The Knesset’s State Control Committee will convene Thursday to debate the
problems highlighted by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss’s report on the
handling of the Mavi Marmara incident and ensure its lessons are
implemented.
Committee chairman Uri Ariel (National Union) said he was
worried about Lindenstrauss’s findings. He summoned National Security Adviser
Yaakov Amidror to the committee to address which problems have already been
solved and what can still be done to fix the rest.
MKs from the
opposition blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud
Barak, while legislators from Kadima, which recently joined the government, were
uncharacteristically silent.
“The report displays Netanyahu and Barak’s
arrogance and irresponsibility,” Opposition leader Shelly Yechimovich (Labor)
said. “Their experience not only did not help, it made them think they can run
the country by themselves.
It is a shame that the Shayetet 13 commandos
paid the price for their complacency.”
Yechimovich’s No. 2 in Labor, MK
Isaac Herzog, who was a member of the security cabinet at the time of the
flotilla, confirmed the comptroller’s findings about the security cabinet being
left in the dark.
“We were not part of the decision-making, and we warned
in advance that there could be a terrible failure,” Herzog said. “If the lessons
in the report are not implemented with challenges looming ahead, Israel will pay
a heavier price next time.”
Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said Netanyahu
and Barak had not internalized the lessons from the Second Lebanon
War.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” she said. “We had the
Winograd report already, why didn’t we learn the lessons from that report? The
prime minister and defense minister gambled with the lives of IDF
soldiers.”
Gal-On said that the report called into question the Israeli
leadership’s determination to make difficult decisions on other issues. “If they
are not willing to consider thinking of extreme contingencies, how can we trust
them to make such decisions on other topics?” she asked. “The findings of the
state comptroller strengthen doubts on whether or not they would be able to make
difficult decisions regarding the Iranian threat.”
Former Kadima leader
Tzipi Livni tweeted on Wednesday night that she defended Israel in the foreign
press on the day of the incident and did her best to give the soldiers’
international legitimacy. “For the future actions that unfortunately will have
to be taken for Israel’s security, the gravity of the comptroller’s report
should not be white-washed.”