3 years after entering politics, we need to talk about Yair Golan

He failed in the run for the Meretz presidency and his place in the next Knesset is not guaranteed, but it is still important to ask how a brutal, hateful, belligerent and frivolous person like Yair Golan came so close to the position of Chief of Staff

Kalman Libeskind

08/27/2022

Saturday, August 27, 2022, 8:15 p.m. Updated: 8:19 p.m.

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Voting in the primary elections in March.

Yair Golan (Photo: Flash 90, Avshalom Sashoni)

This column was written, almost entirely, before the primary elections in March, and their results have no relevance to what you will read here.

Whether Yair Golan would finish the internal elections as the leader of the Left Party, or whether he would not be able to enter the next Knesset from the fifth place he came, three years after he burst into our lives, the Yair Golan phenomenon is something we must take into account.

Why is it so important to deal with this man, someone will ask.

After all, we had different and different politicians in the Knesset before him, and there will be after him as well.

We had smarter and less politicians, more kind and less, there were polite and there were quarrelsome, there were those who were pleasant to hear them justify an opinion, and those who you could never understand if they had one.

More in Walla!

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He ran a "filthy, uninhibited and chauvinistic campaign" against her.

Zehava Galon (Photo: Reuven Castro)

So what is the difference between all these and Yair Golan?

That Yair Golan should not be looked at as a politician, but as someone who, under a different set of circumstances, could have ended his tenure as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces in a few months. From this place, and only from this place, we need to delve into this event in the framework of which a man came, whose characteristic is verbal violence The most striking thing about him, and it's all bluntness and ranting and spilled anger and indiscretion, to be the second most important in our military hierarchy.

"Yair Golan got confused and forgot that Zahava Galon is not the enemy, but an important politician, a respected and experienced idealist," Shelly Yachimovich wrote on Twitter a few days ago. "The campaign he is running against her is filthy, uninhibited and chauvinistic," she added. But that's exactly the point.

If anyone thinks that violent people use violence only in certain weather and only against a certain opponent, the March primaries came and taught him a few things about life.

Because it seems that in Golan's view there is no difference between the Palestinian he used against him in the yes procedure, Amit Segal who tweets against him on Twitter, and Zehava Galon, his party member.

All three, as Golan's radar detects, are enemies, and from this moment on all that is needed is to aim at them and shoot.

Harsh tweets

Let's start with his language.

Golan's operating formula - just like that child who shouts "poop-peep", in order to attract the attention of the adults - is simple.

Never say in fair words, what you can say in inflammatory and brutal language, and even then, you'd better think twice before sending your text out into the world, lest it be sharpened and exaggerated a little more.

One of the most prominent examples of the use of this formula occurred when the fledgling politician Golan, not long before a very senior officer in the IDF, stood at night near Benny Gantz's house, the microphone in his hand, and all of a sudden he was broadcasting a quick search for the hardest thing he could say now about Yoaz Handel And about Zvika Hauser, before he launched: "Two miserable traitors, political opportunists of the easiest kind". Try to imagine such a situation with Gantz, with Eisenkot or with Gabi Ashkenazi, and tell me if you succeed.

Go to Golan's Twitter account, and you will hardly find any neutral tweets, ones that don't contain hatred or dirt or profanity towards anyone.

You will find there a congratulation on Anastasia Gorbenko's gold medal, and a condolence for the passing of A.B.

Joshua, but not much more than that.

With the former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Golan cannot simply argue, or explain that he is wrong or causing damage.

Netanyahu, Aliba Degolan, is a "malignant disease", "the chief instigator from Caesarea", "the dark hedonist from Belfort", "the serial liar who wants to drag Israel, along with Ben Gabir and his gang, into the abyss of corruption and messianic nationalism".

Likud, Netanyahu's party, is not just a party with which Golan has a disagreement.

