he did “on purpose, to sound the alarm.”

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 says, “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.”

The interviewer charges that the use of the phrase ethnic cleansing will lead people to associate the IDF with “what happened in Germany in the 1930s,” to which Ya’alon replies that 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 warns 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.

Asked if he thinks the arrest warrant put out by the International Criminal Court for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was justified, Ya’alon says simply that he will “let them judge.”

“I think that, morally, some bad things have happened here from our point of view,” he says.

He suggests that the ICC has a list of other officials, both from the defense establishment and the political echelon, who will be investigated at a later date for war crimes, and says that if it were up to him, far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir would have been arrested “some time ago” already.

Presented with a clip of a statement he issued in 2003 when serving as IDF chief of staff, in which he said that the IDF does not “harm innocent people,” Ya’alon says he stands by what he said at the time, to which the interviewer asks if “something has changed” since that 21-year-old clip.

“Do you not live in this country?” Ya’alon retorts. “Do you not hear Ben Gvir encouraging [people] to kill?”

Challenged that Israel’s enemies are now using Ya’alon statements to back up their own accusations against Israel, the former defense minister says, “First of all, let’s take care of ourselves and make sure we don’t do these things” before worrying about what other people say. “That’s what’s more important.”