Opinion  Ron Ben-Yishai
Burning down the house
Ron Ben-Yishai
Published: 04.12.10, 16:39
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43 Talkbacks for this article
1. Ron is wrong
Ken ,   SA   (12.04.10)
What a crazy comparison. Hindsight is 20/20. The only ones who will collapse are Israels' enemies.
2. On YouTube Israeli Firefighters Looked Incompetent
World Citizen ,   the world   (12.04.10)
I watched several video clips of the fire fighting and it looked like clowns running around in a three-ring circus. Who, among the firefighting command structure, and in his right mind, would let a bus with forty people get within a mile of raging firestorm?
3. According to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef :
Salma ,   Palestine   (12.04.10)
Cause of the disaster is the wrath of the Lord from Netanyahu cuz he thinks to think freeze settlement 90 days, Just wait for his next sermon !
4. Sleep on your emotions before writing
Eric M ,   Canada/Israel   (12.04.10)
Far too dramatic Mr. Author. Which country has the firefighting yet alone disaster contingency plans for emergencies WELL IN EXCESS of those that "normally" occur? It is totally impractical for Israel or any other nation to be "ready" for all emgencies regardless of size. It is only rationalto to be ready for those that are most likely to occur plus 25% or so, w.r.t. scale. Good point about the Heredim though.
5. # 3 you are wrong Salma
Lioness ,   Israel   (12.04.10)
It is BECAUSE Israel froze Jewish building that Hashem has shown his wrath and is now burning buildings. We have a housing problem here and we need to build, build and build!
6. Stop funding non Zionist groups and use
jason white ,   afula,israel   (12.04.10)
the money for firefighting services and a fence on the southern border. Stop bringing over elderly olim and giving them apartments, pensions and free medical care. We can use the money for fixing roads. Stop wasting our tax money!
7. Obsolete passive defense
Raphael ,   Netanya   (12.04.10)
At the time firefighters were organized, Israel was an agricultural country, forest areas were barren hills. Since 1960, the population tripled, followed by heavy industrialization, including Seveso environmental hazards. Therefore the technical level of the civil protection has to be updated. Instead of relying on rabbis' prayers, why not train them to useful tasks?
8. Ron makes some good points, ignores the main one
Marcella   (12.04.10)
There is no doubt that Israel needs to be the best in the world in terms of organization, training and equipment to deal with war and natural disasters. ~~~~~~~~~ However Mr. Ben Yishai, like most Israeli intellectuals and politicians, completely ignores a very important threat to Israel: domestic terror and its part in the main fire and other acts of arson that are erupting elsewhere in the country. Authorities are now contradicting early reports by local police that there was evidence this conflagration was started deliberately. There is a desperate effort to remove blame away from the Usual Suspects. Which goes to show that fear of Jewish-Arab confrontations directs government policy, and Jews pay the price, sometimes with their own lives. As for the left, preserving the carefully cultivated image of the Arabs as victims continues to be their top priority at the expense of the truth. As long as the authorities continue to deny what this fifth column represents - as well as their anti-Jewish and even terrorist activities - Israel could have the most effective firefighting force and top notch rescue and fire-fighting equipment, and it will all be for nothing. The darlings will continue to ignite fires, and the Jews will continue to run around trying to put them out. And blaming trash dumps. ~~~~~~~~~ Also, Mr. Ben-Yishai, it's getting to be a little tiresome to see that no matter what happens in Israel, it's always the religious who get blamed. A previous column by Alex Fishman went as far as using the title "The Guilty Party" to lay all the blame on the Minister representing Shas. This obsession with the religious, and particularly the Ultra-Orthodox, shows peculiar similarities with the world's own obsession with Israel. When the world and the UN single out Israel for blame we aks them - what about the terrorists? And now that we face this tragedy in Israel and the media blames the religious and the religious minister, we ask leftist Jewish commentators, But what about the terrorists?