Likud is a "lying, corrupt and inciting body... an anti-Zionist party that harms the children of all of us", "people who are not concerned with the welfare of Israel but with destruction and cultivating hatred".

This party's list for the Knesset, in Golan's words, is "full of criminals filled with hatred for the law enforcement system", and is therefore "terrible and terrible news for the State of Israel".

no less.

And in general, Eliba Degolan, all the Likudniks want is to run the State of Israel like a "mafia organization."

That's right.

Even in everything related to bibists, Golan cannot be content with reasoned criticism.

To explain his opinion, it is easier for him to state that they are "determined to burn down the house, destroy the Israeli human fabric, and murder solidarity."

Do not harm solidarity.

Do not injure her lightly to moderately.

"murder".

Try to imagine Eisenkot calling Handel and Hauser "two wretched traitors."

The former Chief of Staff with Golan, May 11, 2017 (photo: IDF spokesperson)

From Yair Golan's point of view, there is no right wing in Israel.

The entire right is "extreme right", "messianic", "dangerous", and "nationalist".

"The Messianic extreme right and the populist-bibist right," he reasonedly explained, "have no respect for Israel's laws. They have no respect for the state, its institutions, its elected government, its legislature, its symbols, or its servants."

On another occasion he explained that this right is nothing but a group of "vile rioters" that uses "unbearable violence".

Once again, I diagnosed that what remains of the Israeli right is "bibists motivated by blind admiration or pure opportunism, and extreme and messianic nationalists."

"The Messianic Right," he wrote, "does an election campaign that is based entirely on violence, racism and criminality."

Simcha Rothman, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, all of them are "bloodsuckers" according to him.

Orit Struck, who supported the Yeshiva in Chomash, did it, if you ask Golan,

I will emphasize again, Yair Golan is not the most belligerent and inconsiderate politician who starred here.

There were and still are, on the right and on the left, religious and secular, Arabs and Jews.

None of them came that close to the position of Chief of Staff. Take the Yair Golan you know today, put him in Aviv Kochavi's chair, it doesn't matter if you are on the left or the right, and tell me if you manage to fall asleep with that at night.

Unbaked statements

He, Golan, has a serious problem with comparisons and images, and no, I don't just mean that process speech, when he looked at Israeli society and remembered that Germany.

He recently published a video, which accompanied his campaign for the leadership of Meretz.

The video opens with stories of what he did for Israel's security.

"This scar," he shows his arm, "is from a terrorist's bullet in Jebel Sujod."

"So what do you think", he continues and asks, "that Amit Segal and Itamar Ben Gvir scare me"?

And you look at this man, and try to understand.

A faculty member shot you?

Is Itamar Ben Gvir your enemy?

The journalist from News 12 and the terrorist from Lebanon are on the same level with you just because they both faced you?

On Holocaust Day last year - yes, Holocaust Day again - Golan tweeted: "In the face of evil, one must not remain silent. This is my lesson from Holocaust Day. Every time the representatives of the racist and dark party 'Religious Zionism' come up to speak in the Knesset, I will leave the plenary. It is not possible that we, who have suffered persecution Throughout hundreds of years, we will persecute others. 'Or to the Gentiles and a Masterpiece Society' - this will not happen as long as Smotrich and Ben Gvir are in our public life."

Nehhad: The Nazis burned us in gas chambers and murdered six million Jews, and what the former Deputy Chief of Staff learned from this is that you should leave the hall with Smotrich's speech. Or in his own words: "This is my lesson from the day of the Holocaust." And if we're talking about a little judgment Lakoi, it's worth going back to the same conversation he had in front of schoolchildren in Nesher, when one of the children, Raz Shmo, proposed to adopt a policy with the Palestinians of "They will make trouble - we will give them a head, they will sit quietly - they will be treated well." "I am telling you a simple thing". Golan replied in front of the boy's stunned friends: "Raz is dangerous for Israel's security."

Want another example of crooked judgment, and especially a childish perception of what a state is and what its role is?

