Meretz leader Galon praises Azaria ruling, slams ‘pandering’ politicians

Meretz leader MK Zehava Galon is one of the lone voices in the political system to celebrate the military appeals court’s upholding of Elor Azaria’s conviction and sentence.

“The judges of the court…dismantled every claim of the defense: there was no self defense here, and Azaria didn’t act out of any fear for his life, but was motivated by vengeance. The decision upholds the ethical boundaries that politicians have intentionally sought to obfuscate,” she says.

“But this case isn’t over today. The damage it has done will be with us for a long time yet. St. Sgt. A., the soldier who neutralized the terrorist in Neve Tsuf, has received death threats for not assassinating [the terrorists], but for merely rescuing a family from certain death,” Galon says.

“That wouldn’t have happened if not for [the] Azaria [case],” she adds. “It wouldn’t have happened without politicians riding on the wave of a public atmosphere that describes murder as heroism and views professionalism as something despicable.”

Politicians, she says, “understood all that, but preferred getting ‘likes.’ The Azaria case revealed the sort of politics that Bennett, Liberman and Netanyahu are engaged in: pandering, constantly in campaign mode, which views polls as more important than the good of the country.”

The result is the “legitimization of gangster ethics,” she charges, that threatens to turn the IDF in a “militia.”

She says she is sure President Reuven Rivlin will not agree to pardon Azaria, but will prefer to uphold the rule of law.