Yair Golan, chairman of the Democrats party, a hybrid of the Labor and Meretz parties, on Tuesday morning told Reshet Bet radio that “Israel is on the path to becoming an apartheid state, like the South Africa of the past, unless it returns to being a rational, democratic nation.”
And then, in an effort to define what might be a rational, democratic nation, Golan explained: “A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set itself the goal of expelling a population.”
He added, “What’s happening is utterly shocking. It is inconceivable that we, the Jewish people—who have endured centuries of persecution, pogroms, and even genocide, and who have long stood as a symbol of moral responsibility both in human and Jewish terms—should now be the ones engaging in actions that are fundamentally unacceptable.”
Golan sharply criticized the government, accusing it of being “filled with individuals who have no connection to true Jewish values—Kahanist elements, lacking both intelligence and moral compass, utterly unfit to lead a nation in crisis. This poses a grave threat to our very survival. It is therefore imperative to replace this government without delay, so that we can bring this war to a close.”
Nine years ago, in May 2016, when he was still serving as IDF Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, speaking at a commemoration of the Holocaust, said he sees in today’s Israel evidence of events that took place in Europe before the Holocaust. The ceremony, at the Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak, included dignitaries like Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi), who was visibly unhappy with what the man who could someday lead the Jewish Army thought about his subordinates.
Needless to say, that analysis disqualified Golan, the child of Holocaust survivors, from ever commanding the IDF.
The Golan statement goes to show that being the child of a Holocaust survivor does not automatically qualify one to be able to make convincing analogies between the state-organized, industrialized slaughter of six million Jews and what amounts to 150 years of a difficult relationship between neighbors in Israel. The comparison, inaugurated by the late professor of chemistry and ingenious commentator on Jewish law and Jewish history, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who coined the term Judonazis, has been rejected with contempt by many Israelis, most notably the late Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin, whom Golan and his Democrats have set out to succeed in the next elections.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday morning fired back:
“I strongly condemn Yair Golan’s wild incitement against our heroic soldiers and against the State of Israel. The IDF is the most moral army in the world, and our soldiers are fighting in a campaign for our very existence.
“Golan, who encourages refusal to serve, and previously compared Israel to the Nazis while he was still in uniform, reached a new low when he claimed that Israel ‘is killing babies as a hobby.’
“While we are waging a multi-front war and are leading complex diplomatic efforts to free our hostages and defeat Hamas, Golan and his friends on the radical Left are echoing the most contemptible antisemitic blood libels against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel.
“There is no limit to the moral rot.”
I suspect this isn’t so much a matter of moral outrage as it is a calculated strategy by Yair Golan to siphon off voters from Benny Gantz’s National Union and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. And if tarnishing Israel’s reputation is the price for boosting his political standing, it seems he’s more than willing to pay it.
