Unite the Left, topple Netanyahu's government: Yair Golan's two goals - interview

On the morning of October 7, after receiving a call from his sister that Hamas terrorists had begun to invade towns near the Gaza border, Maj.-Gen. (res.) and former Meretz MK Yair Golan launched a heroic one-man rescue mission and drove in and out of the battle zones, rescuing a number of survivors.

Reflecting back on that fateful day, however, Golan remembers one feeling in particular: rage.

“I remember the moment,” Golan said in an interview at an office space he works out of in Tel Aviv. “I was west of Route 232 [near the Gaza border], and when I came back on the road with the third rescued person, I saw a car with a young Israeli woman’s dead body spilling out of it. The feeling that came up was terrible rage, terrible anger.

“Anger not just that we were disgraced as a state; and not just that the army that I care so much about, and served in for 38 years, was disgraced. Mostly terrible anger that I know how much we brought this onto ourselves.

“I am not angry at Hamas. Hamas hates us and is a murderous enemy, I did not expect anything else. I am angry at ourselves. How did we let a corrupt government crumble us from within? How did we let this happen? Why did we only set out on Saturday nights to protest [against the government’s judicial reforms]? Why? Why did we not have the courage, the fortitude, the determination, to bring down the government before the war?”

The rage is still there, and has led Golan to take action in order to bring about what he believes is Israel’s No. 1 goal at the moment: to bring down the government.

GOLAN, 61, joined the IDF in 1980, served as OC Northern Command and OC Home Front Command, and as deputy chief of staff.

He joined politics ahead of the September 2019 election, as part of the Israel Democratic Party led by Ehud Barak, and later joined Meretz. He served as deputy economy minister in the Lapid-Bennett government. Ahead of the most recent national election, in November 2022, Golan faced off against Zehava Gal-On for the leadership of Meretz, but lost.

His tenure as Knesset member ended after the party failed to pass the electoral threshold and did not enter the Knesset.

Golan did not stay out of the public limelight for long, and in 2023 became a leading figure in the opposition to the government’s judicial reforms.

Throughout his military career Golan was known as a courageous field commander, but also as an independent-minded individual who spoke his mind and at times even disobeyed orders he believed to be mistaken.

As deputy chief of staff, he famously said, in a speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day, in 2016, that there were processes in Israeli society that bore traces of Germany in the 1930s. The statement drew widespread criticism, and Golan has argued that it also blocked his ascendancy to IDF chief of staff two years later.

While admitting that he should not have made the statement, Golan has reiterated that he believes what he said to be true – and that Israel’s current government, which includes two far-right parties, is further proof.

Yair Golan's rage

HIS AFOREMENTIONED rage is most obvious when talking about these far-right parties, and especially about a conference they held in January at the Jerusalem International Convention Center where they sang, danced, and called for the Jewish resettlement of Gaza.

“I look at the broad circles of bereaved families, families of hostages, families of the wounded... with severed limbs and intestines spilling out – their lives will never be the same. These broadening circles include hundreds of thousands of people, and you dance on their blood? On their suffering? On the disaster that happened to them? Have you lost your minds?!

“We must rehabilitate Israeli solidarity not around a messianic group or a corrupt group, but around the values of the Declaration of Independence – a state that is honest, liberal, democratic, free; that respects the humanity of every person, and calls on Israeli-Arab civilians to participate in building the land,” Golan said.

“That was written in a document [the Declaration of Independence] when five armies were threatening to invade Israel, in perhaps its hardest hour ever, harder than October 7. But there were then serious leaders who were capable of writing enlightened words in such a hard reality. I think for us, too, today that is the challenge, to see the light at the end of tunnel and talk about the light and not the darkness,” Golan said.

He made these remarks closer to the end of the interview. Earlier, he laid out his plan for how he intends to bring about the end of the current government, and what the next government must do differently.

