Israel Palestine Infos
Uri Avnery
December 11, 2010
A
General Overhaul
THE JUDGE: “You are
accused of murdering your wife and two children. How do you plead: Guilty or not
guilty?”
The accused: “Your honor,
I do not deal with the past. I think about the future!”
No, not a scene from a
comedy. Something very similar really happened. That is how Eli Yishai, the
Minister of the Interior, Binyamin Netanyahu and the other nincompoops responded
this week to the accusations of gross negligence which resulted in the
unprecedented giant firestorm that ravaged large parts of
THE EPITOME of chutzpah
was reached by Eli Yishai (Shas). In bygone days, a Japanese minister would have
committed harakiri on the very first day of the conflagration. But Yishai
addressed the public on the last day and claimed that he was the victim of a
lynching because he is “Orthodox and Sephardi”.
But even if he had been a
blue-eyed secular Ashkenazi, he should have been thrown down the government
stairs. And not only because of his “ministerial responsibility”, as the State
Comptroller politely phrased it.
If Yishai had faced the
judge mentioned above, he would have answered: “Your honor, all my predecessors
also murdered their wives and children. So why do you single me out? Only
because I am Orthodox and Sephardi?”
One shocking piece of
evidence suffices to attach personal blame to this individual. When the fire
broke out,
Was that the
responsibility of his predecessors in the 50s or the 90s?
Lately, Yishai has stood
out as the compulsive persecutor of refugee children, in order to save the
“Jewish” state. If he had invested in the fire-fighting services a fraction of
the energy and enthusiasm which he invested in promoting the man-hunters of the
“Oz” immigration unit, the fire would have been conquered within an hour,
instead of blazing in unabated fury for three days. Not to mention his threats
to break up the government coalition if the subsidies of the Orthodox were
reduced.
In Yishai, some of the
main traits that caused the disaster are concentrated: a blown-up ego, total
devotion to the interests of his party, and complete indifference for the
government tasks entrusted to him.
But, he asserted, he
“warned”. All of the politicians “warned”. Every one of them keeps in the back
pocket of his trousers a bunch of letters he has written in the last few years
to cover his ass. But the duty of a minister is not to “warn”. His duty is to
act, and if he can’t – to resign.
THE MAIN responsibility,
however, does not rest with Eli Yishai, but with Binyamin Netanyahu. It is he
who appointed this good-for-nothing to this job, just as he appointed Avigdor
Lieberman as Foreign Minister and Limor Livnat as Minister for Culture. And all
the other ministers, almost all whom are quite unsuited for their tasks
Netanyahu’s own conduct
during the crisis, in which the entire country was glued to the TV screens for
days, every hour of each day, bordered on farce. While the fire-fighters were
busy trying to extinguish the fire, he was equally busy trying to extinguish the
growing criticism of himself. He hurried from place to place, surrounded not
only by a ring of bodyguards but by an even larger ring of photographers. He
immortalized himself in every possible pose, each one expertly staged, following
the example of the President of
Nothing was spontaneous,
nothing came from the heart. Everything a pose, everything unserious. One moment
he entrusted Interior Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch with the
responsibility for the entire operation, the next moment he forgot all about
him, as if he had never existed. The height of comedy was attained when he
appointed the mayor of Netanya, appropriately named Miriam Feirberg (“
Netanyahu also invented a
substitute for a Commission of Inquiry: a press conference.
But it appears that
Netanyahu knows his people. The polls show that a large part of the public has
been profoundly impressed by his dynamic leadership.
BUT BEYOND the failings
of individual politicians who pose as leaders, a frightening picture of the
entire ruling establishment has been revealed.
For a moment, the curtain
of the media flatterers, PR experts and assorted ass-lickers, who create an
artificial reality, has been raised. The picture that has emerged is of total
chaos. The flames shed light on only one accidental part – the fire-fighting
services – but there is no doubt that a similar situation exists in almost all
other departments of the government, from the defense ministry to the education
system.
Until now, we surmised.
Now we know for sure.
What was revealed this
week for all to see was a shocking landscape of incompetence and inability,
irresponsibility and ass-covering, lack of planning and lack of foresight, lack
of “staff work” and lack of coordination between the various government offices.
