Jewish State and Nazi Germany: IDF deputy chief of staff sparks controversy in Israel
Speaking for Holocaust Remembrance Day, General Golan talks about trends in Israeli society similar to what happened in Germany. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the general’s remarks “outrageous”. Some call for his resignation. However, for experts, his words are a sign of split between Israel’s military and civilian leadership.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – The controversy sparked by IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan on 4 May, eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), does not show any sign of abating.
Speaking at a ceremony at the Massuah Institute for Holocaust Studies, Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak, General Golan said that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of the "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s, in Nazi Germany. Although his words were part of a broader speech, they sparked anger among Israeli politicians.
In what appears to be a warning to his fellow Israelis, the general noted, “There is nothing easier than to hate those who are different; there is nothing easier than to sow fear and terror; there is nothing easier than to behave like animals, conform and be self-righteous.”
The Holocaust, he noted, “must make us think deeply about the responsibility of leadership, the quality of society, and it must lead us to fundamental thinking about how we, here and now, treat the stranger, the orphan and the widow, and all who are like them.”
What frightens him “is identifying the revolting trends that occurred in Europe as a whole, and in Germany in particular, some 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of those trends here, among us, in 2016.”
Israel’s rightwing reacted angrily to Golan’s remarks, calling for his resignation. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu denounced the speech as “outrageous” and “unfounded”, saying that the general "cheapened" the Holocaust, when 6 million European Jews were slaughtered by the German Nazis and their accomplices.
For his part, Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev said, "It cannot be that the deputy chief of staff, a uniform-wearing officer, be a part of the delegitimisation against Israel”.
However, Defence Minister Yaalon said the criticism was an attempt to cause political harm to the military. "The attacks against [Gen Golan] and the current criticism against him are deliberate distortions of interpretation of the things he said last night," the minister said.
This controversy comes at a time of high tensions between Israel and Palestine. In Israel, a soldier is on trial for killing a wounded and helpless Palestinian attacker.
This is compounded by Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes, Palestinians burnt alive and Israelis attacked and killed by knife-wielding Palestinians.
The death toll from recent violence sparked by rightwing Jews trying to pray on Jerusalem’s Esplanade of the Mosque, i.e. Temple Mount, includes 220 Palestinians and 29 Israelis.
General Golan’s statement has also sparked a debate in Israeli media as to whether he is “brave” or “stupid”. Or both. However, few believe that he said what he said without realising its impact.
For a Haaretz columnist, “the deputy chief of staff was not winging it but reading from a prepared text”. In fact, Golan’s is “the latest and most eye-popping in a string of critiques voiced by the heads of Israel’s security forces against the country’s current political leadership and the direction in which it’s leading Israel.” indeed, “There was no gaffe,” the columnist writes, but a warning.
Golan “wants Israel and Israelis to recognize how their place as Jews in the world has changed. They are still beset by enemies. But they are also a powerful nation that can affect its own circumstances and those of others around them by the decisions they make. They must stop thinking of themselves only as victims and begin to understand themselves also as actors.”
“Why are Israel’s generals being so noisy? Quite simple. In their near-unanimous professional estimation,” they see “Israel facing an opportunity now, given the current Palestinian leadership, the weakness of the neighbouring Arab states and the openness of the Saudi-led Arab League, to make deals that can secure Israel’s future. Instead they see a political leadership that’s letting the opportunities slip by for ideological reasons.”
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