Yair Golan: The IDF General Who Can Revive the Israeli Left

In contrast, he says, “I want to
bring something good to the world, I want to do the right thing here. We have a
huge struggle between those who think that Israel should be a liberal
democratic state and those who think that Israel should be a kind of
authoritarian theocratic state. The government is autocratic.… The fact that so
many Israelis still don’t understand it is outrageous … I know that I know how to
lead. I have much experience in leading people in times of emergencies, in time
of struggle.”

Meanwhile, the war in Gaza continues
on a low burn “because Netanyahu … doesn’t want to free the hostages because he
knows that by finishing the war he will need to face all his political
problems. So, without saying it formally, he signed the following deal with the
messianic parties—keep the dream of annexation alive, the dream of rebuilding … settlements
inside the Gaza Strip.”

He embraces the efforts of the
Arab states surrounding Israel, which Netanyahu dismisses. “We need to build
inside the Gaza Strip an alternative to Hamas with the Palestinian Authority,
the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, with any other
moderate Muslim country,” he says. “To fight effectively against Hamas, it’s
not enough to kill the militants. By the doctrine of counterinsurgency warfare,
it’s clear that on the one hand, you need to find the militants, and on the
other hand, you need to capture the hearts and the minds of the general
population.… We did nothing to build an alternative to Hamas. This is outrageous.”