'Home Front Abandoned During War'

Beware of rulers, for they befriend someone only for their own benefit; they act friendly when it benefits them, but they do not stand by someone in his time of need.

-Mishnah Pirkei Avot (Sayings of the Fathers) 2:3, written 1900 years before the Lebanon War

Of course Olmert and company were slammed in an official assessment of Home Front management during the Lebanon War. That's because the protexia class are parasites. They love Israel in the way that I love sushi. The best example is that on the day the war broke out, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz's initial response was to call his broker and sell off a $28,000 stock portfolio.

An assessment of the activities of the protexia class to manage their personal political power would give them a grade of A+.

Competence in playing the protexia game is not a credential for leadership; it is a warning sign.

....But Lindenstrauss did not mince words in the report itself. In his introduction to the 582-page report, he wrote: "The facts show that the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the former defense minister, Amir Peretz, the former chief of General Staff, Dan Halutz, and the head of the Home Front Command, Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Gershon, each one according to his own role, gravely failed in the decision-making process and in their appraisals and actions in dealing with the home front during the war in Lebanon."

"The facts detailed in the report [also] show us that the governments of Israel, the political and executive echelons, did not do what they should have done over a period of years in preparing the home front and did not hold general and operational appraisals about its role during a state of emergency," Lindenstrauss added.

The report includes 17 chapters addressing the performance of all government institutions on the national and local level, and of vital commercial institutions that played a role in the war. These include the Prime Minister's Office, the Defense Ministry, the Home Front Command, the Public Security Ministry, the Fire and Rescue Services, the health and welfare services, the postal, banking and transportations systems, and local authorities. The state comptroller also devoted a special chapter to the voluntary organizations that helped the residents of the North during the fighting.

Lindenstrauss found that there was confusion regarding the responsibilities of each of the many government bodies involved in protecting the home front. This stemmed in part from the large number of laws and regulations that deal with the subject. He called for the establishment of an office to coordinate between and oversee the actions of the different bodies.

The "official" blue-ribbon commission's response to a bureaucracy paralyzed by red tape? More bureaucrats to coordinate the other bureaucrats. And guess who will receive these new government jobs? More cronies of the protexia class. Does anyone see a pattern here?

There were also problems at the top level of decision-makers regarding the home front, he wrote. For example, on July 12, the day the government decided to reply in force to the kidnapping and killing of IDF soldiers early that morning, no "crucial and detailed facts" were presented regarding the preparedness of the home front for what the ministers knew for certain would be Hizbullah retaliation for IDF air strikes.

It was more than two weeks later, on July 30, that the government held its first detailed assessment of the situation on the home front.

Lindenstrauss found that in the years before the outbreak of the war, previous governments had not taken steps to prepare the home front for an emergency. This failure was particularly severe because since 1994, state comptrollers had issued reports pointing out the weaknesses in home front protection and recommending solutions.

That would indicate that the problem is systemic--parasites do not read official reports and thoughtfully decide that they are the cause of Israel's problems. Only the divided and misled citizenry has the theoretical power to dislodge them.

But the failures were not only of previous governments, wrote Lindenstrauss. On July 12, Olmert warned that Israel was entering a "new situation" because the civilian sector was in immediate danger from warfare. Nevertheless, "the expected attacks on the home front were not translated by the ministers and the defense establishment into activities to create a systemic and comprehensive response. At any rate, the issue of the home front was not properly investigated, and the weight given to it in the decision-making process was unsatisfactory."

The state comptroller also found that the cabinet was passive in its handling of the home front. It reacted to problems but did not initiate anything and often responded with too little too late.