Olmert Regime Appears Playing for Time; For Holidays, Knesset Break Hoping Dereliction on Home Front Will go Away

History Cannot be Rewritten, by Alex Fishman (Ynet)

For related reports, click on the first 3 posts here.

“No one will be able to alter the bitter truth: The home front was simply abandoned during the war in Lebanon. It wasn’t adequately prepared prior to the war and it wasn’t handled properly during the war.”

Excerpts;

Suddenly everyone is a righteous gentile. Suddenly everyone is full of sympathy and compassion for three or four senior officials – who were full partners to the situation the home front was embroiled in during the recent war.

These same people are now crying out that they are being screwed, not being listened to, not being given a chance to respond, being pestered with questions, and that their work is being disrupted.

Who exactly is the pity for? Where were they when hundreds of thousands of northern citizens needed pity, when they spent more than a month in the bomb shelters without receiving adequate care? If the security situation continues to “improve” even the residents of the central part of the country could benefit from the rare management talent of those who are now seeking our understanding to their plight and to their learned legal arguments and deprived rights.

The home front was embroiled in a war whose scenario was presented to the government in detail. There was no surprise element. Even before the outbreak of the war, intelligence sources made it clear to the cabinet that 100-150 Katyusha rockets would be fired every day.

So let the prime minister, defense minister, IDF chief of staff, and the Home Front Command explain, not to the state comptroller, but to us the public, which of the contingency plans that were prepared and exercised ahead of the war on the home front were put into massive, serious, thorough action during the war?

Related Report: 87 Percent Believe Government Must Care for Home Front

We are not talking about a case-by-case solution or about putting out fires here and there somewhat belatedly, but rather, about a system-wide solution involving all the cabinet ministries and all government arms that could have given northern residents a sense of someone being in charge, talking to them, caring for them, and evacuating them in an orderly manner.

Yes, we are all familiar with the slides outlining the number of meals the Command delivered to bomb shelters and the number of soldiers it dispatched in order to reinforce the local ambulance services and fire fighters. Well done. But it is not your job to reinforce but to run the show.

Everyone knows what happened in north

Even if the state comptroller’s mouth is shut, even if he is presented as a publicity hound and he is turned into an enemy of the people, no one will be able to alter the bitter truth: The home front was simply abandoned during the war in Lebanon. It wasn’t adequately prepared prior to the war and it wasn’t handled properly during the war.

“People are fighting for their honor and for their careers. For this purpose, a group of interested parties is clinging to procedural arguments – which may prove to be unfounded – in order to gain time.”

“Perhaps the holidays will come first, the Knesset will take a recess, the Winograd Commission will come in the middle, and we’ll forget the foolish matter of the home front. Enough, we got the message.”

For this we don’t need the state comptroller’s report. There were hundreds of thousands of witnesses who experienced it first hand. There were thousands of reserve soldiers who saw it with their own eyes. There were 200,000 people who packed their suitcases and escaped their homes by their own means because they understood that no one would take care of them.

On the other hand, thousands of volunteers came to fill the vacuum created by the cabinet and served as a life belt for those who were stuck in the shelters without elementary conditions. The state comptroller cannot create a different reality.

But the government spin is so successful that at a certain point Monday, it seemed that the state controller was fantasizing. That he failed to understand that the war was actually a success and the guilty party is the state comptroller himself.

People are fighting for their honor and for their careers. For this purpose, a group of interested parties is clinging to procedural arguments – which may prove to be unfounded – in order to gain time.

Perhaps the holidays will come first, the Knesset will take a recess, the Winograd Commission will come in the middle, and we’ll forget the foolish matter of the home front. Enough, we got the message.

The procedures can be amended in 24 hours. But the truth cannot be tweaked and this history cannot be re-written. Everyone knows what happened in the north.

The state comptroller’s report serves to highlight the failures so that we can begin to rectify them. So please, stop the disruption.