Netanyahu summons minister over Nazi analogy

PM Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned minister of military affairs Moshe Ya’alon to an urgent meeting for supporting a senior officer who has likened the atmosphere in Israel to that of Nazi Germany.

The summon late Sunday came after Ya’alon said Israeli commanders should continue to speak their minds in an apparent reference to the controversy that followed comments by Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan.

Golan stirred an uproar earlier this month after saying he was concerned by some of the extremist voices within Israel, likening it to the atmosphere in 1930s Germany before Hitler came to power.

Netanyahu's office issued a statement, saying he "remains firm in his conviction that the comparison that was made to Nazi Germany was inappropriate and damaged Israel in the international arena."

During a sit-down which was scheduled to take place Monday morning at Netanyahu's office, the Israeli premier was expected to reprimand Ya'alon for his remarks, the Jerusalem Post said. 

Meanwhile, right-wing extremist lawmakers denounced Ya'alon for his support.

"The IDF (Israeli military) is not a junta. Its job is to implement the decisions of the civilian leadership and not to disagree with it and chart its own policy," Likud lawmaker Oren Hazan said.

Some on the right believe that this may be the beginning of the end of Ya'alon's tenure as minister of military affairs, a job that has reportedly been offered to former hardline foreign minister Avigdor Liberman.

After Ya'alon's speech, "I would be very surprised if the prime minister keeps Ya'alon in his current position," Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich commented on his Twitter feed. 

Golan, on the other hand, has become more vocal in offering his opinions on the current state in Israel. He is once again in the headlines, with Channel 2 News releasing a recording from a decade ago.

Golan, then the commander of the West Bank military division, purportedly says, “It is unimaginable that in an effort to ensure our soldiers’ safety, we can destroy whole apartment buildings."

"Killing women, children, uninvolved civilians. Unacceptable. The use of force in civilian areas must always be kept under control, and restricted to the minimum necessary,” he is heard saying. 

His remarks echo the arguments surrounding the case of Israeli sergeant Elor Azaria who has been charged with manslaughter for killing an immobilized Palestinian in Hebron (al-Khalil) on March 24. 

In the recording, Golan gives an example from his personal experience. 

“Four soldiers were standing at a checkpoint in the West Bank. A man comes to the checkpoint, and he is removed from his car by the soldiers. He then sees a soldier checking a woman for weapons, touching her body, and this offends his Islamic traditions.” 

Explaining how the situation unfolded, Golan explained that the man then ran toward the soldier in order to stop him from touching the Palestinian woman. 

“Four soldiers standing opposite one Palestinian. What did they do? They shot him. He was not armed, a man who was not so young, why shoot him? Why end his life?” 

Golan then recounts another incident. 

“There was a lieutenant, he was driving recklessly and ended the life of a Palestinian, just like that. What do you want? That we should justify this? This is the nation you want to live in, who kills as if it is nothing?"

Saying that he did not expect to see an end of the conflict "in our time," Golan argued that in recent times the Israeli military has “been making too many moral concessions,” the JPost reported.

In a speech on May 4, Golan said that he sees “horrific” trends in Israel today that are akin to the “nauseating” ones in 1930s Germany.

“If there is something that frightens me...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 raising fears and sowing terror. There is nothing easier than becoming callous, morally corrupt and hypocritical,” the official added.

According to witnesses, Israeli forces have adopted a “shoot-to-kill” policy during clashes with Palestinians, even in clear cases where they could be captured.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed since last October, with Israel claiming that most of them were involved in attacks against settlers and regime forces.

Dozens died by a single shot to the head or chest, a clear indication of the shoot-to-kill policy.

Rights advocates say the ruthless policy has resulted in “extrajudicial executions” of a number of Palestinians.

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