When a nominally democratic government chooses a woman who is proud of her racism and the ruins in Gaza as equality minister, then stability will seem like an unknown word in the Middle East.
May Golan, the once humble girl from the slums of south Tel Aviv, has impressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for years.
Although he failed to get her into Israel’s diplomatic service, he had already managed to give her Israel’s Social Equality portfolio in 2022.
But why is he considered a more extreme figure, perhaps even more so than Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben Gvir, strengthening the camp of extreme racists in Israel?
The international community was recently frozen when the Golan in January expressed little more than indifference to the destruction of Gaza.
She had declared how proud she was of the “ruins” of the besieged Gaza Strip, adding that every Palestinian baby in the future “will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did”.
The Golan in 2021.
Speaking to the Knesset, she said “I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will be telling their grandchildren what the Jews did.”
Denouncing the idea of a Palestinian state, Golan added “Neither a dove nor an olive branch, only a sword to cut off Shinwar’s head, that is what he will receive from us.”
A little earlier, in December 2023, he had said that he would like to see “dead bodies of terrorists around Gaza”.
“…I don’t care about Gaza, I literally don’t. Although all I care about is that they can go out and just swim in the sea,” Golan said in an interview with an Israeli television channel. Such statements amount to ethnic cleansing which is a crime against humanity.
“I only care about three things. The first thing is that I care about our soldiers, our beloved, precious soldiers who risk their lives every day for the State of Israel,” the politician continued at the time.
She may say she cares about soldiers, but she herself has said she feels “ashamed” that she avoided conscription, but is “proud” that she did it to take care of her mother. So the rest of the Israeli young women who serve don’t have mothers to care for?
Golan had drawn international attention when she strongly supported President Donald Trump while publicly showing her distaste for African immigrants in Israel. She was even so outspoken and unrepentant that she insisted: “If I’m a racist to save my life, I’m proud to be a racist.”
Her positions are considered so extreme that when Benjamin Netanyahu tried to put her in charge of the Israeli consulate in New York, American and Israeli diplomats rose up against her.
“We would condemn that kind of rhetoric,” warned Vedant Patel, the State Department’s deputy spokesman, referring to Golan’s remarks. The former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, has said that if the appointment is finalized, the American Jewish community will see it as “a sign of complete disrespect”.
Angry Israeli diplomats with Golan
Several former senior Israeli foreign ministry diplomats had released a statement strongly disagreeing with her appointment to the consulate.
“Golan’s appointment is outrageous as she is a racist and divisive figure, which is exactly the opposite of what Israel needs in such a critical place,” they said.
“Golan is an intelligent and ambitious woman with big dreams,” Roni Mulkai commented in her article in Haaretz.
“The fact that a consul was not appointed should teach her a lesson. It is possible that the fact that she did not have an easy life, as she said, accounts for her fighting nature. But today he is in a different place, the one he dreamed of. He is a minister in the Israeli government and must understand the importance of the position and the great responsibility it entails. She is the one who steers the ship and can choose which direction to sail it.”
One wonders, if the “undemocratic” theocratic regimes of the Middle East are to blame for all the ills in the region, then what has become of the only “democracy” in the Middle East, and it is turning out leaders with ideologies that one would find in the German Nazi party of the decade 1930?
