“He didn’t do his job,” Zehava Shaul, the mother Oron Shaul, said about Benny Gantz when asked what she thinks about the former IDF chief of staff announcing today that he is forming a party, called Hosen L’Yisrael (Israel Resilience Party), for the upcoming elections.
A video circulating in Israeli media showed the bereaved mother at a memorial event for her son, who would have turned 25 today, answering questions from journalists.
“As a private individual, I like him, but as a military man he didn’t do his job [...] and if he did do the job, than it was one big failure,” Shaul said.
Oron Shaul is one two IDF soldiers who were killed and whose remains were seized by Hamas in Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Hadar Goldin experienced the same fate. Zehava Shaul and Leah Goldin, Hadar’s mother, frequently criticize the political establishment and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not doing enough during discussions with Hamas to secure the return of their sons’s bodies.
Gantz held the post of IDF chief of staff during Protective Edge.
“Him [Gantz], as well as [Moshe] Bogie Yaalon. Both were there in the period when Oron was kidnapped and didn’t do anything,” Shaul lamented, adding that “They shouldn’t have ended Protective Edge until they returned Oron.”
Moshe Yaalon, who also announced the formation of a new party under his leadership this week, served as defense minister during the operation and didn’t do enough to return the missing bodies, according to Shaul.
The two former IDF chiefs are rumored to be considering joining forces to create a “generals party” to increase their power.
“Now you want to go into government? What for? What to vote for you for?” Shaul asked rhetorically. “Resilience! Resilience, he calls himself. Him and Bogie. Resilience.”
