Israel Left-Wing Leader Golan Pledges to End Wars After October Election

Yair Golan, who heads Israel’s left-wing Democrats party, said he’ll join the government if the opposition wins next month’s election and will put tackling Jewish settler violence in the occupied West Bank on the agenda.

Ending the war with Iran, rebuilding Gaza and forging regional alliances will also be among his top priorities, the former military commander told Bloomberg.

“We must end the open wars,” Golan said in an interview in Tel Aviv on Sunday. “I will have substantive discussions inside the next government to implement the diplomatic arm of Israel’s national security. We cannot solve all problems with bombs. An economic blockade of Iran is the right way.”

Israel’s opposition parties have been collectively out-polling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition ahead of the Oct. 27 election, with the handling of ongoing conflicts one of the key issues. The Democrats are an important part of that and are expected to get 10-12 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

With no party expected to secure a majority on its own, the one with the most votes will try to form a coalition.

Gadi Eisenkot, also a former general, is leading the polls to be the next prime minister and has said Golan will be part of his coalition if he wins. Polymarket traders give him a more than 50% chance, versus roughly 30% for Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Golan appealed to Arab citizens, saying if they don’t vote Netanyahu will get re-elected.

Golan said early moves for a new government should include the rapid installation of a technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza, one of the unrealized tenets of a U.S.-brokered peace plan between Israel and Hamas signed almost a year ago.

Ending “Palestinian and Jewish terror” in the West Bank, uprooting some unlawful settlements and signaling that the Palestinian issue must be solved, not just managed, should be other objectives, he said.

That includes plotting a path toward eventual Palestinian statehood, Golan said, “although maybe not a fully independent state tomorrow morning. Let’s find a middle way.”

Golan’s views are not commonly held in Israel, where security populism has dominated public discourse since the Oct. 2023 attack by Iran-backed Hamas militants that led to wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. While much of the world favors a Palestinian state, most Israelis reject the idea out of fear of another invasion, while favoring continued military operations against Iran, according to a May 5 poll.

Eisenkot says he too wants to improve Israel’s international standing, with the destruction and killing of Palestinians in Gaza having led to worldwide opprobrium of the government. Still, he’s far less explicit than Golan about what he’d do in power.

Israel’s left has historically been associated with a belief in peaceful coexistence with Palestinians. Golan’s record is somewhat different. He was deputy chief of staff, the country’s number two military position, and spent years both in Lebanon and the West Bank as a commander, earning a reputation as a bruiser.

“As an officer, he was very aggressive toward Palestinians,” said Yoel Esteron, founder of the Calcalist business newspaper. “He was wounded at least twice. It’s astonishing that he’s the leader of the only left-wing party.”

Ramrod straight with cropped graying hair at 64, Golan gained fame on Oct. 7, 2023 when he grabbed his old army fatigues and rifle and headed to the site of the Nova festival, where he helped rescue about half a dozen people under attack from Hamas. Some 378 others were killed by Hamas operatives at the music event that morning.

Golan says he’s furious at Hamas but also at his government for being unable to protect its own people. He’s called for a full investigation into that failure, something Netanyahu has rejected.

Oct. 7 remains the central issue in Israeli public debate, and Netanyahu’s wife and colleagues have sought to undermine Golan by implying he had advanced word of the massacre.

“You, such a high-ranking military man, were already there at the crack of dawn, dressed and ready, very early in the morning, when others didn’t know, such as the prime minister,” Sara Netanyahu said recently.

Golan has warned he may sue Mrs. Netanyahu for libel unless she recants. She hasn’t, and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said “real questions are being raised” about Golan’s actions that day.

Golan has courted controversy in the past. In 2016, when still in uniform, he spoke at a Holocaust Remembrance Day, saying he saw “repulsive processes” in Israel similar to trends in Germany before World War II. Last year, he criticized members of the Netanyahu government, saying, “a sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations.”

Before the interview on Sunday evening, Golan addressed around 500 people. Stickers in the crown declared: “Courage Change Hope.”

He said making sure that ultra-Orthodox Israelis, about 14% of the population, get a proper education is key to the future. Their schools largely focus on liturgy and religious texts, neglecting math and English.

“If Israel is perceived as an extreme nation with an authoritarian regime on the path to theocratic nationalism, we will lose our ties to the West,” he said.

On the Palestinians, he said it’s a choice between annexation and separation — a reference to the current government’s promise to try to eventually annex the West Bank along with its 3 million Palestinians. Separation, Golan said, is the only path for a Jewish democratic state and regional acceptance.

—With assistance from Julius Domoney.

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