A political party with a vision for our future
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. (from Israel’s Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948)
What are some of the central problems and issues facing Israeli society today?
- Lack of a vision for peace and security in the region
- Continuing policies of perpetual war and disdaining diplomacy
- Discrimination against Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel as well as those who reside in the occupied territories
- Growing inequality between rich and poor in the country
- More and more alienation on the part of diaspora Jews about the illiberal governments in Israel
Is there a political party and a leader in Israel that seriously addresses these issues? I believe that there is!
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege and pleasure of hearing the leader of my political party, Yair Golan, who is the chairperson of “The Democrats.” He spoke to a large audience of activists at the iconic Lev Smadar cinema in the German Colony neighborhood in Jerusalem. I have been an active member of this political party for the past year, and I promote their excellent leaders through my blog posts and on social media, so the world can know that there is one sane, rational political party with a real vision for the future of Israel.
Since the merger of the Labor and Meretz parties in July 2024, the Democrats was formed, led by Yair Golan. Previous to that, he had served as a Member of Knesset on behalf of Meretz from 2019 to 2022. He also served in the Israeli government as the Deputy Minister of Economy during the one-year term of the Bennett-Lapid “government of change” from 2021-2022, which was the last reasonable government we had in Israel.
Before entering politics, he had a long and distinguished military career with the Israeli Defense Forces. He served as Commander of the Northern Command, Commander of the Home Front, and as Deputy Chief of Staff. In addition to all this, he became known as a military hero in Israel when he rescued Israelis in danger on October 7th, 2023, the day of the infamous surprise attack on Israeli communities in the south of Israel. He became famous and deeply appreciated throughout Israel after he rescued many survivors who were trapped in the area of the massacre at the Nova festival near kibbutz Re’im by using their mobile phone locations.
It is important for us to have a military hero, as well as a peacenik, as leader of our party. It reminds me of the days when Yitzhak Rabin was head of the Labor Party, since we believed then, as some of us still do now, that military solutions are not the only way to resolve our conflict with the Palestinians (and others in the region). On the contrary, diplomacy is necessary to end the conflict, which has gone on for much too long.
Golan is married and together with his wife Ruthie, they have five children. They live in the town of Rosh HaAyin in central Israel. He was educated at Tel Aviv University, where he studied Political Science (by now, he has probably learned that politics is not very scientific in Israel!) In addition, he studied public administration at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, in a joint program of the Wexner Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government.
At the large gathering of activists in Jerusalem, Golan spoke both informatively and inspirationally to all of us who were there. Among other things, he said:
We need to return to our original values—to build a democratic country for all of our citizens, based on the values of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. We very much need to build a strong liberal democratic country, for the future of Israel. And we will be there for all of the people of Israel, all over Israel, including the periphery and including our Arab citizens.
In addition to this, Golan related to the fact that violent, immoral and irresponsible settler Judaism seems to have become the Judaism of the state, with the rise in power of Ben Gvir and Smotrich and their ilk. This has alienated most Jews in the diaspora, which has resulted in great alienation on their part with the state of Israel and Israeli society. Golan believes that this situation needs to be rectified. Accordingly, he said:
I am worried about our identity, our Judaism. We need to foster a situation where every Jew feels at home here, including the Jews of the diaspora. We cannot separate ourselves from them.
It is no wonder that in his political party one can find the leading Reform rabbi in Israel as a prominent leader of the party. Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who is one of the four MK’s in the Democrats at present, was also one of the speakers at the Smadar cinema a few weeks ago. He too spoke passionately and poignantly. Among other things, he told us that the Democrats already have 60,000 members registered in the party, and are shooting for 100,000 now, which will make us the second-largest political party in Israel in terms of numbers. In addition, he stressed the need to reach out to the Arab citizens of Israel, who make up 22 percent of our population:
There is no future for Israel without Jewish-Arab cooperation in Israeli politics.
This is a critical issue in the political discourse right now, since it is obvious that a new government will not be able to be formed if the so-called “centrist” political parties don’t agree to welcome Arab political parties into the next coalition. So far, only The Democrats have agreed to do so!
The election season is already upon us in Israel. The Bibist cult and the members of his extremist coalition are currently forecast to lose the elections. But they will not give up easily. They will resort to all sorts of shticks and tricks, including their “poison machine” of incitement and even possibly more wars, Heaven help us.
Therefore, if we want to preserve Israel as a Jewish, liberal, democratic state and society, we need visionary leaders with humanistic values, like the ones currently leading the Democrats in Israel. May they continue to grow and flourish
(This post is part of a series of posts about emerging political leaders affiliated with The Democrats, a new center-left political party in Israel.)
