Golan, who entered politics five years ago after a career in the army, is one of the most prominent of the many brave Israelis who took matters into their own hands that day to save others. His new image as a hero has given his political career a shot in the arm – and he has decided his new mission is to revive his country’s moribund left.
“The right today in Israel is people who think we can annex millions of Palestinians, and Israel should adopt some sort of policy of revenge, that we can live by our swords and not attempt to reconcile with the Palestinians or any other hostile entity in the region. I think 180 degrees the opposite.”
Israeli politics has changed, Golan said. “I’m not sure whether Israel right now is truly a democratic state any more … It is not a question of left or right any more: these titles are meaningless,” he said.
Israel was never a democracy. Palestinians who were granted citizenship once Israel got established lived under a rule similar to the military rule in the illegally occupied West Bank. Then, said illegal military occupation commenced and while the situation for Palestinians with Israeli passport slightly improved, millions of Palestinians have been living under military rule ever since. There wasn’t ever a democracy that included Palestinians so it would be more accurate to call it an ethnocracy which is inherently not democratic.