Israel had 3 (!) Commissions of Inquiry over the same scandal, with the first taking place in the 1960’s. Hanegbi says that he recommends exposing all the classified materials in all 3 Commissions of Inquiry.
“There is no logical reason or justification why the public shouldn’t see these materials,” he said. “I rely on the chief archiver and the excellent staff of the State Archives. We’ve already gone through 3,900 files and tens of thousands of pages. We decided to black out information only related to privacy issues.”
Hanaegbi revealed said about the tragic testimonies that he came across, “I don’t envy anyone who reads these materials… its painful and agonizing. We may have known about what happened, but when one reads it… ‘Caregivers saw strangers arriving to the baby homes, both from Israel and from abroad, looking the babies over and then the babies just disappeared.’”
Deputy Chairman of the Knesset, MK Naavah Boker, whose older brother and sister had also disappeared in the early years of the State, said in response “I call on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to add to the recommendation concerning the missing Yemenite, Oriental and Balkan children to also reveal the files of the kidnapped children. I was pleased to hear Hanegbi call for revealing all the documents presented to the Three Commissions of Inquiry. But this material, which was concealed from the public until now, has a good and bad side to it.
“It will reveal how they carried out the kidnapping of the children, but it doesn’t reveal the main thing — what happened to these children and where are they today? They are treating the missing children as if they were legally given over for adoption, and if so, their files are classified under the laws protecting adoption.
“I knew in advance that this would be the response, so shortly after the appointment of Minister Hanegbi, I demanded in the Knesset plenum as well as in a Likud party meeting from the prime minister to call these children by the correct appellation — kidnapped, and open up the files of how they were kidnapped.
“We must not lose his historic opportunity to heal this open wound in the heart of Israeli society and give answers to those families and those fathers and mothers who are still alive and don’t know what happened to their children.”
