Democrats party chairman Yair Golan has been greeted with protests and derision at several conferences since his outrageous statements that IDF soldiers “have a hobby of killing babies.”

Yet another incident occurred on Wednesday when Golan spoke at the Israel Bar Association conference. During his speech, bereaved father Itzik Bontzel, the father of fallen IDF soldier Amit, H’yd, who was killed in the war in Gaza, yelled at him, “You don’t need to speak here. You are a person who incites hatred against IDF soldiers. Shame on you. ‘IDF soldiers kill babies as a hobby”—how did you utter such a thing from your mouth?”

Golan accused Bontzel of lying, claiming he didn’t say anything negative about IDF soldiers.

On Thursday morning, Golan delivered a speech to an audience he knew wouldn’t reject him—the left-wing ‘Democratic Israel Will Triumph’ conference.

Golan said: “There is no future for the State of Israel under the rule of the extreme right. There is no way out of this cycle of bloodshed without ending the war. There is no rehabilitation without returning the hostages. And there is no security without a clear political horizon.”

He claimed that the government is acting out of an ideology of “full occupation, annexation, endless war, living by the sword – a future without hope. Faced with this destructive, extreme, and devastating goal, we must present a clear alternative of our own.”

“We, the democratic liberal camp, must abandon the old political game. We must stop the internal divisions and establish one strong front. We Democrats—Lapid, Gantz, Eisenkot, Lieberman, and Bennett— when he officially joins, we all stand on the same side in this division. This is the stable ground for all of us. This is the next unity government.”

Golan added: “But within this, there must be another internal union: the Democrats – Yesh Atid and the National Unity party – we must unite before the elections and establish the largest party within the bloc, a party that will be the alternative that will lead the next government, that will determine the path of Israel.”

“It takes courage for this step, that’s clear. We need to release self-conceptions with which we all entered politics. These conceptions, like many other things in the Israeli reality after the judicial coup began and even more after October 7, are simply no longer relevant.”

“This alternative must also include valuable and ideological content, and not ‘just not Bibi.’ This alternative must offer a backbone to the terrible and bloody path of Smotrich and Struck and Ben Gvir, to the foundation-destroying path of Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman, to the corrupt-to-the-bone path of Netanyahu.”

“We can do it. All of us together. And we have the support of millions of citizens,” he claimed. “Millions of citizens. And the support of masses of protest movements that have arisen.”

In response, Lapid attacked Golan, saying: “It’s time Yair Golan stopped helping Netanyahu with damaging statements. He knows he is harming the chances of winning the elections.”

Lapid added, “He was shown the polls that prove that such a union only reduces the bloc and returns voters to Netanyahu. It’s unclear why he insists on turning himself into the right’s biggest asset – just for headlines.”

Yair Golan rejected the claims, stating, “It’s time we stopped chasing polls and started developing a backbone of values and ideology. We must stop with the old politics – it hasn’t won any elections. Enough with the fear, and together we will win.”

Benny Gantz didn’t respond directly to Golan’s statement but made it clear in his speech at the conference that he has no interest in Golan’s suggestion, calling for a broad national unity government that “isolates the extremists” on both the left and right and will represent “100 percent of Israelis.”

Gantz added that he “humbly believes” he should be the person to lead that government, rejecting Netanyahu as the “father of division.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)