Nir Barkat's former commander: 'Don't come to the Remembrance Day ceremony, you abandoned us'

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amal Asad called on the government’s representative not to come to a Remembrance Day ceremony in Usfiya, where the main Druze event commemorating the day takes place.

 Addressing Economy Minister Nir Barkat, he said: “You, like your entire government, are responsible for the massacres, the murders, and the fact that for seven months, 132 kidnapped Israelis have been dying in the basements of Gaza,” Asad said. “You and your government have abandoned the State of Israel, [and] the residents of the South [and] the North, and let’s not even talk about the hostages.”

Asad – who during his military service fought in the Battle of Chinese Farm during the Yom Kippur War commanded Battalion 932 in the Nahal Brigade, was commander of the Menashe Brigade, deputy commander of the Liason Unit in Lebanon, and commander of the Coordination and Liaison Directorate – was also one of the leaders of the Druze protest against the nationality law.

“Nir Barkat, Economy Minister of the State of Israel, do not come to the military cemetery in Usfiya on Remembrance Day... spare us another insult,” said Asad, who was Barkat’s commander in the army.

“You have nothing to say. Because you, like all your friends in the government, are responsible for the situation we have reached in the country,” he said. “You are responsible and, as someone who rescued you wounded from the Chouf Mountains in the [First] Lebanon War and knows that there are no wounded deserters, I tell you not to come because you have left us bleeding.”

"You are responsible!"

Asad added in his message: “You and your friends abandoned the young people of the Druze community to be shredded by the racists and remained silent when they sent us demolition orders and fines of hundreds of thousands of shekels. You and your friends enacted laws that ostracized us from the community.”

“Spare us; spare us from yourself,” he wrote. “Let us unite with our loved ones alone in the hope that a day will come when we can once again be proud of our Israeliness.”

Last year, members of the Druze community prevented Innovation, Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel from entering the annual ceremony at Usfiya cemetery, where not only are the fallen soldiers of the Carmel buried but which also serves as a memorial site for all the fallen soldiers of the Druze community.