As expected, Yair Golan was elected chairman of the Labor Party with a huge majority of 95%, a gap that reminds us of elections in Syria and Iraq during the Ba’ath regime.
Don’t get me wrong, the Labor party elections were exemplary democratic. The result is a consequence of the fact that, apart from a few party politicos, no well-known public figure ran in the elections against Golan, who was actually the only politician who wanted to take on the most unwanted commodity in Israeli politics.
After the dark period under the leadership of Merav Michaeli, who has believed that she was following in Rabin’s footsteps, leading the “party that founded the state” into illusory districts, and above all below the threshold in the polls, Yair Golan’s goal will be to lead Labor Party back to being a leading factor in Israeli politics. However, it seems that the road there is very long, if at all possible.
Golan's Israeli patriotism
Despite the harsh criticism of Yair Golan and his ability to “identify processes going through the Jewish state,” the man is a full-fledged Israeli patriot, who on October 7 proved to all his opponents on the right-wing that the State of Israel is precious to him.
His critics probably also forgot who risked his life and very successfully led the fighters of the Nahal Brigade during the Second Intifada in the casbahs and on the streets of the refugee camps in the Palestinian cities.
Yet, at the same time, Yair Golan is a politician, who, as already mentioned – while wearing a uniform as the IDF Deputy Chief of Staff – made problematic and controversial statements. Apart from that speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day in May 2016, in which Golan stated that he recognizes in Israel processes that took place in 1930s Germany, Golan’s call not to disqualify the Knesset candidacy in the 2020 elections of Heba Yazbak from Balad – who expressed support for the terrorist Samir Kuntar, who in April 1979 murdered Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter Einat in Nahariya – is well remembered.
Before the High Court of Justice finally allowed Yazbak to run for the Knesset, there was a heated debate on the issue about the technical union between Labor and Meretz.
That argument only illustrated the ideological gap between the parties, which today has completely blurred. On the one hand, Labor MK Itzik Shmuli sided with the disqualification, claiming that “Yazbak’s support for terrorists with blood on their hands like Samir Kontar, who crushed a baby girl’s skull, constitutes support for terrorism for all intents and purposes.”
On the other hand, Yair Golan, at the time an MK from the Democratic Union and later in Meretz, claimed that “to disqualify a law-abiding citizen from running is to give a reward to the slanderers of Israeli democracy,” and that the focus should be “on disqualifying a bunch of violent and law-breaking people who confront policemen and soldiers all their lives.”
Golan later makes an outrageous comparison between Itamar Ben-Gvir and Azmi Bishara – who spied for Hezbollah – when contending that like the latter, the former should have been in prison.
It is difficult to know what the future holds for the Labor Party led by Golan. What is clear is that the new Labor chairman will work to unite all the leftist parties in Israel into a unified bloc. Golan has already called on the leaders of the “Kaplan protest” and its supporters to join the Labor Party under his leadership, which will surely make it even more extreme.
Regrettably, it seems that Golan, who during the protest period in the name of the struggle to overthrow the Netanyahu government stood out as one of the former generals who called for civilian riots and refusals, or by its washed-up name “volunteering cessation,” seems to fit like a glove to lead the left-wing bloc. Like the global trend, it has become violent and disconnected from reality.
In conclusion, while Yair Golan is portrayed as a convenient opponent for Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc, who would easily fit into a campaign that remind the mainstream in Israel that this time the head of the competing bloc is a politician from the Left.
The National Unity Party led by Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, as well as Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party, is expected to face a significant political challenge from the new Labor chairman.
If the left-wing bloc led by Golan will take mandates from Yesh Atid and National Unity, then the battle between Golan, Gantz, and Lapid is just beginning over the question of who will lead the Center-Left bloc.
And unlike the right-wing camp where there is a unity of ranks, in the Center-Left – where ideology wins over pragmatism – the story is completely different.
The writer is a lecturer and research fellow at the University of South Wales, UK. His recent book is Israel: National Security and Securitization (Springer, 2023). His new book about the Labor Party will be published soon by Resling Books.