WarSclerotic

State comptroller: Civilians in real danger – Israel News, Ynetnews.

In temperamental Knesset meeting, State Control Committee discusses demand to appoint state commission of inquiry into firefighting failures which led to deadly Carmel blaze. Most members expected to vote against inquiry

Roni Sofer

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to obtain an achievement Tuesday at the Knesset’s State Control Committee by pulling the Kadima faction’s proposal to appoint a state commission of inquiry into the failures which led to deadly Carmel wildfire. 

The discussion, attended by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, focused on the state comptroller’s scathing report on the situation of Israel’s firefighting services and the demand to appoint a state commission of inquiry.

The committee’s chairman, Knesset Member Yosel Hasson (Kadima), called on its members at the start of the meeting to “rise above narrow political considerations and act in accordance with the public interest.” He went on to criticize the government. “The culture of rolling the responsibility from one minister to another and from one ministry to another is expanding and must be stopped immediately. “The concept of ministerial responsibility has a meaning. A minister serving for two years must take responsibility. A person receiving the keys to a governmental ministry must know that he is taking responsibility. A minister is not just an office and a seat and a Volvo. A minister means responsibility. “This is a culture that cannot be accepted. This is a culture which has claimed lives. The way to change the decision making culture in Israel is through a state commission of inquiry. Our decision must revive the public’s trust in the State’s government systems. “Everyone must know that we are doing everything to prevent such a disaster from repeating itself, in order to guarantee that those who failed will pay the price – so that people will know that responsibility can be measured and tested. This is our moment of truth as Knesset members.”

State Control Committee, Tuesday (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Hasson then gave the floor to the state comptroller. “The report speaks for itself – there was a failure here which means the civilian population was neglected at a time of emergency,” Lindenstruass said. “Another point is that many residents’ lives will be in real danger if our reports are not implemented. This is one of the reasons we moved up the submission of the report by several weeks, because we saw a real danger here… What has been said in the report must be implemented – it’s a duty.” Major-General (res.) Mandy Or, who is in charge of the defense establishment at the State Comptroller’s Office, was next to speak. “In the report we spoke about spiritual decline among the leaders. There is not enough equipment, not enough people and no training. “The threat we are facing is real and could happen within a short time. People may be killed in their own houses. We reexamined this system and discovered that the failures we spoke about after the Second Lebanon War have not been repaired, and the situation has gotten worse.”According to Or, “Discussions have been held since 2007. There have been decisions, letters, meetings and accusations passed from one another. On the ground nothing has been done to repair the situation, even four years after the war.”

‘Experimenting with humans’

The meeting was also attended by family members of the fire’s victims, who demanded answers from the ministers. Naami Moder of the village of Arraba, who lost his brother Osama Naamana, told Ministers Yishai and Steinitz that “what happened here was human experimentation.”

Naamana told the ministers and MKs that his family “has not received any answers about what happened or didn’t happen. I’ll let you know an embarrassing thing: There is contradicting information. Our request is to receive information about the 12 hours. Someone must take responsibility and resign.”

He elaborated on the questions the families want answered: “How is it that the scene of the incident was not closed off?” he asked, demanding to know who gave the order to send the cadets to Damon Prison. “How is it that I watch TV and the internet and see people burning? The State had no equipment to deal with it.”

A relative of Ayas Sarahan spoke about the difficult moments. “My nephew has small babies and we all have to explain to them why and how. We are looking for answers. What happened from the moment the officers’ school was ordered to send the force until the disaster – what was their job? Why were they taken?

“We need to know that this won’t repeat itself. We need an external body to look into it. We don’t care what you will do with the guilty ones. It’s a shame if more lives will be lost. It won’t bring back our son. We only care about the commander’s judgment… Whoever has to take responsibility should be a man and say it to our face.”

Yishai: We did more than other governments

Minister Yishai responded to his critics: “This government has done, perhaps not enough, but more than other governments have done. I don’t know governments which have engaged in such urgent discussions.”

He said he has warned about the firefighting services’ situation time and again. “It’s true that warning is not enough. A minister can lead, battle and fight, and eventually it reaches the government and there is a vote.”

MK Marina Solodkin (Kadima) suggested that he resign. Yishai responded, “It’s interesting that other ministers are not asked such questions. You also voted in favor of the state budget which did not give the firefighting services what they deserved.”

MK Uri Ariel (National Union) said Monday that he would also oppose the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the Carmel fire disaster, after a discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The PM has apparently also convinced MK Raleb Majadele (Labor) to vote with the coalition against a national commission inquiry, thus obtaining a majority of eight members against the establishment of an inquiry committee.

One of the possible solutions is to have the state comptroller probe the Carmel fire himself. Lindenstrauss may also head a team which will look into the implementation of his report’s conclusions.

The State Comptroller’s Office said in response that “first of all, the recommendations of last week’s report must be implemented within a limited period of time. If that happens, we’ll seriously consider the Knesset’s request.”

In response to the development, the Kadima party accused Netanyahu of “buying Knesset members.”

“This is political blackmail that stinks to high heaven. Netanyahu is buying MKs shamelessly, thus trying to shirk his responsibility for one of the biggest catastrophes the country has ever known at any price. Netanyahu knows what he has to hide and so is investing all his efforts in foiling an inquiry into the fire, more than he invested to prevent the fire itself,” a Kadima statement read.

TV tells the Wiki-truth about the Arabs, Israel and Iran.

