After ‘ethnic cleansing’ charge, ex-defense chief Ya’alon says IDF ‘not most moral army’

Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Sunday that he will not apologize for his comments accusing Israel of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in the northern Gaza Strip, and countered the oft-repeated statement that the Israel Defense Forces is “the most moral army in the world.”

In a sit-down interview with Channel 12 news, Ya’alon said: “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 repeated. “And it’s difficult for me to say that.”

Ya’alon, who served as a lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and as defense minister under him, resigned in 2016, citing deep distrust in Netanyahu’s leadership, and has since become a staunch critic of the premier.

Again doubling down on his comments from the previous evening — after also doing so in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster earlier in the day — he said he believed his assessment to be “accurate,” and that there is “no other word for it” but ethnic cleansing, given that government ministers speak about how “the Strip will be cleansed of Arabs.”

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

When it was 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.”

The interviewer charged that the use of the phrase ethnic cleansing would lead people to associate the IDF with “what happened in Germany in the 1930s,” to which Ya’alon replied that it is “not the IDF” he is charging with carrying out ethnic cleansing but “the politicians.”

He claimed that these were most notably coalition members from the far right, who he said 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 allegedly given orders to evacuate the population of large swathes of the Gaza Strip.

Asked if he thought the arrest warrant put out by the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu was justified, Ya’alon said simply that he would “let them judge.”

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

He suggested 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 said that if it were up to him, far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir would have been arrested “some time ago” already.

Smotrich, he charged in the earlier interview with Kan, “has no moral qualms about starving two million Gazans to death.”

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 told Channel 12 that he stands by what he said at the time, to which the interviewer asked if “something has changed” since that 21-year-old clip.

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

Challenged that Israel’s enemies were now using Ya’alon statements to back up their own accusations against Israel, the former defense minister said, “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.”

Israel has repeatedly denied claims of ethnic cleansing, saying its intensive operations in northern Gaza in recent weeks are an operational response to Hamas’s efforts to regroup. At the same time, far-right politicians have made no secret of their desire to see Gaza at least partly depopulated and Israeli settlements rebuilt. Smotrich said last week that half the Gazan populace could be “encouraged” to leave within two years.

After Ya’alon first made the accusation of ethnic cleansing in an interview with Democrat TV on Saturday, recently fired defense minister Yoav Gallant accused him of “helping our enemies harm the country.”

Moshe Ya’alon Former Chief of Staff of the Israel???????? Defense Forces admits that what Israel is doing in North Gaza is “Ethnic Cleansing. pic.twitter.com/cYNZCh0bKL

— ???????????????????????????? (@Malcolm_Pal9) November 30, 2024

Speaking earlier Sunday with Kan, Gallant demanded that Ya’alon apologize for his remarks and added that IDF soldiers uphold the highest standards possible in the “complex and difficult war that was forced upon us.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also criticized Ya’alon’s remarks, writing on X: “The irresponsible comments of former minister Moshe Ya’alon are incorrect and slander Israel without a basis. I call on him to retract his comments.”

Netanyahu’s Likud party responded in a statement that Ya’alon “long ago lost direction and his [moral] compass, and his defamatory remarks and lies are a prize for the International Criminal Court and the Israel-hating camp.”

In October, Israel ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of Gaza, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south, and allegedly blocked humanitarian aid for weeks before allowing it back in, under pressure from the US and others.

Some critics have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war and refusing to strike a deal with Hamas for a ceasefire and a release of the hostages abducted by terrorists during the October 7 massacre last year, at least in part due to pressure from such politicians, who have threatened to bolt the government if a deal were reached to end the war.

According to the United Nations, 1.9 million Palestinians were displaced throughout Gaza as of October 2024. Before the start of the war on October 7, 2023, the official population figure for the territory was 2.4 million inhabitants.

The vast majority of the Gazan population is residing in the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone, located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, the western neighborhoods of Khan Younis and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against Hamas.

Israel launched its military operation after Hamas-led terrorists massacred around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern communities and took 251 hostages to Gaza on October 7, 2023.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 44,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.