Israel/Palestine

It should have been clear to any intelligent person who listened to the interview with Yair Golan, the chairman of the Democrats party, on Kan Bet radio last Tuesday – in which he said that "a sane country doesn't wage war against civilians, doesn't kill children as a hobby and doesn't set itself the goal of expelling the population" – that his statements were aimed at the country's current leadership, not Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

Indeed, our first Kahanist government is deliberately and maliciously waging war against civilians in the Gaza Strip, including killing tens of thousands of children, to feed its base's hunger for vengeance. Similarly, it indeed seeks to expel Gaza's civilian population, or at least to push it into southern Gaza, so that it can renew its messianic settlement enterprise there. And all this is being done at the expense of the hostages' lives.

To achieve these criminal goals, our first Kahanist government is using the IDF. Via Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir – who looks and sounds like a decent man, but is demonstrating blind loyalty to the government no matter how criminal it is – it has ordered IDF soldiers and pilots to conduct operations whose declared goal is to end Hamas' rule and protect Israel's security, but whose real goal is to finish "redeeming the land." And the road to that goal is strewn with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It's important to stress that not only do the government's Kahanist goals contribute nothing to a military victory over Hamas, but they actually do the opposite. Ensuring that Kahanism and messianism gain ground in Gaza would actually require the permanent existence of active jihadist elements in the territory to provide the ultimate justification for the continuation of the Jewish jihad.

In other words, IDF soldiers are currently mired in the quagmire of an obscene, suicidal war in which insult has been added to injury. The indiscriminate killing of civilians and their expulsion is being carried out with a cynical efforts to achieving another Kahanist goal – leaving the fragments of our "asset," Hamas, in power, apparently confined to a limited area of southern Gaza.

Yet when Yair Golan got up and publicly revealed the meaning of the genocidal Kahanist vision espoused by the leaders of our current government of Jewish jihad, those leaders immediately seized on "IDF soldiers" as a human shield against Golan's criticism in a transparent effort to depict this criticism as an attack on the army.

There are deep-seated reasons why both the governing coalition and the "opposition" rushed to pin a false libel on Golan and describe him as someone who had cast doubt on the army's moral motives. After all, the root of Golan's strength among the public these days lies in the fact that he is someone who lives the Israeli security experience in his very bones.

Golan, who displayed admirable heroism on October 7, 2023 when he donned his uniform and headed south to save civilians from the massacre, doesn't hide his love for the IDF. As a result, he is even occasionally accused of "militarism" by parts of the left.

Given this, both the right and the center see Golan as a genuine electoral threat. Consequently, they would undoubtedly be happy to "strip him of his rank," as Justice Minister Yariv Levin – a vile man who isn't ashamed to comment on security issues despite his indirect but clear responsibility for the bloodbath of October 7 – so contemptibly urged.

Golan therefore did well to convene a press conference and refute the libel. And he would be wise to continue correctly pointing out the atrocities of our first Kahanist government while constantly reiterating what ought to be self-evident but, in the post-truth era, apparently needs to be explained over and over – it's not the IDF, but this evil government that bears exclusive responsibility for the policy of making war on civilians, killing children and expelling Gaza's population.

Will this affair damage Golan and his Democrats party? In the long run, Golan might even benefit from it. Nobody can strip him of his security authenticity (including our current incompetent embodiment of security, Defense Minister Israel Katz, who pathetically "ordered" the IDF not to call Golan up for reserve duty and forbade him to enter army bases or wear his uniform). But the more Golan makes clear the extent of the moral and security destruction wrought by the government's Kahanist policy, the greater his chances of winning the trust of a broader segment of Israelis.

Source : Haaretz

Link : https://archive.md/TVdzW#selection-1119.0-1123.261