Israeli Brigadier General Dan Goldfus publicly criticized his country’s political leaders on Wednesday, demanding them to ‘be worthy’ of the Israeli army. Neither Netanyahu nor Defense Minister Yoav Gallant publicly responded to his remarks which indirectly unveil a growing malaise within the Israeli society.
An Israeli general leading troops in Gaza has delivered rare public criticism of the country’s political leadership, demanding it “be worthy” of the soldiers fighting against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, head of the 98th division deployed in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younes, also appeared to enter into a row over exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service.
He was subsequently summoned by the military leadership for his comments, which breached a long-standing taboo on uniformed officers publicly wading into politics.
“You must be worthy of us,” Goldfus said of his country’s leaders, in comments broadcast on Israeli television on Wednesday.
He called for Israeli politicians “to push aside the extreme, and adopt togetherness” in the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
The general vowed that military commanders and soldiers would take responsibility for their actions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far stopped short of assuming personal responsibility for Israel’s intelligence failures on October 7 and said any official investigations must take place after the war.
“We will not run from responsibility. We bow our heads in light of our reverberating failure on October 7, but at the same time are leading forward,” the general said.
Goldfus said he has been fighting since the morning of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, “and I have not stopped fighting since. Since then, I have not stopped sending soldiers, and gone with them, into the fire. We are fighting. We are not getting tired. We are determined to win, determined to bring home the hostages, directly or indirectly.”
Addressing Israel’s political leaders, Goldfus called on them to ensure that “everyone takes part” in enlisting in the armed forces, in an obvious reference to ultra-Orthodox Israeli men being exempt from national service — a contentious political issue.
Most Jewish men are required by law to serve in the Israeli military, but members of the ultra-Orthodox minority — known in Hebrew as Haredim — have long been given sweeping exemptions.
Neither Netanyahu nor Defense Minister Yoav Gallant publicly responded to Goldfus’s remarks.
Yoav Segalovitz, a centrist opposition lawmaker, told Kan public radio on Thursday that “a uniformed officer needs to talk only about what’s related to his decisions or take off the uniform”.
Writing in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, columnist Nahum Barnea said that “with all respect to the heartfelt sentiments of the esteemed officer, fighting in Gaza doesn’t give him the right or the authority to express a position on political matters”.
With AFP
