Gantz unlikely to support Eitam for Yad Vashem chair

Against the background of a fierce controversy surrounding the appointment of former hard-right politician Effi Eitam as Yad Vashem chairman, sources in the Blue and White Party close to Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz have said he will only support “the appointment of a statesman-like and apolitical figure who has an undisputed public reputation.”As a result, The Jerusalem Post understands that Gantz is unlikely to support Effi Eitam. Eitam is a former IDF general and government minister for the National Union Party. Higher Education Minister Ze’ev Elkin has nominated him to serve as the new chairman of Yad Vashem, despite extremist comments he has made in the past about Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, as well as allegations of authorizing brutality against Palestinians while serving as a senior IDF officer. Until now, the Blue and White Party has declined to express an opinion on the matter. Comments by Blue and White sources on Thursday come following the approval of an internal government committee for Eitam’s candidacy earlier this week, as well as a public campaign against him by figures in the Israeli opposition as well as international and Israeli Holocaust scholars and museum curators. Eitam’s candidacy now needs the approval of the cabinet, but the Blue and White sources indicated on Thursday that Gantz and his party are unlikely to vote in favor. In 2006, at a memorial event for a soldier killed in the First Lebanon War, Eitam said that Israel would need to “expel the large majority of Arabs of Judea and Samaria; [things are] impossible with all these Arabs here, and we cannot give up on the territory.”

At the same event, Eitam said that Israeli Arabs need to be “removed from the Israeli political system,” describing them as “a fifth column,” and that “we cannot continue to allow such a large and hostile presence within the Israeli political system.”Eitam has spoken out on numerous occasions against the Arab political parties and their MKs.
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