Many years of party corruption have led to a situation where at every crucial
point the wrong person occupies the wrong position. The crime of “political
appointments” has crippled the civil service.
The lack of an efficient
fire-fighting service, as described this week by the State Comptroller, is only
a symptom of the disease. It was not discovered this week, and not this year.
Already 42 years ago, on June 10, 1968, I warned the Knesset about this
situation and demanded the setting up of a national fire-fighting force, like
the national police force, with a single commander and a standing general staff.
The establishment ignored the proposal. So did the media.
Nothing was burning – until
We know already that the
same situation prevails in the education system, which is producing a generation
of ignoramuses, as was revealed this week by
We do not know what is
really happening in the army, whose officers are protected by a defensive ring
of army spokesmen and army liars, censors and fawning journalists called
“military correspondents”.
In order to turn
THAT BRINGS us straight
to the overturned hubble-bubble (Nargileh in Palestinian Arabic).
From the first moment on,
I was worried that the fire would ignite a huge conflagration of racist flames.
After all, the fire did break out near an Arab locality (Yes, the Druze are
Arabs, too). I asked myself: how long will it take until the racists are falling
over themselves fighting to exploit this opportunity?
At first I was pleasantly
surprised. In many ways, the disaster brought out the most positive sides of
Israeli society, which are hidden in normal times. In this area, too, an unusual
self-restraint prevailed this time. Common sense said that even the wildest
terrorist would not start a fire next to his own home.
But the police – who are
deeply stained by anti-Arab discrimination – could not restrain themselves for
two whole days. Thus, at the height of the disaster, when the public was glued
to the TV screen and emotions were running as high as the flames in the forest,
the police released a sensational piece of news: they had caught two Arab boys,
aged 14 and 16, who were guilty of starting the whole thing.
Even if this news had any
foundation, it could have quietly waited for two or three days, until the flames
were put out. But the police were all aflame.
They announced at the top
of their voices that the two brothers were having a picnic and their nargileh
had overturned. That is a doubtful story to start with. But even if the boys had
inadvertently caused the fire by their negligence, was there a need to treat
them like hardened criminals, drag them brutally from their home in the middle
of their family lunch, interrogate them harshly and try to get them to
incriminate each other? In the end they were released and the police grabbed
another boy of 16. All this was very different from the behavior of the police
some time ago, when a group of Yeshiva students inadvertently started a large
fire on the
THE EVENT did actually
have a racist face, but from a quite different perspective. Racism played a
major role in it.
The fire started near
Ussafiyeh. In this Druze locality, with its 10,000 inhabitants, there was no
fire station. Nor was there any is the neighboring Druze locality of Daliyat
al-Carmel, which has 15,000 inhabitants. The Arab local councils, which are
discriminated against in most spheres, are disadvantaged in this sphere, too.
This week, racism
revenged itself. If there had been fire stations in the Druze localities, the
fire could have been put out in short order, even with the East wind and the dry
trees, before it could develop into a disaster. The Ussafiyeh station could have
safeguarded the whole
The neglect of the Druze
localities had a dramatic effect on our ability to extinguish a fire on the
THE FIRE was a kind of
dress rehearsal. In
No one is ready for that.
The same government that is sabotaging all peace efforts and is leading us
towards war – is not ready for war on any level.
Even without this danger,
it is clear that the political establishment is in need of a general overhaul,
nothing less. That is impossible with types like Eli Yishai and his master,
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who proclaimed this week that the courageous female police
officer, Ahuva Tomer, and the 41 cadets who were killed by the fire died because
they broke the sabbath. Neither with types like Binyamin Netanyahu and his
cabinet, nor with the so-called “opposition”.
What is needed now is
nothing less than an awakening of the “silent majority”. They must understand
that by their indifference, they are no less guilty than the politicians who
were, after all, elected by them. Nothing will move unless the passive public
becomes active. Mass protests, big demonstrations, joint action by intellectuals
and others. Only thus can civil society assert itself and bring about the total
overhaul that has become a burning necessity.