On three separate occasions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed settler darling Danny Danon to senior positions, despite his personal disdain for the man and all the headaches and embarrassments that Danon has caused him. Danon has been attacking Netanyahu since 2007, when he ran against him for the Likud leadership under the campaign slogan, “Danny Danon is to your right, Bibi.”
After the 2013 elections, Netanyahu appointed Danon, then a relatively young Knesset member but one with a considerable Likud power base, to be his deputy minister of defense. Though Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon excluded him from ministerial activity, Danon wasn’t bothered. He simply used the time to continue building his power base among the Likud’s hard right flank. Before and during Operation Protective Edge, Danon went from one TV station to the next, claiming that the prime minister was controlled by the left and that his policy was too slack. Netanyahu fired him on July 15, but the fanfare that accompanied his dismissal played right into Danon’s hands and actually scored him points on the right.