Rahav: Yishai will be guilty if Goldberg twins harmed

Ran Rahav has taken up the cause of the Goldberg twins, born to a surrogate mother and Israeli father in India and have thus far been denied entry into Israel.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Eli Yishai 311 aj (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Eli Yishai 311 aj
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Public relations guru and honorary consul for the Marshall Islands Ran Rahav has taken up the cause of the Goldberg twins, who were born to an Israeli father and surrogate mother in India and have thus far been denied entry into Israel for lack of proof that homosexual restaurateur Dan Goldberg is their biological father.
In a letter addressed to Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Sunday, Rahav noted that in any normal country, the interior minister would have cleared his desk to take care of the matter of bringing home two vulnerable babies
“But sometimes we’re not such a normal country,” he wrote, adding that it was time all the clerks in the ministry started moving things along to speed up the process of bringing the twins to Israel.
Goldberg is more than willing to undergo DNA tests to prove that his sons Itai and Liron are indeed his flesh and blood, but a Jerusalem Family Court has held up the paternity test. Without it, Goldberg cannot bring his babies home.
Meanwhile, they are stateless, as well as ineligible for health insurance or free medical treatment. Keeping them in India has all but exhausted Goldberg’s savings.
“It boggles the mind that you, as minister, are not yourself doing everything possible to bring the infants to Israel,” Rahav continued in his letter.
If, heaven forbid, one of the twins should die tomorrow, he warned Yishai, “you will be held guilty for all the days of your life.”
Rahav urged the ministry to stop worrying about foreign workers and give its attention to this urgent matter.
Most of the time, he wrote, “I’m very proud to be Israeli, but there are moments when I’m ashamed, and to my great sorrow, this is one of the times when all of us in this state of ours, have reason to be ashamed.” Rahav expressed surprise at the relative silence on the part of Israelis at large. He said he would have expected a huge outcry of protest at the harshness to which Goldberg and his children had been subjected, and he was amazed that Yishai’s office had not been bombarded with faxes and e-mails.
“As I said,” he concluded, “sometimes we’re not a normal country.”