Carmi Gillon, the former head of the Shin Bet, weighs in on the controversy over whether Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon should have canceled a planned visit to Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Saturday. The defense minister had been planning to make a solidarity visit to the kibbutz, a day after Daniel Tragerman was killed there, but was ordered to cancel for security reasons — infuriating some of the few kibbutz members who have not fled north.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon meets with local council chiefs from communities near the Gaza border at Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council on August 23, 2014. Photo by Ariel Hermoni/Ministry of Defense/Flash90
“By the same logic that he was allowed to visit the (general Gaza border) area, he could have gone to Nahal Oz,” says Gillon, noting that Ya’alon met with local council leaders elsewhere in the area.
Carmi Gillon. (photo credit: Orel Cohen/Flash90)
“At the same time, he’s a symbol of the state and to harm him would have given Hamas the ‘victory picture’ that we are sending soldiers to their deaths to prevent,” he acknowledged.
Gillon emphasizes that Ya’alon, a former IDF chief of staff, has been in far more dangerous situations and is anything but a coward. He notes that the head of the Shin Bet makes such decisions, but that Ya’alon could have queried it, recalling that former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin — under whom Gilon served — often did query such security precautions.
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