JERUSALEM: Israeli government and opposition leaders condemned on Tuesday a left-wing politician, Yair Golan, after he said in a radio interview that \u201ca sane country\u2026 does not kill babies for a hobby.\u201d
\n\u201cIsrael is on the path to becoming a pariah state among the nations \u2014 like the South Africa of old \u2014 if it does not return to behaving like a sane country,\u201d said Golan, chairman of Israel\u2019s Democrats party.
\n\u201cA sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies for a hobby, and does not set goals involving the expulsion of populations,\u201d he told Israel\u2019s Kan public radio.
\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Golan, a former major general in the military, of \u201cwild incitement\u201d against Israeli troops and of \u201cechoing the most despicable anti-Semitic blood libels against the (Israeli army) and the State of Israel.\u201d
\nGolan also drew condemnation from government critics, with opposition leader Yair Lapid saying in a post on X: \u201cOur fighters are heroes and are defending our lives. The statement that they kill children as a hobby is incorrect and is a gift to our enemies.\u201d
\nEducation Minister Yoav Kisch, of Netanyahu\u2019s party, called for an investigation for incitement into Golan, whose party is a coalition of several left-wing factions.
\n\u201cGolan is not a member of Knesset and does not have immunity. I expect the attorney general to immediately open an investigation against him for incitement,\u201d Kisch said on X.
\nMilitary chief Eyal Zamir in a statement condemned remarks that cast doubt on the \u201cmorality\u201d of the army\u2019s actions and of its troops.
\nResponding to criticism, Golan said on X that he was trying to sound the alarm on the direction he believed Israel was headed.
\nThe government\u2019s war plans are \u201cthe realization of the fantasies of (Itamar) Ben Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich,\u201d Golan said, referring to two far-right ministers.
\n\u201cIf we allow them to realize them, we will become a pariah state,\u201d the left-wing politician said.
\nGolan is a vocal opponent of Netanyahu\u2019s government and its policies.
\nIn November 2024, he accused Netanyahu of putting his own political interests before the country\u2019s following a decision to dismiss defense minister Yoav Gallant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JERUSALEM: Israeli government and opposition leaders condemned on Tuesday a left-wing politician, Yair Golan, after he said in a radio interview that \u201ca sane country\u2026 does not kill babies for a hobby.\u201d \u201cIsrael is on the path to becoming a pariah state among the nations \u2014 like the South Africa of old \u2014 if it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81288,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81280\/revisions\/81288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}