Bereaved father tells 'Post' gov't and MKs should admit failure and resign.
By DINA FEUCHTWANGER, TOVAH LAZAROFFjp.services2(photo credit: )
Sitting around a television set in a house in Mazkeret Batya, about a dozen families of some of the 119 soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War gathered on Monday night to voice their anger with the government over the Winograd Report's conclusions.
While some parents could be seen sitting quietly or simply telling stories about their late sons, others were yelling loudly and even arguing among themselves with regard to their upcoming plan of action.
David Einhorn, whose paratrooper son Yonatan was killed at the age of 22 in the battle of Aita al-Shaab in Lebanon on August 1, 2006, said he was outraged by the Olmert government's failure in the war, and called on it to resign.
"It's sad!," he told The Jerusalem Post. "The government sent our sons to fall. Both the government and the Knesset members gave up. They should look inside themselves and say: 'We failed.'"
"We should go to the nation to appoint a new government," he added.
Yisrael Klausner, whose son Ohad Klausner was killed on July 26, 2006 at the age of 20 in the battle of Bint Jbeil, called for new leaders with "a new value system."
"We raised our son, Ohad, with values, and he took these values with him to the army," his father, Yisrael, told the Post. "We wish that the leaders of our country would have these same values."
"If the parents and the sons are not able to rely on the government for making good decisions, the soldiers will not agree to go into battle or into the reserves. This will eventually cause us to lose the state of Israel," he said. "Our goal is not simply to get rid of those sitting in the government. Rather, that the leaders will realize that they have responsibility. We want to create a new value system. The time has come for good leaders!"
Klausner said that he hoped that at the one-year anniversary of his son's death, Ehud Olmert would no longer be prime minister.
The families of the three captured soldiers refrained on Monday from criticizing the government and the army.
Instead, they called on the government to increase its efforts both to secure the release Cpl. Gilad Schalit, 20, who was kidnapped by Hamas on the Gaza border in June and to bring home reservists Ehud Goldwasser, 32, and Eldad Regev, 26, who were abducted by Hizbullah on the northern border in July. It was this second kidnapping that sparked the Second Lebanon War.
In a statement, the families said the Winograd Report only increased the responsibility of the government and the army to do all they can to free their sons.
"It has been more then nine months since the kidnapping of Udi [Ehud], Eldad and Gilad and every day that goes by in which they continue to be held only endangers their lives," the families said.
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