Meir Indor (Flash 90)

Meir Indor, head of the Almagor Terror Victims’ organization, criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday for ignoring families of terror victims who saw the murderers of their loved ones being released in the recent deal to free Gilad Shalit.

Indor said that Netanyahu chose to ignore the families when he spoke of the Shalit deal in his speech at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, despite the fact that the families were in the audience.

“Netanyahu preferred to boast of the deal and ignored those who paid the price,” Indor said. “After he had promised those families that he would hold a public discussion before implementing the deal, the least he could have done was say a few words of solidarity with the families.”

Indor also said that Netanyahu never even mailed the letter of solidarity with the families that he published before the deal was carried out.

In that letter Netanyahu had written, “I understand and feel your pain. I know that this is emotionally difficult, that the wound of bereavement has been reopened in recent days, that thoughts of it give you no rest.”

“The decision regarding Gilad Shalit’s release was one of the hardest I have made. It was hard for me because it is hard for you,” he wrote.

Almagor criticized the contents of the letter after they were made public, saying it was “a mockery” and “not worth the paper on which it was written.”

“It turns out that Netanyahu’s interest in the public is in line with that of the media, and that the victims of terror only matter to him once a year on Memorial Day,” Indor said on Monday. “That is when he will also promise that Israel’s long arm will capture the terrorists, after his short arm released them last week.”