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Jerusalem — Israeli environment minister Avi Gabbay announced his resignation yesterday, saying the appointment of a hardline nationalist as defence minister had created an “extremist government”.

Gabbay said that he was “unable to swallow” PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to take the defence portfolio from former general Moshe Yaalon and hand it to Avigdor Lieberman, who has pledged harsh measures against Palestinian “terrorists”.

Yaalon resigned from the government a week ago in protest, warning of a rising tide of extremism in the party and the country as a whole.

“I couldn’t accept the removal of Yaalon, a professional defence minister,” Gabbay said.

“The country has the right to have a rightwing government,” he added. “But I don’t think it is right to form an extremist government.

“Recent political events and the changing of the defence minister are to me grave events which ignore what is important to state security and will cause further extremism in society.”

Gabbay, of the centre-right Kulanu party, is not a member of parliament and his resignation does not affect the ruling rightwing coalition’s majority.

Co-opting Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party will add five lawmakers to Netanyahu’s previously wafer-thin majority if the coalition deal is given parliamentary approval next week as expected.

The US has said that the new coalition raises “legitimate questions” about the Netanyahu government’s commitment to a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner, in a rare comment on Israeli internal politics, said on Wednesday that Washington had “seen reports from Israel describing it as the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history”. — AFP