Golan says Netanyahu must be ousted despite Trump’s endorsement

Democrats chairman Yair Golan says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be ousted despite US President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

“I respect President Trump, but I’ll say categorically: Benjamin Netanyahu is a diplomatic and security danger to Israel,” he says, speaking at a Tel Aviv University event for student voters.

Asked about joining a government with Arab parties, an idea he supports, Golan says he can work with anyone who sees Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people and, at the same time, as a free, equal and democratic state,” which Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas has done.

“People keep asking about the Arabs. Why don’t we ask Netanyahu about the ultra-Orthodox?” he says, insinuating that the Haredi parties aligned with the premier are also anti-Zionist.

Golan says the four Jewish-led opposition parties are united by the goal of “saving Israel” and replacing Netanyahu’s government.

Asked about a reported Netanyahu proposal to form a coalition without far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Golan argues there is “no difference” between Likud and Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, and says the government has brought Kahanism, the extremist ideology that Ben Gvir subscribed to in past years, into the political mainstream.

While saying he does not support the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Golan argues that its overall contribution to Israeli security is positive.

“If the Palestinian Authority were as terrible as you say, believe me, it would have been dismantled seven times between the signing of the Oslo Accords and today,” he says, “Netanyahu himself, after almost 20 years in power, has never dismantled it.”

“It’s better for the Palestinian Authority to govern the West Bank than Hamas,” he says, adding that the PA arrests Hamas operatives.