Shimon Peres (right) sits in his office with Zouheir Bahloul,
Name: Zouheir Bahloul
Party: Zionist Union (Labor)
Age: 64
Hometown: Acre
Family status: Widower, 3 children
Profession before becoming an MK: He I was a news radio host on Radio A-Shams and a lecturer at Emek Yizre’el College. He previously worked over 30 years at IBA – Channel One and Israel Radio – as a sportscaster. He started his career as a teacher..
It's possible that sports broadcaster-turned-Zionist Union MK Zouheir Bahloul is not, to say the least, a wise man. His insistence on avoiding making a very obvious statement, that a Palestinian who charges at an IDF soldier with a knife is a terrorist, shows that he does not understand the concept of political correctness. Bahloul followed up his statement with "IDF Soldiers are Symbols of the Occupation"'
 | |
| Chairman | Isaac Herzog |
| Founded | 23 January 1968 |
| Merger of | Mapai Ahdut HaAvoda Rafi |
| Headquarters | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Youth wing | Young Guard |
| Membership (2011) | 67,000 |
| Ideology | Labor Zionism Social democracy Two-state solution[1] |
| Political position | Centre-left[2][3] |
| National affiliation | Zionist Union |
| European affiliation | Party of European Socialists(observer) |
| International affiliation | Progressive Alliance, Socialist International |
| Colours | Red, blue |
| Knesset |
19 / 120
|
| Election symbol | |
| אמת | |
| Website | |
| www | |
You cannot join the Knesset as a representative of a party whose forefathers of defense include David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin, and then respond with indifference to an attack on an IDF soldier who was on duty. This would be a really bad scenario. But there is still one that is worse.
It's possible that Bahloul is a cunning political tactician, and his political correctness indicator is telling him that the few members of the Arab community who support the Zionist Union refuse to see the murderer from Hebron's Tel Rumeida neighborhood as a terrorist. If that's true, Bahloul understands deep down that the Palestinian from Tel Rumeida was a terrorist, but he doesn't dare say so.
This scenario is several times more serious, and goes beyond a single legislator rebelling against his party line to address the assumption that there is no one who can better repair the rift in society than the moderate Arabs who vote for the Zionist Union.
When considering these two options, we must pay attention to the responses issued by the party. Zionist Union Chairman Isaac Herzog opposed the comments, of course, as did MKs Itzik Shmuli and Revital Swid, but there were pockets of silence among different branches of the party, and that is also cause for concern.
Moshe Boogie Yaálon was Chief of Staff of the IDF from
It would be possible to understand Bahloul's stance if he had been met with insensitivity, opacity and inflexibility on the part of the Defense Ministry. But Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon is leading the struggle for behavioral norms against many of his colleagues in the Likud and in Habayit Hayehudi, who are near to granting full justification to the soldier who shot the terrorist-murderer while he was lying on the ground. This is a life or death struggle for the image of the IDF, the restraint required by the rule of law and for public norms among the Israeli political parties. On Thursday, Bahloul did harm to the sane group that is struggling with its back against wall against the "thugs," as Ya'alon has called them.
Moshe "Boogie''Ya'alon
Moshe "Boogie''Ya'alon was born Moshe Smilansky, the son of David Smilansky and Batya Silber. His father, a factory worker, had moved to Mandatory Palestine with his parents from Ukraine in 1925, and was a veteran of the Haganah and Jewish Brigade. His mother was a Holocaust survivor who had fought against the Nazis with partisans duringWorld War II. She came to Palestine in 1946. Ya'alon grew up in Kiryat Haim, a working-class suburb of Haifa. He was active in the Labor Zionist youth movement "HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed" and joined a Nahal group named Ya'alon, a name he later adopted. He later moved to kibbutz Grofit, in the Arava region near Eilat. In 1968, he was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces, and served in the Nahal Brigade. He was discharged in 1971.
Military career
In 1973, Ya'alon was called up as a reservist during the Yom Kippur War. On October 15, 1973, his unit became the first IDF unit to cross the Suez Canal into Egypt. He continued fighting as part of the Israeli drive into the Egyptian mainland, and participated in the encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army. Following the war, he rejoined the IDF as a career soldier, and completed an officers' course. He was appointed a platoon commander, and then as a commander in officers' school. In 1978, he became a commander in the Paratroopers Brigade.
During the 1982 Lebanon War, Ya'alon joined the Sayeret Matkal commando unit as a commander. He then rejoined the Paratroopers Brigade and was appointed commander of its 890th Battalion. During this time, he was wounded in the leg while leading a pursuit of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
Ya'alon took a sabbatical to the United Kingdom to study at the British Army's Camberley Staff College. Upon his return to Israel, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and appointed commander of Sayeret Matkal. Ya'alon lead it to many notable achievements, for which the unit received four recommendations of honor. After his tenure as commander was finished, Ya'alon studied at the University of Haifa, obtaining a BA in Political Science, and took an Armored Corps course. In 1990, Ya'alon was appointed commander of the Paratroopers Brigade, and two years later, became commander of the Judea and Samaria Division. On 10 December 1992, Ya'alon killed a militant from the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine with a hand grenade after the militant had shot dead a Yamam operative attempting to arrest him. In 1993, he was appointed commander of an IDF training base, and commander of an armored division. In 1995, Ya'alon was promoted to Major General and appointed head of Military Intelligence. In 1998, he was appointed commanding officer of Israel's Central Command. He was serving in this position when the Second Intifada was launched in September 2000.
Ya'alon was appointed Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on 9 July 2002, and served in that position until 1 June 2005. The major focus throughout his tenure as Chief of Staff was the army's effort to quell the Second Intifada. Under his watch, the IDF conducted Operation Defensive Shield.
