Yair Golan’s Speech Now Seems Prophetic. Today, The Extremist Threat Is All Too Real

Back in 2016, Then Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan caused shock and revulsion and was pilloried for his speech on Holocaust Memorial Day, in which he drew parallels between Germany of the 1920s, 30s and 40s and Israeli today.

What he actually said was, “Because if there is one thing that frightens me in the memory of the Holocaust, it is identifying shocking processes that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany in particular, then 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of them here among us, today, in 2016.”

This from a man who gave near to 40 years of his life to the defense and security of Israel.  The number 2 soldier in Israel dared to draw attention to worrying signs in Israel society in the most taboo manner possible.

Given recent events, it would appear, regrettably, that Golan’s comparisons were not only justified, but prophetic.  Just five years since his speech and the resultant vituperative attacks and condemnation, Israel now has neo-fascist parties in the Knesset preaching Jewish Supremacist ideology and promoting xenophobia, homophobia, racism, hatred, and violence, along with perverted, and frankly, evil versions of both Zionism and Judaism.

To add to that. we have extremist, racist thugs affiliated to these parties, wandering the streets screaming “death to Arabs” while seeking out Arabs to physically abuse and beat up.

So, the similarities are there for all to see, that is, those who are awake, those who are unwilling to sleepwalk into an extremist, fanatical Jewish Supremacist neo fascist nightmare. 

We all know that the Holocaust did not begin with concentration camps and death camps.  It began with the kind of incitement, hatred, and behavior we are now seeing on our streets and in our parliament. 

We must make it clear that such behavior and such ideology has no legitimacy anywhere in Israeli society, let alone the Knesset.  We must stamp out the violence, the incitement, the racism, the bigotry and the vile perversion of both Judaism and Zionism.  The modern state of Israel was created as a Jewish Democracy, a State for all its citizens.  It was established to become a light unto nations.  That is the Zionist dream. 

There are those who now wish to turn that dream into an extremist supremacist nightmare.  With a recent helping hand from Benjamin Netanyahu, who for selfish political reasons, lent legitimacy to the wholly illegitimate, they are growing in numbers and in their influence. 

Five years ago, in a brave and selfless (due to his speech, he lost the chance to become the Chief of Staff) Yair Golan dared to bring the early signs to our attention.  He tried to warn us of what was happening.  Five years on, we see where it has lead and there is nothing more frightening and indeed more dangerous to the future of the Jewish state, than these extremists in our midst, who wish to destroy everything that Israel is, everything that Israel has achieved and everything that Israel can be.

We cannot ignore them.  We cannot appease them.  We must fight them.  We must stop them in their tracks. We must stamp out their evil ideology. 

For fanatical Jewish Supremacists and religious extremists are by far the greatest threat the State of Israel has ever known.