Their sandals, our hobbies
The amnesia that Israeli politicians suffer is intended to serve their interest in absolving themselves of responsibility. ■ The term “hobby” is meant to distance Yair Golan and his supporters from the right-wing and religious groups prominent in the composition of the ground forces. These “blue-collar combatants” are the ones on whom the liberal camp places exclusive blame for Israel’s barbarism.
By Yagil levy • Translated by Sol Salbe
On October 7, “they attacked us with sandals, Kalashnikovs, and vans,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while [Democrats Leader] Yair Golan stated that “a sane country… does not kill babies as a hobby.” There is something common in the slipups of politicians from both ends — in what they chose to ignore, in how the ignorance serves their interests, and in the messages that did not garner any attention.
Both equally ignored the organised dimension of the violence that both sides have been inflicting since October 7. Netanyahu ignored the organised war machine that Hamas built up under his watch without taking any political or military action to prevent it being put into use. This was the war machine that, on the morning of the attack, had gained temporary superiority over the Israeli military. Netanyahu preferred to focus on the spontaneous attack of the third wave [of Palestinian coming across], which was created following Yahya Sinwar’s call to the public in Gaza to cross the border and take advantage of the surprising success.
For his part too, Yair Golan deliberately ignored the organised dimension of the Israeli war machine. This machine does not kill civilians and children as a “hobby,” or even “for no purpose.” It kills systematically out of what it identifies as need. A significant portion of the casualties are the result of the Air Force’s work, which operates in a planned manner and with legal oversight. Here is a tangible example of what I’m talking about: the policy at the beginning of the war that allowed for “collateral” killing in airstrikes of up to 20 civilians for each Hamas operative and 100 in the case of a leader — was a product of planning and not a “hobby.”
However, Golan ignores this fact, not only because he kept quiet at the beginning of the war, and not only because his partners from the centre-left are integrated into this killing machine — but also because as deputy chief of staff he was one of those who lead the construction of this machine, which was also pre-ordained for attacking populated areas. The term “hobby” provided Golan with an expression which evokes the light finger on the trigger among many in the ground forces, and as such the term is meant to distance Golan and his supporters from the right-wing and religious groups prominent in the composition of the ground forces. These “blue-collar combatants” are the ones on whom the liberal camp places exclusive blame for Israel’s barbarism.
But the truth is that this light finger is not a hobby but part of a policy that is directly linked to a loss of control over the forces, and Golan had a personal historical role in its creation. “What is the point of preaching about the purity of arms,” I asked in a critical article about Deputy Chief of Staff Golan’s 2016 famous ‘Processes Speech,’ “‘when in the military-religious rhetoric the Arab enemy repeatedly assumes the form of Amalek?”
I argued that even if Golan’s courage deserves praise, he “needs to begin using the command tools at his disposal’ as Deputy Chief of Staff rather than preaching to the community outside the military. The amnesia that politicians suffer is intended to serve their interest in absolving themselves of responsibility. However, amidst the storm of criticism over verbal lapses, there is also a neglect of some aspects of their credibility that require attention. Even if the army does not kill as a hobby, its internal loss of control and the intensification of nationalist command structure encourage shooting as revenge and even “action,” as seen in soldiers’ videos. And even if Netanyahu’s remarks about “sandals’ are worthy of condemnation, they still necessitate thinking about the army’s real failure on October 7. The army was not only surprised by the attack — it failed to contain it and to swiftly spread its forces to defend the attacked communities. The failure is entirely its responsibility, not the responsibility of the politicians. The sandals of the third wave of the attackers are the symbolic and painful expression of this failure.
