One of the most recognized photos from the Six-Day War documented paratroopers looking with awe at the Western Wall, as it was just liberated on June 7, 1967. Yet it seems that if it were up to Knesset member Omer Bar-Lev of the Zionist Camp, a former senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces and the son of the late Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev, this photo would not have become one of the symbols of the most glorious military victory in the history of the State of Israel. On Oct. 31, in a demonstration in Ramat HaSharon, Bar-Lev criticized a visit by the battalion of the Golani Brigade to the Western Wall. As he saw it, this is “religious radicalization,” namely religious coercion, enacted with the taxpayers’ money.

This example illustrates why Avi Gabbay, the chairman of the Zionist Camp, was right when he said on Nov. 13 that the left — or at least parts of it — chooses to forget that it’s Jewish and is sometimes ashamed of it.

In a lecture to university students in Beersheba, Gabbay referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s famous statement to Rabbi Kadouri in 1997, according to which he said, “The left has forgotten what it is to be Jewish.” In response to a student who raised the issue, Gabbay said, ''Netanyahu told Rabbi Kadouri, he whispered it in his ear and the TV caught it, he told him, 'The left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish.' You know what the left did in response? It forgot what it means to be Jewish. It's as if they are saying it about us, 'Now we are only liberals.' It's not true. We are Jews and we need to talk about our Jewish values.” He added, “We’re Jews, we live in a Jewish state. I think one of the problems of the Labor Party is that it has distanced itself from this.”

Like Netanyahu’s original statement, Gabbay’s endorsement of it drew sharp criticism from the left. But the harsh attacks on Gabbay from his party colleagues and from left-wing Meretz attest that he actually did touch on a relevant point.