Commenting on the revelation that it was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's advisor Uzi Arad who earlier this week criticized IDF Chief of Staff of acting like "the head of the IDF's parent-teacher association" in the efforts to trade Gilad Shalit for some 1,000 terrorists, National Union chairman MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) said Wednesday that it was the political establishment, not the army, that had what to answer for on the Shalit case. "The decision to conduct negotiations that will lead to the release of arch-terrorists is the government's, not the army's," MK Katz said in interview with Arutz 7.
Arad, he added, had a history of providing bad advice. "Uzi Arad talked the Prime Minister into the terrible concept of 'two states for two peoples,' He was the one who recommended that the Prime Minister break his campaign commitments. And he was the one who suggested the building freeze, which is impacting 350,000 people. Uzi Arad was not elected to anything, but he has the Prime Minister's ear, and the latter continues to listen to him. Unfortunately, Netanyahu is known for choosing bad advisors, and Uzi Arad is the worst of the lot," MK Katz said.