Israel/Palestine

And I accept you know more about the situation than I, but Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland sees it as Netanyahu riding a tide of popular opinion.

The first clash came when an Israeli army medic shot dead a Palestinian – who had attacked a group of soldiers with a knife – as he lay injured on the ground, posing no threat. Ya’alon led the military brass in denouncing the medic for his lethal indiscipline, for acting out of revenge. Bibi did too – at first. But then he saw that Israeli public opinion was rallying behind the soldier, so he switched sides, even telephoning the killer’s father to demonstrate his sympathy. Ya’alon was appalled. Ya’alon is no peacenik. But he holds to a military ethos that believes might has to be constrained by the rule of law.

Then, a fortnight ago, the deputy chief of staff of the Israeli military, Yair Golan, spoke at a Holocaust Remembrance Day event and lamented what he felt were alarming resonances between the “intolerance” and “fear-mongering” visible in contemporary Israel, and the Germany of the 1930s. Golan was widely condemned, including by Netanyahu. Doubtless Ya’alon disagreed with Golan’s sentiments vehemently. But he defended the general’s right to speak out, believing that this too is an essential part of the duty of a soldier in a democracy: to voice the misgivings of his conscience.