Had a rocket fired from Gaza hit a residential building in Ashdod killing 45 people and injuring 150, Israel right now would be at war with Hamas in Gaza.
And such a war would be justified. The death of 45 innocent people is unfathomable, intolerable; an act that demands an uncommon response.
But what happens when the 45 people are not killed by an incoming rocket, but rather by reckless overcrowding, and by people being trampled to death? What is the proper response then?
The response here also needs to be waging a war, but a different kind of war: a war against a culture and mentality that has emerged in this country that does not place a high premium on safety.
It is a culture and mentality that cuts corners, that says “trust me,” and that “everything will be all right.” A culture and mentality that places too much reliance on small miracles preventing larger tragedies.
Shlomo Levy, former head of the Merom Hagalil Regional Council responsible for Meron, said in a Kan Bet radio interview on Friday that the writing for the disaster was on the wall. He said that the tomb of the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai site at Meron is simply not built for the types of crowds that flow there year after year on Lag Ba’omer.
The country has more than doubled in population since 1990, but infrastructure adjustments have simply not been made to accommodate that massive change. If 40 years ago tens of thousands of people would flock to Meron, now the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands. Though the site has changed in the interim, it has not changed appreciably to accommodate the vastly larger crowds.
Levy said that he had warned in 2007 of an impending tragedy, and wanted to close the site on Lag Ba’omer because it could not handle the crowds.
But because of the interests of various religious groups who control different parts of the site, and because of politicians unwilling to confront the various groups who had large financial interests in the celebration taking place, pressure was placed on him to allow the event.
Safety wasn’t the first consideration – as, unfortunately, is often the case in this country.
While this is shaping up to be the deadliest civilian tragedy the country has ever known, it is not the first.
In the last quarter-century alone there was the Arad Music Festival tragedy in 1995, where three teenagers were crushed to death in a stampede; the Maccabiah Games bridge collapse in 1997, that killed four and injured 60; the Versailles Wedding Hall disaster in Jerusalem in 2001 where 23 people fell to their deaths after a floor collapsed; the Carmel Fire in 2010 where 44 people lost their lives; and the 2018 Nahal Tzafit disaster, which led to the death of 10 youth taking part in a pre-army program.
Tragedies happen in every country, but a common denominator in these tragedies has been an over-reliance that everything will be all right, even if all the regulations are not followed, or even if things just don’t seem right and proper.
“Don’t worry,” goes the oft-repeated refrain if there are safety hazards in the street, or at construction sites, or at various nature reserves, “everything will be okay.”
One can imagine that this was the refrain heard in Meron, both by organizers before the tragedy after midnight on Thursday, and by celebrants at the site: ‘Sure, it seems dangerous, but everything will be okay, as it always has been in the past.’
But, heartbreakingly, everything wasn’t all right. And now a war needs to be waged against this “take my word for it, everything will be fine” mentality.
Things don’t always work out. Caution needs to be taken.
Now is by no means the time to point fingers and to apportion blame. With families busy burying loved ones, this is a time for sensitivity, for compassion, for coming together, for a national embrace.
This is not the time to blame the organizers, the police, or the celebrants themselves for not displaying more caution. There will be plenty of time for all of that later.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was correct in declaring Sunday a day of national mourning, because this is a national disaster, a national tragedy. It makes absolutely no difference where the victims were from, what they were doing at the site, or what their religious ideology or political orientation was. Thankfully, for the health of the country, that is one thing most everyone realizes.