Supporting Labor Party's new controversial leader Yair Golan - opinion

I was one of 31,351 registered Labor Party voters who last Tuesday participated in the primaries for the new party chairperson. The voting was very quick and efficient since it took place with our smart phones. Over 95% of us voted for former deputy chief of staff, and former MK (in the 22th, 23rd, and 24th Knessets, on behalf of Ehud Barak’s Democratic Israel, and then Meretz,) Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yair Golan.

On the surface, Golan was a strange choice. Until recently, he was not a member of the Labor Party, though as a youth he was a member of the Labor youth movement, Hano’ar Ha’oved Vehalomed. Before the recent Labor primaries, he even announced that should he win, he plans to change the party’s name to “The Democrats.”

That is not necessarily what will finally be set as the party’s name after Golan will bring about a union between the Labor Party and Meretz (which failed to pass the qualifying threshold in the elections to the 25th Knesset in November 2022,) and various groups from among the Kaplan demonstrators.

I would not define Golan as a social democrat, but rather as a liberal democrat, though on the rare occasions when he says something about economics or social issues, the positions he expresses are not extreme laissez-faire positions, but rather social justice and mixed economy positions.

I do not believe that the Israeli Left can emerge from the deep political crisis it has been in for quite a while through the reinvention of the Labor Party and Meretz as separate parties. Yet Golan appears to have the charisma necessary to attract larger crowds than any of the recent Labor and Meretz leaders have been able to do. Therefore, Golan is not a strange choice but rather the only logical choice. 

Opinion polls show that under Golan, Labor would get eight to nine Knesset seats, even before the union with Meretz has been realized, and before serious negotiations have begun with groups from the anti-government and pro-democratic protest movement to join the party. This is an optimistic overture.

Speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day

THE FIRST time Yair Golan caught my attention was during his speech as deputy chief of staff in May 2016, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, when he said:

“The Holocaust must lead us to thoughts about our public lives ... If there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is the identification of horrifying processes that occurred in Europe in general and in Germany in particular, 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of their existence among us in 2016.” 

Golan, whose father made aliyah from Nazi Germany in 1935, was falsely accused of having compared the IDF in his speech to the Nazis. In fact, though he did mention the IDF, his speech was about Israeli society in general. 

“The Holocaust in my eyes, must lead us to deep thoughts about the nature of man... about the responsibility of leadership, and about the quality of our society.

“There is nothing easier and simpler than to hate the foreigner; there is nothing easier and simpler than to cause fear and fright; there is nothing easier and simpler than to behave in a bestial and morally corrupt manner, and to act sanctimoniously,” he said.

“On Holocaust Remembrance Day it is worthy to speak of our ability to uproot from our midst buds of intolerance, buds of violence, buds of self-destruction through moral deterioration. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we feel a sense of solidarity and remember the six million of our people who were slaughtered on European soil. We must remember them, and another half a million (survivors) who live here, and ask ourselves what the purpose of our return to our homeland is, what should be sanctified and what should not, what should be praised and what should not, and especially, how we should realize our designation as a light to the gentiles and a model society.”

Not everything that Golan says is as carefully thought out, and morally sound as these words, which he delivered eight years ago. Last Wednesday, Channel 14 broadcast a recording in which Golan speaks to a group of his supporters before the Tuesday primaries about civil disobedience as a means of bringing down the government, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nervous about civil disobedience. 

When asked what such disobedience includes, he inter alia, mentioned “Not doing reserve duty, until the government is changed.”

He also mentioned other forms of disobedience, including not paying taxes and not cooperating with government authorities. Channel 14, and numerous right-wingers, immediately attacked Golan for his hypocrisy and even treason, and called for his removal from the Labor Party leadership.

I admit that Golan’s statement makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. While refusal to do reserve duty may be justified under certain conditions (for example, if a particular operation for which the reservist has been called up is controversial or illegal under international law,) in general, reserve duty for those who have completed regular military service is mandatory. 

The whole issue of civil disobedience is rather delicate and should be advocated with care. No doubt, especially since Golan is now the leader of a party that might receive a two-digit number of MKs, he ought to be more careful what he says.

at the same time, those who attack Golan and call for his removal say nothing about leaders of some of the current coalition members who call for haredi men to refuse to serve in the IDF. They refuse to reach an agreement, which is acceptable to all sections of the population, regarding  military service for those haredim who are not prodigies, or full-time yeshiva students. 

Nor do they speak out against those who call for the reconquest of the Gaza Strip, the removal of its Palestinian population, and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements there, contrary to the official government policy and international law. 

What about those in the coalition who wish to deny Israel’s Arab population of funds that they have been allocated in the budget for their welfare and development, and the Palestinian Authority of the tax money that the Israeli authorities collect on the PA’s behalf by law in Israel?

BESIDES GOLAN’S 2016 speech, I, and many others here, were greatly impressed by the fact that on the morning of October 7, Golan, who is 62 years old, and retired from his military service in 2017, put on his uniform, drove to the IDF’s District Home Front Command to register and arm himself, and then proceeded in his private car to the area of the Supernova music festival, where he saved numerous participants from the massacre by Hamas terrorists. Accusing such a man of treason is absurd. 

I have high hopes that as leader of a united Left, Golan will garner sufficient influence on Israel’s political future to make a difference – hopefully even as a senior minister in Israel’s next government.

However, what really matters is whether a more liberal, less populist, and less corrupt right-wing party will manage to replace the Likud – a party that will prefer center and left-wing partners to extreme right, theocratic ones.

The writer worked in the Knesset for many years as a researcher, and has published extensively both journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members – A Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Routledge.