Environmental Protection Minister Avi Gabay
Photo: Yal Shachar
Minister Gabay comes out in support of deputy IDF chief
Three days after Maj.-Gen. Golan said he 'identifies processes in Israel that happened in Germany 70 years ago,' causing an uproar, environmental protection minister Gabay and former IDF chief Halutz call to listen to what Maj.-Gen. Golan has to say, and talk about the issues he raises.
Environmental Protection Minister Avi Gabay on Saturday came out in support of Deputy IDF Chief Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan,
who was harshly criticized for saying he "identifies in Israel today processes that happened in Germany 70 years ago."
"Maj.-Gen. Golan has enough of a right and a perspective for us to listen to what he has to say and not just jump at him," Gabay said at a cultural event in Petah Tikva. "The recriminations against Golan are inappropriate. We need to encourage senior officials to speak their truth, and not the other way around."
Gabay went on to say that he didn't think Golan was referring to World War II and the Holocaust. "There's nothing similar between what's happening here and the Holocaust, but there are definitely recriminations and signs of racism that at times are similar to the sentiments in Germany of the 1920s and 1930s."
Environmental Protection Minister Avi Gabay (Photo: Yuval Hendler)
Former IDF chief Dan Halutz also spoke in Golan's defense on Saturday.
Speaking at a cultural event in Be'er Sheva, Halutz said that "while we can argue about the timing or the place the things were said in, I think we need to listen to what he has to say. Let's talk about the trends that he was talking about, these trends exist in part."
Halutz also asserted that "those in uniform are the gatekeepers of morals."
In a speech on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Maj.-Gen. Golan said that “The Holocaust must lead us to think about our public life, and more importantly, it must lead everyone who can, not merely those who want, to carry public responsibility. If there is something that frightens me about the memory of the Holocaust, it is seeing the abhorrent processes that took place in Europe, and Germany in particular, some 70, 80 or 90 years ago, and finding manifestations of these processes here among us in 2016."
Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan (Photo: Yair Sagi)
After the uproar caused by his comments, the IDF Spokesman's Office released a statement saying that “The deputy chief of staff would like to clarify that he had no intention to compare the IDF and the State of Israel to the process that took place in Germany 70 years ago. The absurd comparison is entirely without foundation, and there was no intention to draw such parallels or to criticize the state's leadership. The IDF is a moral army which safeguards the purity of arms and human life.”
Ilana Curiel contributed to this report.