By DAVID SHAMAH
12/13/2010 22:14

The bottom line is the Sunnis are scared of Shi’ite Iranians, which, it would appear, would be just another chapter in a history full of strife between the two groups.

We Israelis tend to see the Arab world as a unit; i.e., they all think the same, especially about us, which is true to some extent. Hatred – or at least denigration – of Israel is far more the rule than the exception in Arab media and Arabic-language websites.

But the rulers in many Arab states have a strong sense of self-preservation, and if they believe Israel can help them retain their hold on power, then they’ll work with it.

That’s been the theory until now in Israeli policy-making circles – and it’s a theory that’s proved true, at least when it comes to Iran. The regimes in the Sunni Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are all deathly afraid of Iran’s Shi’ite tentacles, according to WikiLeaks cables that have been published over the past several weeks: to the extent that some of them have even urged the United States to either directly attack Iran itself, or to encourage Israel to do so.

Why can’t they all just get along? The bottom line is that the Sunnis are scared of the Shi’ite Iranians, which, it would appear, would be just another chapter in a history full of strife between the two groups. But after having thoroughly studied TV broadcasts from the Arab world over recent months, I think it’s not the Shi’ites the Sunnis fear: it’s the Shi’ites’ fanatical resistance to modernization.

Although “fear of Shi’ism” and “fear of Shi’ite fanaticism” sounds like the same thing, it isn’t. The Egyptians, the Kuwaitis, Abu Dhabians and Dubai-ites would certainly consider themselves to be as good Muslims as the Iranians.

(Certainly, with a little goodwill, you’d think that the relatively small differences between Shi’ites and Sunnis could be bridged and a united Muslim front could be established.) But they can’t – and won’t – get together. Iran and the majority of the rest of the Muslim world want two different things. If Iran ever did get control of the Muslim world, the leaders of the Western-leaning states in the Gulf, Egypt and even Jordan would find themselves on the firing line. Not because they’re Sunnis, but because they encourage a Western lifestyle, at least to some extent, among their citizens.

And, the more Western-leaning the country, the more likely it was to speak against Iran, as quoted by American diplomats in the Wikileaks documents. It’s a package deal: The more a Muslim country seeks to modernize, the more likely they are to speak out against Iran – and the more open their TV broadcasts.

Unlike in Israel or the US, most Arabic-speaking residents of the Middle East are treated to free TV broadcasts, via satellite. Of course, there are cable and DBS pay systems, but unlike many other places, residents of the Middle East can enjoy a rich diet of news, entertainment, movies and TV series – both in Arabic and English.

In fact, there are any number of TV stations, especially in the Gulf states, that could give YES and HOT a run for their money, broadcasting for free the same TV series and movies that Israelis have to pay to watch. The major satellites serving Arabic-speakers – Nilesat, Arabsat , etc. – carry about 600 channels, and each country’s stations have their own “personality” – with a direct correlation between the “modernity” of the broadcasts, the Western leaningness of the country, the fear of Iran by the country’s leaders, and their openness to dealing with Israel.

Here are some examples:

DUBAI

Without doubt, the most Western of Middle Eastern states, Dubai is home to the MBC network, the premier free-to-air broadcaster in the region, and perhaps the world.

While MBC is a private network, that an ostensibly conservative regime like Dubai’s lets it broadcast the latest American sitcoms, dramas and movies – with no censorship whatsoever (even rough language isn’t cut out) – makes it clear where the regime stands on the question of how modern Dubai should be.

MBC channels run commercials, many for Western products such as Ford cars, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Close-Up toothpaste and a host of others. If you turn down the sound, you will have a hard time believing you are watching commercials aimed at residents of a conservative Muslim country; none of the women are wearing veils (although some of the men are dressed in jalabiyas and the like), and there is plenty of physical contact between men and women. Dubai’s leaders have strongly advocated US action in restraining Iran, and it’s wellknown that Israel and Dubai have pursued relations on an unofficial level for years.

EGYPT

Having signed a peace treaty with Israel decades ago, the Egyptians have stuck to the letter, if not the spirit, of that agreement. But despite leaving much to be desired when it comes to our relations with them, Egypt most certainly would prefer Israel’s company over Iran’s.

As the most populous and influential Arab country with a substantial fundamentalist population, Egypt treads a fine line, and it comes off a bit more conservative than Dubai on TV. The country has only a couple of English-language free-to-air TV stations (one of them government-sponsored, with another dedicated to, of all things, horror movies!).

The Egyptian government runs the county’s main TV entertainment network, called Nile, which has a mix of comedies, drama and sports, depending on the channel. Here the actors are dressed a little more conservatively, and the shows appear to be homey-type dramas with original programming (in Dubai, Kuwait and other more modern places, many of the shows are from Turkey, dubbed in Arabic, and many are rather “racy”) that don’t fit the Nile formula. However, Egypt has several private networks as well, such as Melody Entertainment, which plays MTV-style music videos and Turkish dramas.

You won’t find much on official Saudi Arabian TV, other than live broadcasts of services in the Mecca Masjid and Koran readings. But the largest entertainment network in the Arabic-speaking world, called Rotana, is owned by none other than Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. A media conglomerate, Rotana broadcasts everything from Western movies and TV shows (in cooperation with News Corporation’s Fox Network, a 9 percent owner of Rotana) to Western music videos and religious programming.

The Saudis were the ones that called for the US to “get Iran.”

I could go on, but you get the idea. When it comes to Iran, Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Dubai and others have much in common with Israel. And when it comes to TV, they have much more in common with our Western lifestyle than with the Iranian alternative. Who says you can’t learn anything from TV