Knesset C'tee summons Amidror on Lindenstrauss report

Yechimovich: Commandos paid for Netanyahu's failures.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN, YONI DAYAN
Labor chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Labor chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
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.”