Hebrew media review

Generals say the darnedest things

Never mind it’s two days before Memorial Day. Comments made by normally lionized army brass spark crossfire from pundits and politicians

Joshua Davidovich is The Times of Israel's Deputy Editor

Yair Golan salutes after laying a flower wreath at a memorial during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem on May 5, 2016. (Noam Moskowitz/Pool)
Yair Golan salutes after laying a flower wreath at a memorial during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem on May 5, 2016. (Noam Moskowitz/Pool)

It’s pat for the days leading up to Memorial Day, when Israel pauses to remember the tens of thousands killed in wars, terror attacks and other fights, for the papers to be filled with melancholy stories of battlefield heroics, soldiers who lost their lives and parents visiting graves.

But with remarks made by the IDF’s second in command seemingly likening some parts of Israeli society to Nazi Germany — during a Holocaust commemoration event last week — still pinging through the political sphere, the remembrances of battles past are juxtaposed with a new battle over Yair Golan’s comments, the backlash against them and the backlash against the backlash.

On top of all that, a new fight is added into the mix, after a former general criticized the high number of medals given out after the last war in Gaza and alleged a cover-up.

But the center ring in this three-ring circus we call life in Israel is the Yair Golan affair, dredged back into the limelight after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a rare attack on a top army general in a public forum.

Telegraphing the uniqueness of the situation — and the easy target that Netanyahu, who himself has been accused of using the Holocaust as a bromide, presented — Haaretz does like the tabloids do, filling its front page with a headline and commentary and leaving the actual straight reporting for those hardy enough to actually open the broadsheet.

In one of those analyses, the paper’s Yossi Verter interprets Netanyahu’s comments as just another play for support from the right.

“It’s needless to reiterate that Netanyahu is always glancing toward the hard right — the area code of Jewish Home — as well as to the relevant wing of Likud. That’s where he’s aiming. When Netanyahu sees a crack, he’ll widen it. If he sees a slit, he’ll enlarge it. When he sees a rift, he’ll deepen it. When the opportunity falls in his lap to make some political hay, even if only for the short term, he’ll be happy to go with his full routine — somber face; furrowed, Luciferian brows; stinging and hurtful words — and seize the chance,” the paper’s Yossi Verter writes. “And if the price to be paid is the public skewering of an Israel Defense Forces general, so be it. And if the price includes keeping the issue on the agenda and increasing the international damage caused to Israel, so be it. And if the ludicrousness of accusing Golan of ‘cheapening the Holocaust’ — when the accuser himself has already worn to death the political and cynical use of the Holocaust — screams to the heavens, so what? The end justifies the means.”

Where Verter at least sees some political objective to Netanyahu’s rabble-rousing, Yedioth’s Sima Kadmon, whose lack of love for the prime minister is no secret, sees few machinations beyond Netanyahu just wanting to eff some things up, as is his wont, though her column looks strikingly like a carbon copy of Verter’s.

“I don’t remember a prime minister who invested so much of his time to sow discord, fan the flames and spread hatred as Netanyahu does. Even in places where he can just move on, ignore, resist, calm or put on a show of diplomacy — he is sucked into the fighting, to the burning coals, to the wellsprings of hatred,” she writes, making good use of her Roget’s. “And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a politician from the left, an IDF general or just a man of conscience who has the temerity to express a stance other than what is in the Likud talking points. Sorry, Jewish Home.”

Israel Hayom writes that despite the calls from the right for Netanyahu to turn his words into actions and to pink-slip Golan, he has no intention of doing so, citing his bureau.

But even if he’s not booted, the tabloid’s Haim Shine makes an unequivocal call for Golan to man up and apologize for daring to say what he did, which in Shine’s telling was “a big mistake,” which will ripple out to Israel losing wars.

“[Golan’s] words were severe in terms of their essence, their content and their timing, especially since they have no basis in reality. The damage caused by the deputy chief of staff is severe, both in terms of its propaganda value and on an operational level, so that any action by soldiers against terror will be measured from now on against his sociological rubric,” he writes.

With Netanyahu apparently declaring open season on generals who speak their minds, former GOC Southern Command Yom Tov Samia also comes in for a shellacking after saying “a festival of medals in Protective Edge was there to cover something up.”

Yedioth’s Yossi Yehoshua cheers current GOC Southern Command Sami Turgeman for “putting him in his place” and saying “I’m proud of the soldiers and ashamed for whoever would slander them,” and joins in the festival of slagging off Samia.

“A combat commander in the IDF… who led soldiers and officers into battle cannot do what he did to the soldiers who risked their lives. Some of them are no longer with us, and some of them are still suffering in their bodies and mentally,” he writes. “To slash at the thanks they got and appreciation for them and speak of a ‘festival of medals’ brings up harsh questions: What are true heroes supposed to feel when the deputy commander of the war talks like this?… So yes, during the day Samia made sure to apologize and explain that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. But it’s not clear what went through his head to say such things two days before Memorial Day.”

Lest Samia has forgotten that Memorial Day is nigh, Israel Hayom’s front page is mostly taken up by a package paying homage to the dead, a full two days before the actual day of memorial is set to begin on Tuesday night, leaving one to wonder what it will do for its next couple of editions.

Like a child so excited he can’t wait, the paper reports that “slowly slowly, almost without being able to tell, it’s taking over the whole country. The whole nation this week will bow its head and express identification with the many Israeli families for whom the loss of someone in battle or a terror attack will remain with them forever.”

Haaretz agrees that something is creeping up, but it’s not Memorial Day; rather, the paper takes aim at the settlement enterprise, specifically the plans that it reportedly uncovered a new settlement for Amona evacuees, funded from the taxpayers’ wallets.

Why, oh why, the paper asks in its lead editorial, is Yossi Shienenfeldstienenbacher in Tel Aviv forced to pay his taxes so land thief Yossi Buzaglo can build a home near Jenin?

“The Amona outpost has exemplified settlement criminality since its establishment on privately owned Palestinian land in 1997. For eight years, the outpost’s status has been debated in the courts, with the government — which acknowledges the construction violations and illegal seizure of land — delaying, rejecting and making a mockery of its commitments to the High Court of Justice. The Amona settlers, meanwhile, could care less about the High Court rulings and the government’s purported intention of razing their homes,” the paper writes. “This “compensation” plan should be shelved immediately, the Amona outpost must be demolished, and the construction violators should be prosecuted and obliged to pay compensation, as is customary in a state that abides by the rule of law.”

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