Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered Democrat Party Chairman Yair Golan barred from entering IDF bases and instructed the IDF not to call Golan up to serve in reserve duty.
“In light of Yair Golan’s behavior when he spun a blood libel against IDF soldiers with the reckless and false accusation that they ‘kill Palestinian babies as a hobby’ – I have decided to instruct the IDF not to call up Yair Golan for reserve duty any longer and to prohibit him from wearing the IDF uniform and entering IDF bases,” Kaatz said.
During an interview on Tuesday with Kan Reshet Bet radio, Golan stated, “A sane country doesn’t kill babies as a hobby. Israel is on its way to being a pariah, a South Africa once was, if it doesn’t return to sanity.”
“A sane country doesn’t fight a war against civilians, it doesn’t aim to expel a population,” Golan continued. “This government is full of people who have no connection to Judaism. Vengeful types, lacking sense, morals, and the ability to manage a country during an emergency. This endangers our very existence.”
Katz slammed Golan’s statements.
“Israel’s enemies will use Golan’s serious remarks to continue persecuting IDF soldiers around the world and petitioning international courts and tribunals against them in order to arrest them and deprive them of their freedom, and it is not possible for me, as the Minister of Defense, responsible for the safety of IDF soldiers, to put them on the agenda.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu also criticized Golan’s statements.
“I strongly condemn Yair Golan’s wild incitement against our heroic soldiers and against the State of Israel,” he said. “Golan, who encourages evasion of military service, and previously compared Israel to the Nazis when he was in uniform, has now reached a new low. There is no limit to his moral degradation.”
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett added his own condemnation, stating that “whoever compared the Israeli society in the past to the Nazi regime, and now tarnishes and denies the State of Israel and the IDF during wartime – must be excluded from public life.”
Former defense minister Yoav Gallant said, “The question is not how a major general became a harmful factor to the IDF, but how a harmful person to the IDF became a major general.”
Golan is a reserve major general in the IDF. During his military service, he served, among other roles, as the IDF Deputy Chief of Staff, Commander of the Home Front Command, and Commander of the Northern Command.
Despite massive public criticism, Golan stood by his statements, maintaining that his criticism targets the government’s policies and not the military.
The Democrats Party, the brainchild of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, was formed last year when the far-left Meretz and Labor parties, once the major political entities in Israeli politics, merged after falling into near non-existence.
