Last Wednesday, Interior Minister Eli Yishai had to be escorted from the memorial ceremony held for families on the 30th day afterf the Carmel fire tragedy when one of the people in the audience, Danny Rosen, led a group in shouting at him. Rosen, who lost his partner Ahuva Tomer, the Haifa police chief who died in the fire, blamed Yishai for Israeli firefighters being insufficiently equipped to put out a major blaze.
As Rosen yelled, President Shimon Peres, who was also present, just sat and watched, and did not intervene.
Peres' silence may come back to haunt him, as the “Rosen Effect” could be used again him as well, say relatives of terrorism victims. Dr. Aryeh Bachrach, whose son Ohad was murdered by terrorists in 1995, spoke to Arutz Sheva's Hebrew-language news service about a plan to target Peres.
“We were very upset by the fact that the 'first citizen,' [as the president is called in Israel,ed.], sat there and watched as they were accusing the Interior Minister. After all, everyone knows that the Interior Minister was not responsible for the fire, and did not tell the bus [that burned while attempting to reach a prison to save the inmates, ed.] where to go,” Bachrach said. “His responsibility for this disaster is far less than Shimon Peres' responsibility for Oslo and what happened afterward.”
If in the future Peres attends a memorial event for victims of terrorism, he is likely to face angry relatives who, like Danny Rosen, will protest his presence. There will be no “hooligan's protest,” Bachrach said, but rather, relatives will wave protest signs and calmly demonstrate.
“I hope he will save us the trouble, and will simply not attend,” he added.
Bachrach noted that if Peres had spoken up after the event at which Yishai was targeted, he would feel differently. Even now, if Peres denounces the public humiliation of Yishai, “I would accept that. I have no interest in disgracing the institution of the presidency,” he said. However, he said, Peres has yet to show disapproval of the way Yishai was treated – opening the door for him to receive the same treatment for his direct responsibility for the so-called "Oslo War" , the Second Intifada, in which over a thousand Israelis lost their llves to terror after Peres spearheaded the "Oslo Peace Process".