Father of slain soldier makes 'alternative' Winograd

'We are dealing with a prime minister who wants to push it off for another year.'

By YAFFI SPODEK
jp.services1 (photo credit: )
jp.services1
(photo credit: )
Moshe Muscal of Mazkeret Batya, near Rehovot, has been grieving over his son Rafenael ever since he was killed in the Second Lebanon War, and now he has decided to publish an alternate version of the Winograd Report, together with dozens of other families whose sons, husbands and brothers died in the campaign. "We are dealing with a prime minister who wants to push it off for another year," Muscal said on Wednesday, referring to the Winograd Committee on the Lebanon War's final report. "If we don't do anything, nobody will know what really happened. We want testimony and we will write our own report and publicize it." St.-Sgt. Rafenael Muscal, 21, was killed in Maroun al-Ras, Lebanon, on July 20, 2006, along with three other members of the Golani Brigade's Egoz reconnaissance unit: Maj. Benjy Hillman, 27, from Ra'anana; St.-Sgt. Nadav Baluah, 21, from Karmiel; and St.-Sgt. Liran Sa'adiya, 21, from Kiryat Shmona. Moshe Muscal stressed that the alternative Winograd Report was not expected to reveal anything new, saying everything in it would be "what has been known by everybody for months." "It's not important who writes it, the point is that it needs to be addressed," he said. Muscal also called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government "to go home because they have not taken responsibility for their actions." "Olmert definitely should not be entrusted with a public office," Muscal said. "There are also others in the government who cannot be trusted, like [President Shimon] Peres and [Vice Premier Haim] Ramon, who are friends with him and said that they were against [the war], but voted for it anyway." The planned report is to have four sections. The first part will address the government's lack of preparation for the war, and what steps it could have taken in advance. "They didn't have any type of plan, and they had no idea what to do," Muscal said. The second chapter will detail July 12, 2006, the day the war broke out, and allegations that the government never made a concrete decision on a course of action. The third section will delve into the handling of the actual war, and the final part will explore what took place between the end of the campaign and today. "It has already been an entire year, and the government is still avoiding the findings," Muscal said. "They are trying to ignore the information that they themselves appointed people to investigate. They are doing everything to avoid facing the truth." Muscal has given himself and his colleagues a deadline of Rosh Hashana, which starts at sundown on September 12. "If the [final] Winograd Report is not published by that time, then we are preparing to publish our own."