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Shaul Mofaz Slams Decision By Netanyahu on Gas Masks

Former Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz slams Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu: "It was a mistake not to provide gas masks to the entire population."
Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz, head of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's largest coalition partner Kadima, attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem July 8, 2012. Netanyahu gave the green light on Sunday to reforms that would end blanket military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, in an about-face only hours after 20,000 Israelis marched for change. REUTERS/Uriel Sinai/Pool (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR34Q84
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On the eve of the likely strike on Syria, former defense minister and current Knesset member Shaul Mofaz lashed out at the decision which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu espoused about three years ago to distribute gas masks to only 60% of the population. As chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Mofaz struggled to change that decision. In light of the recent run on the gas mask distribution centers, the pandemonium and the long lines, he said that the mistake should be rectified as soon as possible if only to increase peoples' sense of personal security.

The stocks cannot be replenished before the expected strike on Syria, because it would take months to complete an order for several hundred thousand gas masks. Yet in an interview to Al-Monitor, Mofaz estimated that the probability that Syria will attack Israel is low. He also supported the American decision to deal a military blow in order to prevent the dangerous precedent of using weapons of mass destruction.

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