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World Jewish News
Schalit campaign slams Olmert comments
18.03.2009
The head of the campaign for the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit on Wednesday morning lashed out at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert following statements issued by the Prime Minister's Office to the effect that the public campaign for the release of the soldier was "reckless," and was "damaging the negotiations."
"This is an insolent statement on the part of the PMO," Hezi Mashita told Army Radio. "Especially after the Schalit family kept quiet for months and years, and are now, in the past ten days, acting on their responsibility towards their son - as opposed to the 1,000 days that the Israeli government had."
The government, he said, could not "select for itself a more convenient family to struggle for a boy who has been held beyond Israel's borders for 1,000 days, buried alive in the burrows of the Gaza Strip."
Mashita said Schalit had borne the brunt of the consequences of Israel's insistence on setting limits to the negotiations. "Israel's setting of red lines on his aching shoulders, the fact that he has to bear all of these new limitations, is almost as cruel as being in captivity," he said.
Despite the harsh criticism he leveled at the prime minister, Mashita expressed hope that Olmert would request his term be extended. This, he said, would enable Israel to enter another round of intensive negotiations with Hamas.
"I think Noam and Aviva [Schalit] understand that it's not over as long as Olmert is still in office," he added with a note of optimism.
Источник: JPost.com
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