Knesset to hold urgent meeting on Galant

Foreign Affairs, Defense Committee to hold a closed-door session.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Galant 248.88 (photo credit: IDF [file])
Galant 248.88
(photo credit: IDF [file])
After days of relative silence from politicians on the so-called “Galant Document,” powerful Kadima MKs began to take action late last week, as more and more reports emerged from the police investigation into the paper. In a rare step, the Knesset will hold an urgent meeting Sunday, despite the two-week-long consolidated recess, during which the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will hold a closed-door session to discuss the implications of the matter.
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi (Kadima) turned to Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) Wednesday, a day after Israel Radio revealed reports that IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi had been questioned regarding the document, and allegedly knew about it months before its existence was leaked to the press.
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Hanegbi invited Rivlin to join the meeting in order to help determine ways that the Knesset could assist in reducing the current level of tension among top members of the security echelon. The scandal involving the document, which police reportedly believed was forged, has brought to the forefront conflicts within the highest ranks, including exceptionally poor relations between Ashkenazi and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as well as between Ashkenazi and OC Southern Command Gen. Yoav Galant.
On the same day, Kadima Faction chairman and former Knesset speaker MK Dalia Itzik (Kadima) wrote a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calling on him to take action regarding the scandal.
“The prime minister must call a meeting of the General Staff and reiterate to all those who need to hear it that personal rivalries and ego games cannot be allowed to hurt the IDF, the only remaining body which all of Israeli society can rally around,” wrote Itzik.