Middle Israel: Why Is Sara Netanyahu Going to War Against Yair Golan?

Menachem Begin once turned the defeat of the Altalena arms ship into what he presented as a moral victory. In a 1948 radio address, he told his men not to join a civil war and claimed the damaged vessel had carried “10,000 aerial bombs.” Had those bombs joined the rifles and machine guns, he said, Israel might have reached the Jordan and perhaps beyond it.

The claim, the column notes, was far-fetched. Begin had also suggested that the “ship of salvation” could decide the fate of the war. In reality, the Altalena’s cargo represented only a fraction of the weapons David Ben-Gurion had already secured through a major arms deal with Czechoslovakia. The Haganah had also obtained and manufactured thousands of additional weapons before 1948.

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10,000 aerial bombs

That reshaping of historical facts came to mind after Sara Netanyahu’s interview this week with Channel 14. Speaking about Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats Party, she said: “You claim you fought on October 7.” She pointed out that Golan had been there, dressed and ready, early that morning, while the prime minister did not know.

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You claim you fought on October 7.

When asked whether there had been treason that day, Sara Netanyahu did not dismiss the idea. She replied, “I don’t want to talk.” The columnist says she nevertheless made the insinuation clear: Golan had advance knowledge of Hamas’s invasion and was somehow part of it.

The column does not portray Golan as an exceptional political strategist. It says he has made outrageous statements and appears unaware of his party’s domestic agenda and history. Many voters therefore do not see him as a suitable candidate for prime minister. But, it argues, political shortcomings do not make him a villain or a traitor. A former deputy IDF chief of staff, Golan rushed to the western Negev after news of the massacre emerged, and the column describes him as a major-league patriot.

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I don’t want to talk.