The chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Yuli Edelstein, spoke on Monday at the 21st Jerusalem Conference about the confrontation between him and Danny Elgarat, brother of Itzik who is held hostage in Gaza, who wore a yellow badge during a discussion of the committee and refused to remove it when asked.
"It's not a big drama and it's not new to me either. I've seen these attempts in the Knesset for many years. With me, the families of the hostages get the place they deserve in the committee, they speak, even today all the other families thanked me for the treatment. One person wanted to provoke, but as a son of Holocaust survivors, I have a red line. There will be no yellow badge in the State of Israel," said Edelstein.
"I have no idea who the man is. It was not behavior that respects the issue itself," he added.
He was asked whether is no place for understanding of the wearing of the patch in light of the fact that there are those who define Hamas’ October 7 massacre as a kind of Holocaust, and replied, "We didn't experience a kind of Holocaust, we experienced a terrible massacre, the likes of which we have probably never known in the State of Israel. I oppose the comparison to the Holocaust."
Edelstein also mentioned a similar incident, in which Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan wore a yellow badge at a debate in the UN. "Gilad is a good friend of mine. He is an excellent ambassador. He didn't ask for my advice, but I wouldn't have done it that way."
He spoke extensively about the issue of taking responsibility following the October 7 failures.
"It is absolutely clear that the responsibility is on all of us, certainly first and foremost on people who were at the top of the pyramid, I don't think anyone has any doubt that the Prime Minister as well as others should say outright, ‘I also have responsibility, not exclusively, but it is also on me,’" said Edelstein.
He was asked whether the Prime Minister should have drawn personal conclusions and resigned, and replied, "Unequivocally, I don't think we should go home. The fact that people take responsibility doesn't mean they immediately have to go home. We are in a war that has not yet concluded in Gaza, we are in a super sensitive situation on the northern border, and under these circumstances I don't think that anyone will immediately put in a letter of resignation and leave. I will say that he chose the easy path [if that happens]. In English there is an expression ‘clean your up own mess’, if you did something then clean it up. Both at the political level and at the military level, people have come to their senses and they are running the war, and I think it is a worthy thing."
To the question of whether there is a realistic scenario in which the government is toppled, he replied, "I don't like the direction of toppling a government, certainly not in the situation we are in. We are at war and to put the country into uncertainty and turmoil for five to six months, I don't think anyone has any doubt that it will affect the war. Every order will be interpreted in a political sense, it's not healthy."
"If you ask me if I am planning to topple the government, my answer is unequivocally no. Not because I like everything the government does, far from it, but during a war, I am in favor of everyone being in the government and leading the people in this complicated situation," Edelstein stressed.
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