The appointment of Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror as Israel's next national security advisor is a dangerous move, given his "fascistic" views, leading leftist figures argue in a letter issued Wednesday.
The letter compares Amidror to Rabbi Dov Lior, who endorsed the killing of non-Jews in a book he wrote.
"Amidror's declaration that in a normal army, a soldier who's scared to charge forward should be shot in the head is blatantly illegal," the letter reads. "This statement disqualifies him for any public post, and certainly a sensitive security-political position."
"It was no slip of the tongue or a remark taken out of context," the letter's signatories say. "Watching the video is a hair-raising experience."
Amidror addressed the remark before, claiming it was taken out of context as part of an anti-Semitic campaign against him.
"Amidror's views not only position his worldview in the fascistic side of the 1930s, but also look like a copy of the domestic terror world…that prompted the Second Temple's destruction," the letter charges. "It appears we are dealing with the creation of a Lior-Amidror axis…threatening to endorse lethal harm to Palestinian children as well as hesitant Israeli boys."
Letter signatories include writers Yoram Kaniuk, Israel Prize winners such as sculptor Dani Karavan and photographer David Tratakover, former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni and actress Hanna Maron, and others. The signatories recently published several letters condemning the "fascist" moves undertaken by the Netanyahu-Lieberman government.
'Anti-Zionist Left' slammed
The letter also slams Amidror's statements that Israel's secular Jews are "Hebrew-speaking gentiles" and that "an army must kill anyone who stands in its way."
"The immoral and unreasonable appointment of Amidror…again proves that we should not believe even one word uttered by Netanyahu," the signatories add. "His lips promise peace while his hands start a fire."
Responding to the letter, National Union Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad said that "the radical, anti-Zionist Left in Israel would today surely disqualify King David from serving as king of Israel…as the only thing that guides the radical leftist group is its desperate objection to anything that symbolizes the word patriotism."
The Amidror appointment still requires the government's and State Commissioner's approval.
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