Prime Minister Netanyahu’s candidate to head Yad Vashem has sparked controversy
Photo: Flash90
Yad Vashem, long a national consensus, has become the latest fault line in Israel’s left-right wars, as Prime Minister Netanyahu’s candidate to head the institution has sparked controversy.
Over 160 academics from across the globe signed a petition protesting former brigadier general Effi Eitam’s nomination, in which they argued that his “hateful rhetoric” against Arabs and Palestinians are in total opposition to the message and values of Yad Vashem.
The petitioners note that a number of past public statements by Eitam have been “problematic,” including his call for a mass expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and his description of Israeli Arabs as a “fifth column.” This decision, they write, “would turn an internationally respected institution devoted to the documentation of crimes against humanity and the pursuit of human rights into a mockery and a disgrace.”
Effi Eitam, 68, has himself made the political journey from left to right. He grew up in Kibbutz Ein Gev, then gained an impressive record as a soldier and officer for service in the Yom Kippur War — in the wake of which he became a baal teshuvah. From 2002, he served as head of the National-Religious Party in the Knesset.
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