Yair Golan Rebukes Party Candidate Over Remarks About Religious Soldiers

A political uproar broke out after social activist Naor Narkis, a candidate in the primary of The Democrats party, made harsh comments about fallen soldiers from the religious Zionist sector and their military service path. In a weekend interview with i24NEWS, Narkis referred to the many dead from the community since the war began on October 7 and suggested their casualty rate was linked to yeshiva-track service. He said, “If they had done full service like secular people, maybe they would not have fallen so many,” and added, “The religious are not so national when they are the sector that evades service the most, apart from the haredim. We just did not notice it.”

Narkis also compared combat experience to medicine, saying a soldier who served one and a half years in the “hesder arrangement” is less experienced than a secular soldier who served three years, and likened praying in battle to a secular person listening to Taylor Swift. His remarks prompted angry reactions online and from public figures, who accused him of sweeping generalizations, incitement, and hate toward a community that is at the front of the fighting and has lost many of its best members.

In response, party chairman Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff, distanced himself completely from Narkis and condemned the remarks sharply. Speaking to ynet, Golan said, “Fighters who fell defending the State of Israel do not need to justify themselves to anyone,” adding that they answered the call, carried the country’s security on their shoulders, and did their part to the end.

Golan stressed that the battlefield has no sectors or categories. “There are no hesder soldiers, kibbutzniks, city people or moshav residents, there are IDF fighters,” he said, calling any attempt to tie a political debate to the sacrifice of fallen troops “improper” and not reflective of the party’s values. He said debates over Israeli society and burden-sharing should continue, but “outside cemeteries,” and that the country owes fallen soldiers humility, respect, gratitude, remembrance, and support for their families.