Well, Yair Golan likes to snitch on Smotrich, who served short service in the IDF, and Simcha Rothman, who was a religious NCO.

It's true that it's a little funny when your list includes Arabs who have contributed nothing to the country, neither in military service nor in civilian service, and when at the top of your list is a man whose military service was in the IDF, but these are still legitimate comments.

A few days ago, he went along with this line a few Steps too far, when he explained on the IDF airwaves to Doria Lampel and Audi Segal what he thought of the Israeli presence at Yosef's Tomb, and clarified that "it's a crazy hallucination, I've been there many, many times, it's disturbing. Just to think that IDF soldiers can be killed to secure ultra-Orthodox groups who don't even serve in the army." Leave aside the fact that Joseph's Tomb is a Jewish site, and also the fact that the Oslo Accords recognized this. Let's concentrate on Golan's shallowness of thought and basic lack of understanding,

A Jewish site, also according to Oslo.

Joseph's Tomb (photo: official website, Samaria Regional Council)

Let's ignore the false claim, and assume - just for the sake of the discussion - that really all those who enter Joseph's Tomb are not serving in the IDF. In what world is the permit to enter this or that site, or the state's obligation to secure such and such citizens, dependent on their showing prior approval of service in the IDF?

And perhaps, according to this approach, the Commissioner of Police will announce that he is removing his men from the Arab settlements, because he is not willing to endanger them in order to provide them with security, as long as they are not serving in the army? And in general, why stop there? Why not completely remove the military security from the city The ultra-Orthodox in Beitar Illit? How many people there served in the IDF?

With a hand on the heart, is it possible not to be alarmed by the thought that such a person, with such a worldview, was a member of the General Staff Forum?

Well, you say, maybe it was an unintentional spew.

So that's it, no.

Because this is not the first time that Golan believed that there are citizens here, usually those who do not belong to his political camp, that it is not appropriate to provide them with basic services.

During the Corona days, he tweeted that "if there are Hasidic groups that do not obey the laws of the state, maybe the state should stop providing them with certain services such as health care during the Corona days."

In other words, if the Rebbe allows Torah Talmuds to be left open, then it is worth considering preventing medical treatments from his Hassidic children. If the babies of a Beit Raban chose such a Rebbe, let them pay the health care price.

Golan took a shower of chills on this tweet, and hastened to delete it, a matter that has become a ritual for him.

The man's frivolity, and the speed with which he spews out ill-conceived statements, have repeatedly led him to remove tweets he sent without thought.

He once wrote about Ofir Akunis whose head is inside "Netanyahu's buttock", and in view of the criticism he deleted the tweet and re-uploaded it when the buttock became a "modest place".

On another occasion, he tweeted that "50% of the morbidity in the education system originates in the ultra-orthodox society, and another 15% is from the north of the country - a word washed for the Arab society", and as soon as he remembered that, unlike the ultra-Orthodox, Arabs are people his party needs, he quickly deleted and published a new one, this time without the Arabs.

And here is another deleted tweet.

This happened during the gathering of the International Holocaust Forum, when dozens of state leaders arrived in Israel in a rare event, including four kings, the presidents of Germany, France and Russia, the vice president of the United States, and more. The traffic on the roads was, naturally, great, and what was most important for Golan to tweet on This one, the one that "the citizen is trampled on, no one counts him."

Everything is stuck.

There is no hope in traffic.

How symbolic.

Tomorrow we will restore hope." When the criticism was not long in coming, this tweet was also removed.

Support from the Bedouins

Golan had to apologize not only for hasty childish tweets, but also for a multitude of statements.

"The Israeli police in Amona did not resort to excessive violence," said the one who was the commander of the operation at the time, "... I am proud that Aryeh Eldad was beaten."

Let alone the fact that in view of the videos and in view of a series of court rulings, it is embarrassing to claim that the police acted in Amona properly.

