An age old gaffe, ongoing disregard – clear and present danger

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In Israel, they downplay and disregard the most sensitive issues. In his report, published yesterday, Israel’s State Comptroller issued a severe criticism of IDF readiness, in particular the reserve corps. Anyone who is even slightly familiar with issue was hardly surprised. But I would like to refer to the incompetence when it comes to securing sensitive infrastructure and protecting them. We are talking about installations which are currently exposed to all sorts of threats.

In the framework and scope of the current report, the State Comptroller’s Office looked into the management of protecting Israel’s most sensitive facilities at the national level.

The current review was carried out at the Prime Minister’s office, in the Ministry of Defense (MoD), within the (now extinct) Home Front Defense Ministry, at Israel’s Ministry for Internal Security, at the IDF and at Israel’s public, government-owned corporations.

The Comptroller describes the government’s conduct, namely abolishing the Home Front Defense Ministry and diverting its activity to the MoD. First, they did not issue the Home Front Defense Ministry any means with which to carry out its mission and tasks. Then, they simply integrated it within MoD, expected a miracle, and now that the miracle did not materialize, the gaffs and blunders simply went on.

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It was discovered, that by the end of the current State Comptroller report, most of the decisions taken in May 2011 by the ministerial committee on home front issues, concerning Israel’s sensitive facilities, were not put into practice. Further, the broad framework for establishing Israel’s security strategy for these installations is – upon completion of the report, only in its initial stages, which are mostly methodological. To date, no practical measures have been taken. Since 2004, this has been the state of the problem of preparing to secure sensitive civilian facilities in Israel against existing and future threats.

In his previous report, the State Comptroller already commented the in the absence of any management of securing national sensitive facilities, complete with all its aspects, no targeted threats or any defense scenarios were set. This also includes to the lack of any security measures. The current report has found that despite the existing threats on sensitive facilities and despite the threats expected in the coming years, this vulnerability was not addressed at all.

Israel’s MoD responded by saying that the defense establishment “has mapped the array of crucial infrastructure in Israel in accordance of their type and impact on national strength. Each of them had been issued the proper criteria, together with the National Security Council.”

MoD’s statement further said “the list of facilities was set per a government ruling, and the process of securing them in order to increase their survivability has already been set into motion, in accordance with a set of operational priorities.”

“Israel’s defense establishment is coordinating with the various government ministries (primarily the Energy and Water Resources Ministry) and infrastructure companies, to establish a multi-annual plan for crucial infrastructure. This includes budgets allocated by all relevant parties.”

The next State Comptroller report will find the same blunders. We have before us a government complete with agencies, which does not learn from its mistakes, and does not corrects them either.