Seeking Relevance, Retired Israeli Leaders Court Outrage

On Tuesday, the Israeli politician and former IDF chief of staff Yair Golan caused a domestic stir when, in a radio interview, he seemed to accuse Israeli troops of “killing children as a hobby”—although the statement was ambiguously worded, and he later walked it back. Golan, it should be noted, is head of a political party called The Democrats, formed from a merger of the remnants of the Labor party and the far-left Meretz party. Not to be outdone, the former prime minister Ehud Olmert—not a beloved figure in Israeli politics—told the BBC that Israel is doing something “very close to a war crime” in Gaza.