Transcript: Ori Danino’s father appeals to Netanyahu ‘on behalf of the hostages still in Gaza’
Rabbi Elhanan Danino pleads with the prime minister, who paid a condolence call to the family with his wife Sara, to ‘strengthen love of Israel’ and stop playing politics
Ori Danino, an off-duty soldier with the Paratrooper’s Brigade, was captured by Hamas terrorists from the Supernova music festival after he went back to save his friends, and was held hostage for 11 months before he was murdered by Hamas some two weeks ago. Danino’s body was recovered by troops from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah on August 31, along with those of Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alex Lobanov and Almog Sarusi.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara came to the Danino family’s Jerusalem home during the shiva mourning period.
Recordings first broadcast Monday by Kan radio revealed the angry, anguished criticism Rabbi Elhanan Danino, Ori’s father, leveled at the prime minister.
The following is a transcript of much of the conversation, as broadcast on several Hebrew media outlets.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I want to tell you that we prayed and hoped to bring home (Ori) and the others, but we were unable to do so. I apologize to you that we couldn’t. He so deserved to be with you, and you to be with him.”
Elhanan Danino: “You people on high have to stop – stop! – dealing with nonsense and stirring up fights and disagreement. Without unity, we don’t deserve this country; there will be no rebuilding without this land.
“Shut your office for 10 minutes a day and think about where your Jewish values are. Shut it down, send everyone out, no phones, nothing, spend time alone with your creator and think, where is God in your picture, where is the Jewish value that you bring? We have no right to exist in this land without the Almighty, who gave us this land. Don’t be Orthodox. Don’t even be a believer. The Holy One Blessed Be He connects us and allows us to live on this land.
“This disaster happened because of the division and schisms we had here. It’s as clear as the sun that that’s what happened.
“Don’t spend time on petty and cheap politics and spin. There is no price on human life. I’m appealing to you here on behalf of those [hostages] who are still there [in Gaza]. I don’t dare to think about what the Goldin and Shaul families [whose sons were killed fighting in Gaza in 2014 and whose bodies have been held by Hamas ever since], who I sat with over the past 11 months, are going through.
“The Lord had mercy on me, and gave me a miracle. A miracle that my son is buried on a holy mountain in the holy city. A miracle! I have to think it’s a miracle to bury a body intact? That’s become a miracle? What kind of a situation have you brought us to? That it’s a miracle for them to bury their brother? Where have we gotten to? What’s happened to you? Wake up, please! Strengthen unity, strengthen love of Israel. Stop the spin and nonsense, for goodness sake!”
“You are a leader. You were elected, sent to lead. Clear away all the nonsense. Too many other things have gotten in…”
Netanyahu: “What things?”
Danino: “Stop dealing with gathering Knesset seats — with surveys, what will bring [support], what won’t. Stop it. I truly don’t know if there was a deal [to be done to save Ori and other hostages] or not. I’m not getting into that. But forgive me, sir, this all happened on your watch. My son was murdered in a tunnel that you built on your watch [by allowing funds and dual-use materials into Gaza]. Forgive me, forgive me. You’ve been in power for many years. Very many. The concrete and the dollars went in [to Gaza] on your watch.
“I won’t talk about my son. We accept the [divine] verdict with love. But you are responsible for the lives of everybody…”
“I’m not part of the debate going on outside. We were silent for 11 months because we believe in the Almighty. Now, too, we believe in the Almighty. But I feel that nothing has changed.
“Shut yourself in a room and think about the Jewish value that you bring — not the Jewish identity of the State of Israel — we’ll control here, control there. In the end, the Holy One Blessed Be He does everything. Strong as we were before this, on Simchat Torah we got a slap unlike any other. A slap. Neither the air force, nor the infantry [were any use]. My son was in the armed forces. Let nobody say I’m some dos [derogatory slang for ultra-Orthodox] who doesn’t believe in the army. I educated him to serve in the army. I was in the army.”
Netanyahu: Where?
Danino: Moran (an artillery unit)…
Netanyahu: “I won’t tell you what goes on behind closed doors. It won’t interest you that much either…”
Sara Netanyahu: “You were pretty much alone.”
Netanyahu: “Alone… Against the whole world. Facing the president of the United States and people here, and facing military elements here.”
Sara Netanyahu: “And facing army elements here.”
Netanyahu: “To fight and to explain. It’s not only Hamas. It’s not only Hezbollah. It’s an atomic weapon they’ll drop here on all of us… I enter [my office] every day and ask myself, Why are you here? What am I here for? Why?…”
Elhanan: “You didn’t do it [tackle Hamas] for 15 years…. 15 years you sat in silence. You did nothing.”
Netanyahu: “I didn’t sit in silence…”
Elhanan: “You equipped them with swords. You equipped them with tunnels and dollars… Did you come here to listen or to be listened to? Because what you have to say we’ve heard for 15 years.”
Later in the conversation, Channel 12 news reported without broadcasting the audio, Netanyahu says he burst into a plane to save hostages and that he knows what it’s like to lose a loved one because he lost his older brother Yoni.
Ori Danino’s brother is said to interject: “No, no, you don’t understand. You built your career on your brother’s back. Enough already. I buried my brother! Your brother was a true national hero. Where did that get lost? I don’t know.”
A member of the family is said to add that while Ori will be remembered as a good person, Netanyahu will not.
Netanyahu is said to respond: I’m not the issue, and how I’m remembered is not important. You have the right to think what you wish, and I respect that.
Elhanan Danino is then said to tell Netanyahu he won’t get divine assistance (siyata dishmaya) until he shows Jewish values, berate him for having lost the Zionist values he had at age 22, and assert that the Netanyahu of 50 years ago would have destroyed Hamas before it became a monster.
Sara Netanyahu is then said to accuse Danino of saying things others have told him to say.
Nobody tells me what to say, Danino is said to respond.
Soon after parts of the audio are broadcast, Netanyahu put out a video statement saying he hears “the cries of the hostage families who lost what is most dear to them.”
“My wife and I go to heartrending meetings which just tear the heart to pieces. I hear, I listen, I also don’t judge,” he said. “And I will do everything I can to bring back the hostages and to win the war.”
Related: Bereaved father says he hopes he ‘cracked something’ in PM when imploring him to bring hostages home
