PM: General’s remarks paralleling Israel, pre-WWII Germany ‘behind us’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday drew a line under a row over comments by the army’s deputy chief in a Holocaust Remembrance Day speech, in which he appeared to draw parallels between segments of Israeli society and pre-World War II Nazi Germany.

“The story of the speech is behind us. I see this as a one-off thing, and from here we’ll all continue together,” Netanyahu told a pre-Independence Day toast with the IDF General Staff, a day after he himself reignited the firestorm over the remarks by General Yair Golan.

At the small ceremony at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, the two men also spoke briefly and shook hands.

The prime minister’s statement also appeared to put an end to calls from some right-wing Knesset members for Netanyahu to sack Golan, who, in a strongly worded speech uncommon for a military commander, warned on May 5 against trends of growing callousness and indifference towards those outside of mainstream Israeli society.

Golan called for a “thorough consideration” of how Israeli society treats the disadvantaged and “the other” in its midst.

“If there is something that frightens me in the memory of the Holocaust, it is identifying horrifying processes that occurred in Europe… 70, 80 and 90 years ago and finding evidence of their existence here in our midst, today, in 2016,” Golan said.

“There is nothing easier than hating the other,” he said. “There is nothing easier than raising fears and sowing terror. There is nothing easier than becoming callous, morally corrupt and hypocritical.”

His comments drew immediate criticism from right-wing politicians and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who said Golan had been “mistaken” and had to publicly apologize for his remarks.

The deputy chief of staff quickly clarified his comments, amid an outcry, saying he had not intended to compare Israel to Nazi Germany.

But on Sunday, Netanyahu castigated the general, calling the comments “outrageous” during the weekly cabinet meeting and saying that they “create contempt for the Holocaust.”

Golan’s remarks, Netanyahu said, “are fundamentally baseless. They didn’t need to be said at any time and certainly not at the time they were said. They do injustice to Israeli society and create contempt for the Holocaust. The deputy chief of staff is a highly decorated officers but his statements on this matter were completely erroneous and unacceptable to me.”

A number of opposition politicians then seized on Netanyahu’s comments as hypocritical, given claims that he himself has used the memory of the Holocaust for political gain.

MK Shelly Yachimovich, a senior member of the center-left Zionist Union faction, blasted Netanyahu, saying it was “absurd” for Netanyahu, “the most brutal cheapener of the Holocaust,” to accuse the deputy chief of staff of cheapening the Holocaust.

Meretz party leader Zehava Galon sniped on Twitter saying, “if there’s anybody who understands cheapening the Holocaust…”