Will Ya'alon leave Likud?
With the Likud veering toward the radical right, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon might be tempted to leave in favor of a moderate-right party.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon had been part and parcel of the historic Labor movement: He was born in the “Red” (Labor bastion) Kiryat Haim suburb, was a cadet in the HaNoar HaOved VeHalomed Labor Zionist youth movement and afterward joined a kibbutz. Only at a relatively late stage, after he was appointed head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Military Intelligence, did Ya’alon undergo an ideological reversal. He changed his outlook, took a turn to the right and joined the Likud after he retired from the IDF in 2005.
Ya’alon’s journey from the hub of the historic Mapai Party (mother party of Israeli Labor) to the Likud center was described in an Al-Monitor article in August 2014. The question now is whether this journey has played itself out and whether Ya’alon is now planning to make his way back.