9. hysteria doesn't help
tom ,   toronto, canada   (12.04.10)
nobody can prepare adequately for natural disasters, and to do so would economically prohibitive, because disasters don't occur on a schedule. even the state of california, with more people (and money) than israel, needs (and gets) outside help with major forest fires. this nothing to worry about, but israel does need to have its leadership and emergency services ready to manage the response. and firefighting help is usually reciprocated, so maybe it's time to upgrade israel's fire fighting capabilities. the iaf operates several aerial refueling tankers which could be adapted for water bombing, and lots of helicopters that could be deployed. the biggest concern should be the use of water, where fresh water is scarce, but pouring salt water on land will make it very difficult to regrow the forests. if israel could develop techniques for fighting fires with sea water without poisoning the soil, it would more than repay the help she is getting.
10. This article should be about Elad Riven Z"L
Mark Kaye ,   Boston/Haifa   (12.04.10)
I read this opinion by a "journalist" who obviously dislikes and has has no pride in the accomplishments of his country and then an article about a man, only 16 years young, Elad Riven Z"L who fell fighting the fire. "He ran towards the fire ...not away from it"! Which one of these men truly did something to help his country!? Which one of these men deserve to be honored. I am sick and tired of people that only know how to criticize and whine.
11. Recent Fire
David ,   PLainfiELD, NJ   (12.04.10)
I am amazed at some of the recent articles in the Israeli media and the talkbacks. You seem to forget that overwhelming natural disasters occur all over the world. California burns every year and we in the US can't control it. There were tremendous fires in Greece and Russia recently. Europe and the US have floods. The situation is terrible and the loss of lives painful but you are not the only country to face natural disaster and find your efforts short of the mark
12. the catastrophe
Margalit Shinar ,   New York, USA   (12.04.10)
This article says it all. Our infrastructure has been criminally neglected. That historically empires have fallen because of this kind of neglect is anchored in fact. Zionism meant returning home to nurture and rebuild our land that had been reduced to desert. This fire demonstrates that the labor of our pioneer fathers has been betrayed. Three cheers for writing the truth and nothing but the truth.
13. Money allocation
Marilyn ,   USA   (12.04.10)
So much money is put into wars in the USA, that a lot of other things get neglected. There needs to be a certain percentage of the budget just dedicated to things such as infrastructure and education and so forth.
14. You cannot compare a devestatng fire to missiles
Talula ,   Israel   (12.04.10)
The fact that we don't keep superplanes that carry 80,000 tons of water in the nations inventory doesn't make us incompetant and doesn't mean the end of Israel as we know it. When a fire rages out of control in such a vast area, it's not only difficult to contain, it was also unexpected - there is no intelligence for forest fires - but there's intelligence for hostile intentions, and potential attacks, with which are equipped to deal with. The question here is why is so much money given to the lazy haredim who don't deserve it, and do nothing for it, and not put into adequate equipment to deal with disasters. This country of mine is great in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
15. its a forest fire not national collapse
Golan ,   modiin   (12.04.10)
You cannot pay for everything. You cannot have a bloated government, run government as a charity, face constant war with neighbors, fulfill the demands of the lazy and "students", run deficit spending, bare a huge national bebt, run extremely high taxes and be prepared for little things like forest fires.
16. We will pray for you
Leif Erik H.Niclasen ,   Argir Faroe Island   (12.04.10)
We have all the water you can ask for but nothing to get it towards you in a second of no time, but we can ask God of Abraham Isak and Jacob and His Son Jesus Christ to take it from Faroe Island to you in a second we will pray for you and the country God Bless You All
17. OY VEY
Jay ,   Toronto, Canada   (12.04.10)
Gloom and Doom...Next come The Cossacks
18. Build and plant.
Gabe Yakmore ,   Canada   (12.04.10)
19. Editorial response
Dab Gordon ,   Jerusalem   (12.04.10)
Dear Ron, As for your assesment on Israels internal readiness and resources available for the variety of possible disasters, as a Canadian who is used to seeing nature burn itself or flood itself out, we here are unprepared as well as unexperienced in internal natural disasters and this is certainly a wake up call. I do however disagree with your assumption that strong and healthy Yeshiva men would not want to assist and contribute to helping save lives or battling forest fires or what ever the need may be that would call upon an internal reserve force. I am one of "these people" as you describe learning in a Chareidi Yeshiva and I can tell you that many men would sign up for such a reserve. I see a shift in the psyche of Yeshiva men that may now be ripe for such a calling to help and assist in such times of need more that just collecting and identifying bodies. To run and point a judgmental finger at those learning Torah is surely as short sighted as your comments on Israels internal lack of readiness. It is likely that by our efforts in learning Hashems Torah is Israel as a nation as succesful as it is.
