Danny Danon, Far Right Wing Deputy Minister, Fired by Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday fired a deputy defense minister after he publicly criticized government decisions during Israel’s week-long battle with Islamist militants in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from right-wing members of his coalition government to broaden the military offensive against the ruling Hamas in Gaza, including calls to send in ground troops.
Danny Danon, a young member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, on Tuesday attacked a decision to accept an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire, saying: “Once again Hamas is setting the tone for this operation. We must retake the initiative and correct the mistake made in this morning’s cabinet meeting.”
Hamas did not accept the ceasefire terms, and the fighting has continued.
Officials said Danon had long been sidelined by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. He had been given his position in what political analysts said was a bid to mollify party rivals.
In May, after Danon wrote an article critical of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel’s ambassador to Washington took the unusual step of putting out a statement saying Danon’s views “do not reflect the views of the Government of Israel”.
Netanyahu said he fired Danon because his comments showed a “great degree of irresponsibility” at the height of a military campaign.
“In light of these declarations that express a lack of confidence in the government and its leader, personally … I have decided to remove him from his post,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office.
Following his removal, Danon again criticized Netanyahu, writing on Facebook that the Israeli leader had been taking a weak line diplomatically over the past year.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO