From the Liveblog of
Monday, July 7, 2025
Yair Golan shrugs off ‘petty’ coalition-backed bill to strip him of rank
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Democrats chairman Yair Golan dismisses a proposed law denying him of his military rank and privileges as a retired general due to his criticism of the way the war in Gaza is being fought, calling it “some petty uproar surrounding an unimportant law by an unimportant MK who wants to deny me rights.”
On Sunday, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation backed a bill by Likud MK Ariel Kallner aimed at penalizing former high-ranking security officials who call for desertion or slander the military, after Golan caused widespread outrage in May by accusing Israel of killing babies in Gaza “as a hobby.”
He also tells his faction that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “wreaking havoc on Israel.”
“A prime minister who refuses to end the war, who passes a draft evasion law, whose son fled to Miami dares to pay for his survival with the blood of others” and “will not defeat Hamas,” Golan tells reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“The prime minister of neglect and destruction is leading a violent coup d’état, because he knows that he will not win in free and fair democratic elections. And in the face of this real danger, we must not remain silent. We, the opposition, and all of us citizens of Zionist and democratic Israel, must fight and resist. Our mission is existential: to ensure that the next elections are truly democratic, so that we can replace this government and save the State of Israel,” Golan declares.
The Times of Israel Community.