Ya’alon flies to daughter's wedding in IAF helicopter

Sources in Ya'alon's bureau say entire flight cost 6,000 shekels.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
An IDF helicopter in the Negev (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
An IDF helicopter in the Negev
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon chose an unusual way to get to his daughter’s wedding last week, it was revealed on Wednesday.
The freshly appointed minister had spent most of the day at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, in intensive operational and security meetings. In order to make it on time to his daughter’s big day, he flew by helicopter to the wedding venue, located in the Arava region of southern Israel near Eilat.
The helicopter trip allowed Ya’alon to continue to tend to urgent security matters well into the day, his bureau said.
Channel 2 cited unnamed defense sources as saying that the helicopter ride was an expensive scandal, adding that the trip cost around NIS 100,000. The chopper flew an hour-and-a-half flight each way, and waited near the venue, the sources said.
Ya’alon’s bureau said that “instead of spending the day of the wedding with his family,” he had been busy with important security meetings. “To avoid lateness, it was decided, out of lack of choice, that the defense minister would arrive at the event by helicopter,” the bureau added.
Earlier this week, Ya’alon expressed his opposition to the cutting of the defense and research budgets, saying, “I believed over the year, and I still believe, that the research and development budgets should not be touched.”
Responding to the anonymous allegations, Ya'alon’s bureau said the entire flight cost six thousand shekels.