Golan announced this week that he would compete for the head of the Labor Party. But he said the only reason he will do so is to eventually unite the left-wing camp behind one banner. He intends to bring together the Labor Party, Meretz, groups that oppose the government’s judicial reforms, and anyone else who believes, as he does, that the government must go.

Golan explained that there are three ways for the government to fall: a criminal conviction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; a political move that would include a number of Likud Knesset members turning on Netanyahu and bringing forward a new government; or a series of mass protests that are so large that the government will have no choice but to step down.

A criminal conviction will not happen soon, and nearly five months into the war, politicians aren’t close to bringing down the government. The only option left, therefore, is for Israeli civilians to hit the streets en masse.

“The current Saturday nights are not enough. The country must be shut down, with a half million people in the streets... telling the prime minister to go home now. Not just because he failed on October 7, which made the failure on October 6, 1973 [at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war], look small, but also for Israel’s future,” Golan said.

“In order for there to be an exit strategy [to the war against Hamas], for there to be achievable goals, for there to be a diplomatic initiative, the government must be replaced.

“In order to replace the government, we cannot wait until 2026 [the next scheduled election]. This must happen tomorrow morning.

“There is no political entity today that is fighting for this. I intend to form the political entity that will fight and struggle for this, and do everything necessary to bring elections now,” Golan said.

“I used to say this to my soldiers: Fear is not a work plan. We must stop fearing. The working, manufacturing public – the public that sees the State of Israel as a national home for the Jewish people, as a state that is free, democratic, and egalitarian – must stop fearing. It must make its voice heard, and must struggle for its right to set the future of the State of Israel.”

Many politicians on the Right are quoting left-wing voters who say that October 7 had made them “awaken” from the illusion of the possibility for peace. But, according to Golan, there were other “awakenings” as well – such as an awakening from the illusion of what he calls “identity politics,” where left-wing views, for example, are considered treasonous.

“The coalition today is made up of people who are corrupt, extreme nationalists, and religious fundamentalists. You do not build a state this way. There were many countries in the 20th century that were ruined for these reasons.

“Therefore, the state must be rebuilt on opposite values – honesty and fairness, democratic, liberal moderacy. 

“And, yes, there needs to be an integration between the population groups, and not build an identity politics that only creates growing schisms between the parts of the people.

“This unification will come from a struggle for our values and principles. The Declaration of Independence is a foundational document, and there must be a fight to implement it. That is the message in my eyes,” Golan said.

He brushed aside the counterargument that an election in wartime could weaken the military effort.

“In December ’73 there were elections in the State of Israel, two months after the outbreak of the terrible Yom Kippur War. The IDF was still entrenched in the enclave on the Golan Heights, more than it is entrenched now, and continued to fight for months.

“Why are we not going to an election? What else needs to happen in the State of Israel to understand that we must have elections now? This is a government that enjoys complete illegitimacy – the polls show this. How are all of the citizens of Israel not going out now and saying that the government is illegitimate, and must go home immediately, [and calling for] elections now? The law demands three months, so in three months. Let’s go!” he exclaimed.

“We need elections as soon as possible. This is what the people must demand, and this demand must have brave, energetic, and large political representation,” he said.

Israel's goals for war on Hamas are 'unachievable'

PART OF the current lack of leadership lies in the fact that the goals for the war against Hamas are unachievable, Golan argued. He laid out a four-point plan.

“First, there need to be realistic goals. You cannot completely defeat Hamas and release all of the hostages. There needs to be a deal with Hamas, and therefore Hamas will probably not be destroyed. Let us be realistic and true to ourselves.

“I also do not think that this is the No. 1 goal. The No. 1 goal is, first and foremost, to free the hostages. If we do not free the hostages, Israeli society will collapse from within. This will be an unacceptable, insufferable demonstration of lack of solidarity.

“I say to you unequivocally: I will never see Smotrich as my brother again, if he and the public he represents say that the lives of the kibbutznik in the Gaza border area do not interest us,” Golan said.

“If we want to maintain solidarity in the Israeli public, the hostages must be released as the first goal,” Golan said.

