Ya’alon apologizes for adviser questioning slain soldier’s heroism

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has called the wife and father of slain IDF combat soldier Roee Klein to apologize for a Facebook post by one of his advisers in which Klein was called not a hero, but unthinking for endangering other soldiers’ lives.

Ya’alon calls the comments “hurtful and unnecessary.”

Klein is widely considered a hero for jumping on a grenade during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, killing himself but saving soldiers serving under him.

But Moshe Ben Zaken, Ya’alon’s political adviser, wrote last week that Klein was not a hero but naive since he had ignored orders to hunker down after accidentally leading his unit into a trap set by heavily armed Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbeil, and instead tried to fight his way out, leading to the deaths of more soldiers, including Ben Zaken’s friend.

“In my conversation with them I told them I was sorry about the post and disagreed completely with the words, which were not written with my knowledge and do not represent the views of the defense establishment and of the IDF,” Ya’alon says in a statement.