Channel 2’s grizzled and gray-haired military correspondent Roni Daniel does not have the reputation of a bleeding-heart liberal. In Israel’s all-too frequent times of war, when he is not embedded with the troops out in the field, the former IDF officer, who was wounded in the Six Day War, is often to be found in the studio defending the army’s strategies and actions — including against more dovish, critical voices among his own TV colleagues. Nobody would claim that he seeks to minimize the enemy threat to Israel’s well-being. Few would question his patriotism.

And then came Friday night.

In the midst of the evening broadcast, during a discussion on that day’s resignation of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and his imminent replacement by Avigdor Liberman, Daniel asked if his fellow panelists would keep quiet for a minute because there was something he wanted to say. He then declared, entirely unbidden, that he was “no longer sure” that he wanted his children to continue to live in Israel, because, he said, the “culture of government” was now so distasteful. He also reeled off a list of right-wing Knesset members to whom he took particular exception.

Jaws dropped around the studio. One of Daniel’s colleagues, Amnon Abromowitz, attempted to make light of the declaration, saying flippantly, “Before Roni leaves the studio and his children leave the country…” But Daniel was emphatically not in flippant mood. He banged his fist on the table, and protested that Abromowitz was not taking him seriously.

Read the full article at Times of Israel.