(JTA) — Israel’s environmental protection minister resigned, citing the recent dismissal of former defense minister Moshe Yaalon and disagreements on policy with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Avi Gabai, a member of the center-right Kulanu party, announced his resignation on Friday, a week after Yaalon resigned following Netanyahu’s decision to replace him as defense minister with Avigdor Liberman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party in the framework of coalition negotiations between that movement and Netanyahu’s Likud party. Yaalon was offered to become foreign minister.

During a press conference in Tel Aviv, Gabai said he “found it difficult” to be part of Netanyahu’s government for several reasons, including how it “continued the process begun by its predecessor, and totally upset the relationship with the world’s most important power – the one safeguarding our security interests,” he said in reference to the United States.

Netanyahu has been widely criticized for actions that were seen as having escalated disagreements between Israel’s government and the Obama Administration regarding a deal reached last year between Iran and six world power, including the United States, that lifts some sanctions from Iran in exchange for steps designed to scale back the Iranian nuclear program.

“I found it difficult to see the growing division in our people over the past year and the assault on our army, which is the last public institution enjoying widespread public trust,” Gabai added, according to Maariv. The resignation by Yaalon, who cited “growing extremism” as his reason for quitting, was “something I could not swallow,” Gabai said.

Yaalon’s resignation followed an open disagreement between him and Netanyahu on whether Israel Defense Forces officers are allowed to express themselves publicly on military and non-military issues. It surfaced after Netanyahu condemned the statements of Deputy Chief-of-Staff Yair Golan, who on May 5 said Israeli society was witnessing processes reminiscent of those visible in Nazi Germany. Yaalon encouraged IDF officers to continue to speak their minds after Netanyahu condemned Golan’s remarks.

In his resignation speech, Gabai also said the government was behaving irresponsibly and “in an amateurish manner” in pushing through a program that offers gas drilling to commercial enterprises for the extraction of large deposits of natural gas discovered in recent years off Israel’s shores.

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