In an effort to increase civil defense cooperation, the US National Guard has
decided to send a senior officer to serve as a liaison to the IDF’s Home Front
Command.
The name of the officer has yet to be announced, but the liaison
is expected to take up the post as early as August. It comes after the Home
Front Command decided last April to send Lt.-Col. Chezy Deutsch to serve as the
IDF’s liaison to the National Guard.
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will be based at Home Front Command headquarters in Ramle.
On Sunday, the
Home Front Command and the Defense Ministry began the nationwide civil defense
exercise “Turning Point 5.” Senior military delegations from the United States
have come to Israel for the drill and are led by Maj.-Gen. David Harris,
commander of the National Guard Bureau, and Maj.-Gen. Jonathan Treacy, commander
of the Joint Task Force and Civil Support, which is responsible for managing the
consequences of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear attack in the
United States.
Deutsch, who is in Israel for the duration of the drill,
is based in National Guard headquarters.
“Israel is small but we live
under a real threat and we have experience that the Americans do not have and as
a result they are interested in hearing what we know and how we do things,”
Deutsch said Sunday.
Recent examples of cooperation have dealt with
communications technology and various equipment that can be used after a
non-conventional attack.
Last month, a delegation from the Home Front
Command flew to the US to participate in America’s version of Turning Point,
called “National Level Exercise 2011,” organized by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Guard and simulating a massive
earthquake.
Deutsch said the US and Israel are constantly increasing
their level of cooperation and are working on drafting emergency orders that
will expedite the deployment of National Guard units to Israel in case of an
emergency. During the Carmel Forest fire last year, Guard units were en route
but turned around after Israel said they were no longer needed.