Ya'alon Says Iran Came Out Ahead, Warns Israel Is Sliding Toward Apartheid

Former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon said on Sunday that Iran emerged stronger from the current round of fighting with Israel and the United States. In an interview with ynet, he said the side most eager for a deal is Donald Trump, while Iran, in his words, survived attacks from two powerful armies and may now conclude that it should race for a nuclear bomb, like North Korea.

Ya'alon was referring to the reported outlines of a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran, which he said appear vague on Iran's nuclear future and likely sidestep ballistic missiles and the continued role of Iranian proxies in the Middle East. He called the last year's two campaigns, With the Strength of a Lion and Rising Lion, a very bad failure. Israel used force effectively, he said, but had no political endgame, and the focus on political survival distorted strategy. He also argued that Israel should have finished the Lebanon file in October 2024, when the Biden administration and Emmanuel Macron were urging talks and Beirut wanted an arrangement, but instead the government avoided it because Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich want to conquer Lebanon up to the Litani River and resettle Jews there.

On the West Bank, Ya'alon described widespread settler violence against Palestinians and accused the government of encouraging Jewish extremists to drive Arabs from their land through abuse and shootings. He said more than 20 Palestinians have been killed, no one has been arrested, and that police are not acting because Ben Gvir ordered the Samaria and Judea District not to operate. He also said the Shin Bet's Jewish Division is paralyzed. Recounting incidents in the southern Hebron Hills and in the village of Beita, he said he is ashamed of what members of his own people are doing and that it is being done under government direction.

Ya'alon said the ideology he objects to is Jewish supremacy, which he linked to Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Ginsburg, calling it, "80 years after the Holocaust, Mein Kampf in reverse." He said he does not believe an immediate Palestinian state is possible, but a separation in the West Bank is essential. He warned that without a settlement with the Palestinians, Israel will become an apartheid state or a binational state. Politically, he said he favors a future alliance led by Naftali Bennett, with Gadi Eisenkot as a senior minister, together with Yair Lapid and even Mansour Abbas, rather than figures like Smotrich and Ben Gvir.