Also leave the fact that to say that you are proud of the fact that policemen beat a member of the Knesset, is really the bottom of the barrel.

But how the hell, a person who lives in peace with police violence, serves in a party where human rights are high on the platform?

After all, it is something that cannot be invented.

And we still haven't reached his definition of the residents of Chomash as "sub-human", a definition he also came back from later when he said it was "unsuccessful".

So yes, one can look favorably on someone who is ready to apologize and retract when he stumbles, but someone who has to retract so many times should ask himself if everything is fine with him,

Be that as it may, shortly after he called the residents of Chumash "subhumans", and claimed that they were criminals and violent, Golan arrived at a meeting with the Bedouins in the Negev.

It was a moment after the Bedouins went on a violent protest following the planting of the KKL-Junk, rioted

, and threw stones at innocent citizens, harming innocents, burning cars, and placing rocks on the railroad tracks.

Less problem with crime and lawlessness.

"The detainees - they should be released," he called to the applause of his hosts, promising to help them.

This week, by the way, the Bedouins thanked him for this support, at the ballot box.

And just as upholding the law is a matter subject to discretion, as far as the Golan is concerned, so are the decisions of the High Court of Justice. You must admit that it is quite funny to identify the one who recently called the IDF an "occupation army" with the one who not long ago proudly explained how he violated five times the The High Court ruling that prohibited the use of Palestinians as part of the "neighboring procedure".

A few weeks ago, Golan traveled with a Channel 13 team to Yitzhar, and walked around the town like a provocateur who came to annoy the locals, hoping that they would oppose him in front of the camera.

It's not something that no one has done before, but then again, when you look at the man who is looking for young people in the beach at midday who are the potential for a good fight, you recognize everything there except an IDF champion with judgment. "That's politics," he later explained to Tamar Ish Shalom, as if There was a 13-year-old version of Itamar Ben Gvir. "Sometimes you have to provoke, and sometimes provocation works out for you... and it serves the purpose."

At a demonstration against crime in the Arab sector in Umm El Fahm, March 5, 2021 (Photo: official website, Niv Aharonson)

More than once it seemed that Golan is a member of a group that is convinced that she built the country by herself, alone, with her ten fingers, before all kinds of strangers came and stepped on her carpet in the living room without asking permission.

After Amit Segal mentioned his process speech, Golan replied to him on Twitter: "Me and my friends, the ones who really built this country, and the ones who are really fighting for it and building it even today, we will not allow Christians like you to take over the agenda."

When I read the things, I wondered, to myself, how Yair Golan catalogs people like my father, who was one of the leaders of the Golani Brigade, and plowed the land of this country long before Golan was born.

I also wondered, in view of his many statements, what he thought of religious young men when they served under his command?

Are they messianic?

that they should not be allowed to take over the agenda?

That they didn't really build this country and fight for it like him?

After all, these people, whom he talks about as if they were Satan - the people of the right and the religious Zionists and the settlers, the ones he defines as "dangerous" and "nationalists" and "Messianics" and what not - fought with him until yesterday shoulder to shoulder.

They were his commanders, and his subordinates.

They risked their lives by his side, and he risked his life by theirs.

When they talked about the value of evil, they meant him, and he - I hope - them.

Could it be that what he is thinking about them today, he was also thinking about them when they were carrying the stretcher with him?

I want to believe not.

I am willing to bet that Golan recognized that verbal violence and hatred bring votes, and from the moment he entered politics, he chose to adopt them as a way of life.

I know people who served with him.

They speak in his praise.

They tell of a brave warrior.

on a patriot.

About a commander who is a personal example.

The fact that in all these years - during which Yair Golan climbed up the ranks, almost to the end of the pyramid - no one in the IDF recognized the second Yair Golan, the violent, the hater, the quarrelsome, the rude, the light-hearted, who is there all the time and threatens to break out when needed - She is the one who bothers me the most.

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