Presuming Hamas survives the war, the second step is isolation of the Gaza-Egypt border, Golan argued. Some trustworthy international force must oversee the border so as to prevent Hamas from building up its strength via smuggling arms across that border. The best-case scenario would be if the US had forces involved in this, and Golan proposed, as an example, broadening the mandate of the Multinational Force & Observers, a task force in Sinai with significant US presence.

The third step, according to Golan, is to maintain freedom of operation in Gaza and continue to erode Hamas and other terrorist organizations’ power.

Finally, Israel must focus on building a different government in Gaza. According to Golan, Israel has a distinct interest to bring the Palestinian Authority to Gaza. He admits that the PA is flawed, but said that there is a window of opportunity to force the PA to reform in order to take control over Gaza.

“A prime minister today should have built the international coalition, the regional coalition, and see the situation in Gaza as an opportunity to build the base for an improved PA. Not everything is in our hands, but a situation of crisis opens new opportunities,” Golan said.

“A responsible prime minister would ask, ‘What are the new opportunities that I have, [and] who are the entities that I can work with most effectively?’ You must be realistic. Israel will not get exactly what it wants, but that is the meaning of statecraft, the ability to sift through different options and say what the best is for us, and be an active, constructive force in building the new civil and diplomatic reality in the Gaza Strip,” Golan said.

This brings him back to the current government.

“What shocks me about this government is that instead of seeing this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen Israel’s international status, instead of positioning Israel as a central axis in setting the arrangement between us and the Palestinians that will project regional stability, instead of taking all the countries in the region and building a strong front against Iran and its proxies in the region,” Israel is squandering its “fantastic” opportunities “because of the settler messianic fantasy” of returning to Gush Katif.

“This is completely crazy. And as long as we do not get rid of a prime minister who depends on these people, who are messianic and dangerous, we will not be able to rehabilitate the State of Israel,” he said.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “There are only two options – annexation or separation. This was a decision that Israeli leaders faced on November 29, 1947.... Separation, from my perspective, means saving the State of Israel and the ability for it to exist as the national home for all of the Jewish people, including in its Diaspora, which is mostly democratic and liberal, while at the same time keeping it a free, egalitarian, and democratic country.

“Reject separation and adopt the idea of annexation, and what we will receive here is a messianic dictatorship,” Golan said.

He also laid out his view of what Israel must do in order to have haredi men join the IDF, a pressing issue that is necessary in order to replenish the ranks of IDF fighters without forcing longer service on the standing army and on reservists. He argued that instead of trying to find a compromise with the haredi politicians, an approach that has not worked for nearly 25 years, the government should launch a campaign directly targeting haredi youth and calling on them to join.

Golan said that on October 7 he saw the haredi volunteers of the ZAKA rescue and recovery organization and of other organizations, and argued that the young haredi generation was eager to become part of the military or civil wartime effort. The problem was the haredi politicians, who he said wanted to “continue raising the walls between the haredi and Israeli public.

“It is clear that the future of the State of Israel depends on lowering these walls, integration of these publics, strengthening solidarity, and strengthening mutual responsibility,” Golan said.

He conceded, however, that no one will draft haredim by force, and argued that the government must therefore invest and work in order to convince the youth directly.

This, too, is something the Netanyahu government cannot currently do, due to its dependence on the haredi parties. Golan’s conclusion is thus the same one that he began with – the government must go.

Golan concluded with the admission that as long as the National Unity Party remains in the government, it will be hard to convince the public of his arguments, since the public assumes that if two former IDF chiefs of staff, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, are choosing to remain in government, then the government can be trusted.

Golan argued that while he “understood” and even “identified” with Gantz’s decision to enter the government at the beginning of the war, it is clear that National Unity has not had serious influence on strategic decisions, including the hostage negotiations, a diplomatic agreement for the day after the war, and even the national budget or decisions to approve more settlement building.

Golan said that he speaks often to Gantz and tells him that “national responsibility does not just enable, it requires elections as soon as possible.”