Hezbollah dupes Israeli top brass into TV interview

Yedioth Ahronoth reported:

A documentary was broadcast last Saturday on the Hezbollah-affiliated satellite channel Al Mayadeen featuring some of Israel’s most senior politicians and military officials during the second Lebanon War in 2006.

In the first segment of the three-part documentary entitled “What happened in 2006,” the Israeli interviewees- which include former ‘Defense’ Minister Amir Peretz, lawmaker Tzipi Livni and Maj. Gen. (res.), lawmaker Eyal Ben-Reuven - are heard discussing the war and the kidnapping of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

In addition, the documentary included an interview with Tomer Weinberg who was injured and managed to flee the patrol humvee which was ambushed by Hezbollah combatants before the occupying troopers were sized and taken to Lebanon.

“In February an Italian journalists called Michela Moni approached me and said he was gathering material for an extensive article about the kidnapping,” Tomer Weinberg told Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday.

Weinberg is heard on the documentary describing at length the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping.

“The moment that the firing started I realized that it was coming from Hezbollah. I opened the door of the humvee, I didn’t look at my friends who were sitting on the back seats and I fled.”

In the documentary one of the Hezbollah narrators says, “We interviewed the soldier who was injured and who managed to escape but his capture was not part of the operational order which is why we didn’t take him.”

The first part of the series also features an interview with former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate Amos Yaldin, and concludes with a preview of the next two episodes showing excerpts of an interview with Tzipi Livni who served as ‘justice’ minister in 2006.

Amos Yaldin, said on Monday that he was not interviewed by the satellite Hezbollah-affiliated television channel Al Mayadeen and insisted that they simply took excerpts from other interviews with Israeli television channels.

However, the account provided by Tomer Weinberg on Monday sheds new light on the matter: “In February Michela Moni presented himself as a journalist for the Italian ANSA news agency in Rome. He asked to interview me about the kidnapping. I declined the offer a few times and explained reconstructing the incident could worsen my mental and physical state,” Weinberg recalled.

“The Italian journalist didn’t give up and I eventually agreed to be interviewed. When he came to my home he told me he was staying in Jerusalem and came to visit me specially ‘because the Italian people are extremely interested to hear your story, and it is important they hear the circumstances of the kidnapping,” he explained.

Weinberg said that the interview lasted more than an hour during which the journalist asked him if he would agree to be interviewed against a background of footage of the kidnapping. He categorically refused, however.

“The Italian journalist explained that his producer was pressuring that I be photographed next to the footage and offered me $2,000. I immediately said no and told him there was no chance.”

Weinberg, who today works in high-tech as a developer for computer software did not see the Hezbollah film but explained that he has since been made to feel like an outcast since it was aired.

“My friends shamed me because after all that I told the Italian journalist, they showed only a tiny part of it which implies that I escaped from the vehicle and abandoned my friends. All at once the memories from the incident came rushing back and I became anxious. Since the film was shown I have not been into work,” he admitted.