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Photo: Motti Kimchi
Police chief Yohanan Danino. 'Asking him to resign is almost like asking the sun to stop shining'
Photo: Motti Kimchi
Sima Kadmon

If only Gil-Ad had called his mother

Op-ed: Police's failure to act following call from kidnapped teen has completely destroyed Israeli public's trust in the institution in charge of its safety.

It's just so outrageous, the strictness, the failure, the helplessness. And it's even more irritating in light of the courage, resourcefulness and responsibility taken by this young boy, who did exactly what should have been done, yet there was no one to listen to him on the other side of the line.

 

 

When one hears the audiotape from the moments of the abduction, Gil-Ad's voice, the kidnappers' scolding, the shouts and the strokes, the background voices and apparently also the shooting, a troubling question is raised: What else should have happened for the warning signals to start flashing at the police's call center?

 

What was missing from the phone call, which caused the people manning the emergency hotline precisely for such cases to decide that there was nothing to do about it and to simply do nothing? What kind of self-confidence – or complete incompatibility with the position – is required in order to make the decision that it was just a harassing phone call?

 

And when one listens to the recording over and over, one cannot help but wonder what kind of phone calls the police emergency hotline does respond to, if such a call is categorized as unreliable?

 

Even without understanding Gil-Ad's only three words, "I've been kidnapped," it's as plain as day that something bad is happening there, something alarming enough to shock the system. There is no need for any investigations and special devices in order to understand what every Israeli citizen understood after hearing the tape on Tuesday, and in order to understand that there was a terrible failure here.

 

And even if it were impossible to save the teens, we are still left with the following question: Who are these people who are responsible for our safety? For those moments of great distress when the call center workers on the other side of the line are the first human voice, and sometimes the last, which hears us.

 

Every person asked himself this week, or perhaps his children, who would they have called had they been in a situation in which they could only make one phone call. Only one phone call which could save their lives. Too many people thought that Gil-Ad should have called home, to his mother. That if that were the phone call he had made, everything would have turned out differently. That in such a case, the army, the police and the Shin Bet would have been alerted within minutes.

 

The fact that so many people don't see the police as a place they can turn to, that they question such a call center's ability to help them, is a cause for concern. The police's status in the eyes of the public reached a low point a long time ago. I believe this case has completely destroyed the trust. In our country, asking the police commissioner to take responsibility and resign is almost like asking the sun to stop shining. But we're entitled to demand the minimum, like hearing the police commissioner say: We were wrong. We screwed up. We failed.

 

But the tape released Tuesday evening sends chills down one's body mainly because of what it doesn't include. It doesn’t include the heartbeats of Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali as they sit next to each other in the dark, on the ride taking them to their deaths. It doesn't include the horror washing over them as they realize which car they have gotten into, the looks they may be exchanging, the thoughts going through their minds. Do they realize that these are the last moments of their lives? Are they considering trying to fight? What goes through young boys' minds when the most horrifying scenario happens to them?

 

Three exceptional families laid their loved ones to rest on Tuesday evening. And in this tragedy, even without knowing all the details, it's not hard to fill the gaps, to imagine the situation. It's hard to believe that there is anyone in this country who has not struggled at some point with the thought of what if it happened to them, or to their child.

 

And so on Tuesday, when thousands flocked to the funeral in Modiin and the rest watched it on television, they were not only escorting Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali to their final place of rest. They came to face their deepest fears.

 


פרסום ראשון: 07.02.14, 16:50
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