Eli Yishai at fault?
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Money well spent? The supertanker
Photo: AFP
Hanoch Daum
Photo: Rafi Deloya
Obsession with guilt
Op-ed: Why do Israelis have an obsessive need to see heads roll after every disaster?
We’re a country that likes to see heads roll. We look for guilty parties with some kind of psychotic craving, as if the dead will come back to life if someone is declared exclusively culpable for all our troubles.
Instead of learning a lesson in modesty and realizing that at times the forces of nature are greater than what we expected, we want to know here and now why Israel never bought four giant firefighting aircraft.
Paying Piper
Prime minister postponed decision on improvement of fire services, Minister Yishai issued warnings but did nothing, Minister Steinitz demanded reforms but didn't transfer funds and Minister Barak also did nothing. Harsh report paints worrying picture on how government prepared to defend its citizens, states failures that led to deadly inferno result of 'improper administration, mainly with decision makers'
Why? For the same reason that we are unprepared for an earthquake that would swallow up Tel Aviv. A state cannot be 100% ready to face any disastrous scenario, and the force of the fire that spread through the Carmel was something that one could not prepare for.
We could regain our composure when it happens and defeat the fire quickly with the help of international aid (and that was indeed done,) yet no state can prepare in advance for all possible types of disasters.
We call it a cost-benefit analysis: If a Carmel blaze of this scope takes place once every 100 years, and acquiring a supertanker firefighting aircraft costs $100 million, it’s better to invest the money in fighting road accidents. It’s a mathematical issue.
This does not mean that our firefighting services were not neglected, humiliated, and mismanaged. It’s important that we draw the conclusions and quickly implement the recommendations of the state comptroller’s report. Anything that pertains to the future must be taken care of. But is the past really so acute right now?
What’s this obsession with commissions of inquiry? And why does everything have to be personal? Is Eli Yishai at fault for the fact that 40 Prison Service cadets on a bus were sent directly into the fire? Was it really necessary to send them to their deaths in order to evacuate a prison that ultimately did not burn down? Is there any connection between their incomprehensible death and the fact that our fire trucks are outdated?
Did Eli Yishai do less for the fire brigades than Ronny Bar-On, Ophir Pines, Haim Ramon, and the other interior ministers who came before him? So what’s this secular onslaught against him? Why is it so important to find a victim in the wake of every horror story? We cannot be comforted otherwise? We cannot improve without seeing heads roll?
I know that media outlets are engaged in a violent contest to see who hits the interior minister harder (he’s a Shas member after all, so what’s the problem slamming him.) There’s also a contest to see who can minimize the achievement of enlisting such broad international help. Yet I refuse to take part in this competition. What we had here was an extreme, anomalous disaster that requires us to prepare in a new way, rather than call for heads to roll.
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