Yair Golan to Herzog: Your father, the former president, ‘would have kicked Netanyahu out the door’

Democrats leader Yair Golan says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “illegal” pardon request to President Isaac Herzog and the coalition’s proposed bill regulating ultra-Orthodox conscription are part of the same campaign to remain in power.

“While Netanyahu is running a pardon campaign for himself and talking to us about unity, he is simultaneously spearheading a law that exempts tens of thousands of Haredim from military service,” says the leader of the left-wing party ahead of a faction meeting.

“They are one campaign: Netanyahu’s personal survival campaign to remain in power: a campaign in which the state’s institutions, security, rule of law, and the public are all sold out, trampled upon, and abandoned to save a single person,” he says.

Addressing President Herzog directly, Golan says, “You, who grew up in the political home of Ben-Gurion, of Rabin, a home where the rule of law was sacred, you must decide: Are you loyal to the state and the law, or are you ‘keeping Netanyahu united?’”

Golan was referencing an infamous gaffe Herzog made during an impromptu live television debate with Netanyahu when they ran as rivals in the 2015 election. Herzog, meaning to say he would keep Jerusalem united if elected prime minister, accidentally vowed to “keep Netanyahu united,” to snickers from the premier and much media ridicule.

“I know that your father, President Chaim Herzog, would have kicked Netanyahu out the door, without hesitation and without blinking,” Golan adds.