WANT A PROBE? PROBE THE “PEACE PROCESS”…NOW THAT’S A REAL SCANDAL
1. Want a probe? Probe the REAL disaster!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3935474,00.html
Probe the ‘peace process’
Op-ed: Instead of probing flotilla incident, Israel should focus on truly momentous failures
Ron Breiman
These days, Israel is home to intensive acts of scrutiny that had already graced the country with the dubious label of “a state of all its inquiries.†One should not disparage the need for commissions of inquiry, as long as their purpose is to identify the reasons for failures, in order to prevent them from repeating. The personal aspect should be secondary.
Regrettably, the shallow media (and mostly the electronic kind) seeks blood and wants to see heads roll – if possible along with a change of government not via the natural ballot-based way. The last days, where our leaders testified before the needless Turkel committee, constitute an example of turning the essence – prevention of repeated failures – into the insignificant, while turning the insignificant – a witch hunt, especially against those disliked by the media – into the essence.
If there is a desirable and beneficial outcome for commissions of inquiry, it’s the improvement in decision-making processes, and especially the integration of a risk assessment process – in advance – in respect to any operations of this type. Committees that would assess risks in advance, before making and implementing a decision, can spare us the failures, their cost, and subsequent commissions of inquiry.
In the case at hand, stopping the Turkish terror ship was an important act and the objective was achieved, yet the risks that could reasonably be assumed to exist on board the vessel were not predicted, thereby complicating the raid’s execution. In fact, the working assumption was that no mishaps were expected.
Reckless media to blame
Indeed, we should be improving the decision-making process. Yet regrettably, the gravest decisions in Israel’s history were taken without proper consideration, without profound public debate, without an appropriate, serious risk assessment, and through disregard for those who in real-time sounded the alarm regarding expected risks (which ultimately fully materialized and were much graver than the damages caused by the incident currently examined by the Turkel Committee.)
I am referring both to the “peace process,†which as opposed to the delusions spread by the false prophets who marketed it prompted the Oslo War, and to the Gaza Disengagement, which did not only turn Jews into refugees in their own country, but also worsened Israel’s diplomatic and security situation, ultimately leading up to the terror flotilla and its outcome.
The decision-making processes in these two fateful cases lacked a simultaneous process of risk assessment, as well as an advance decision regarding the kind of circumstances that would halt the execution of these decisions. In both cases, no exit strategies were formulated. Moreover, the cost was not estimated in advance – both in terms of casualties as well as in diplomatic, security, and economic terms.
In both cases, even after the grave implications were revealed, no conclusions were drawn on the organizational or personal level. Indeed, our leaders – including the current ones – are plotting to continue in the directions that had been proven to be erroneous. In these cases too, the working assumption was that mishaps are not expected.
Yet it is precisely these two fateful cases that prompted no official commissions of inquiry even retroactively, after the extent of the failure was revealed to all. The reckless media, which marketed both the “peace process†and the “disengagement†enthusiastically and uncritically, without demanding an advance risk assessment and without strongly cautioning us of the risks, are also the ones that kept silent later and silenced the failures after the fact – in order to avoid revealing the kind of misdeeds they were party to, both in advance and retroactively.
Dr. Ron Breiman is the former chairman of Professors for a Strong Israel
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