20. talking of waste
eyes wide closed ,   b-shemesh israel   (12.04.10)
you forgot the 69% of haredim on welfare.... that is brunt of waste for no return
21. Israeli firefighters not incompetent
An Australian ,   Sydney, Australia   (12.04.10)
I am from Australia; a country that spends hundreds of millions on firefighting and associated infrastructure. Yet a year ago, 200 people were killed by a massive fire in Victoria. THe reality is that sometimes nature is ferocious and there is nothing even prepared countries can do. Plus don't forget that Israel faces terror and war every day and these have been priorities
22. any excuse for abit of haredi bashing
zionist forever   (12.04.10)
The fact that the haredi & arabs spend their times in the syngogues and mosques and have not been drafted as a fire fighters has no relevance to this fire. The ZAKA.are highly respected even by the seculars and non jews alike so criticizing them and making their work out to be trivial nonsense is disgusting. This fire got out of control not because of a lack of man power which would not have been a problem if we had just forced all the haredi & arabs to become fire fighters. There are no individuals to blame here because since 1948 this sort of thing has been neglected and it has nothing to do with the haredi or anybody else problem. Nobody spends to much time thinking about things like this because they are rare. Before this incident if you asked every single Israeli to name 100 things the country needs to worry about and not more than a handful would have put forrest fires on that list. Sometimes you just get caught off guard and its not until after the threat you realize there was more you could have done & didn't. In Israel successive governments had failed to invest in fire fighting equipment so we were not prepared. In the US successive governors who whoever was responsible had failed to invest in the upkeep of the dams & levys and so it led to Katrina doing so much damage. There is nobody at fault here and there is certainly no justification to turn this into a haredi bashing story
23. Infrastructure collapse
graczek ,   Maryland, USA   (12.04.10)
Perhaps Mr. Yishai is correct about infrastructure collapse. Israel's days are numbered anyhow, so better that it go down through infrastructure failure with minimum loss of life than via a war that would leave the Holy Land and perhaps much of the rest of the world in radioactive ruins. The Zionist state has had its first warning from Divine Providence. A word to the wise, eh?
24. time to wake up
(12.04.10)
Sorry to say, BUT if all Jews living in Israel would keep to all 613 commandment from the holy Torah then G-D would not punish us so harshly , for example if we would all rest on the Sabbath refrain from work as G-D has asked us to, then this surly would not happen. So sorry for all the families who lost their loved ones.
25. Israel's fire service
Martin ,   USA   (12.05.10)
Ron is right that Israel's fire service needs more people and equipment.But the Home Front command itself is well prepared as well as the MDA. Also, other volunteer groups such as ZAKA help in rescue and first aid not just collecting body parts. It's also a good idea to enlist locals to help.
26. spot on but one source of manpower overlookd
observer   (12.05.10)
'yeshiva students and young Arabs' - oh, and of course ... you guessed it: university students.
27. Ron is 100% right on Haredim,Arabs
Jacob ,   Toronto   (12.05.10)
Israel has too many bums, doing nothing, and collecting money from government
28. #2 have you ever heard of the black Sunday here in Australia
Boaz ,   Perth, Australia   (12.05.10)
I don't think so otherwise you wouldn't put your stupied comment on this site. Maybe watch the YouTube and what happened here and if you are unlucky enaugh maybe one day you will dance in front of a wall of fire!
29. The bus driver stopped he could have made it out
jason ,   haifa israel   (12.05.10)
I read accounts from eyewitnesses that the bus driver stopped and he was only a hundred yards from making it out but he panicked and stopped and the fire caught up to the bus.
30. Good points - blaming religious nullifies them
Lemmings Hotline ,   sd usa   (12.05.10)
This is typical of israeli conversation. They always get sidetracked into moronic mudslinging. if you could just stay on point, you might get something accomplished.
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