PM: ‘Shame on’ Gantz for suggesting Baumel’s return timed for political gain
Netanyahu charges that his chief election rival ‘didn’t even make an effort to show up’ at funeral of soldier whose body was brought back to Israel after 37 years
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday lashed out at Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz for accusing him of trying to score political points from the return of the remains of an Israeli soldier after 37 years.
The body of Sgt. First Class Zachary Baumel, who was believed killed in the 1982 Lebanon War’s battle of Sultan Yacoub, was returned to Israel earlier this week following what a military spokesman said was a complex and secret operation.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed it was Russia who recovered Baumel’s remains as he hosted Netanyahu in Moscow. Until then, Israeli officials were only permitted to say that a “third country” had assisted in the effort, without specifying which.
Gantz, a former military chief of staff, praised the return of Baumel’s body in an interview with Army Radio on Thursday but accused Netanyahu of using it for “political spin” ahead of national elections next week.
“Benny Gantz, shame on you,” Netanyahu said in a video published on his social media accounts.
Flinging back at Gantz the accusation of turning a “holy operation” into “political spin,” Netanyahu rapped the retired general for not attending Baumel’s funeral Thursday.
“I flew in the morning to Moscow, thanked President Putin for his help in returning the soldier, and afterwards did everything in order to immediately return to Israel and participate in the funeral,” he said. “You didn’t even make an effort to show up. During the funeral you engaged in politics.”
A number of Israeli dignitaries and former military chiefs attended Thursday’s funeral at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, among them Gabi Ashkenazi, a top candidate in Gantz’s Blue and White party.
The video by Netanyahu came after he previously demanded that Gantz issue an apology.
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to the people of Israel,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter Thursday.
The Israel Defense Forces denied that the publication of the operation to return Baumel’s body was designed to boost the political prospects of Netanyahu, who is also defense minister.
The IDF “rejects outright the claims about timing. This happened after a two-year operation,” said IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis. “There was cooperation here that defies all imagination and the decision was substantive. Any other claim is baseless.”
The announcement of the return of Baumel’s remains brought to a close a decades-long mission by Baumel’s Jerusalem-based, American-born parents to find their son, which included international pressure campaigns and faint hopes that he may have been captured alive during the brutal Sultan Yacoub tank battle.
