December 8, 2010 State Controller Report on Fire Department-

A Daily Analysis

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss released his report on the state of Israel’s Fire department. The report stated that the Fire Department is on the verge of collapse, and that nothing had been done since the Lebanon War to fix the inadequacies of the Fire Department. The report directly faults Interior Minister Eli Yishai (who is responsible for the Fire Department) for doing nothing but writing a few letters. It blames Netanyahu for not paying attention to the letters; holds the Finance Ministry responsible for blocking any action; and criticizes Barak at the Defense Ministry for not paying attention to a serious national security weakness. The report clearly shows how not one of the recommendations made after the war has been implemented.

The Lindenstrauss report was a regularly scheduled report, as a follow-up to the report and recommendations made after the second Lebanon War. In normal times his devastating report would have hardly made it through one news cycle, but coming in wake of the Carmel wildfire disaster, and having been written before the fire broke out, the report caused a major political storm in Israel.

It seems that the first has provided one benefit, Prime Minister Netanyahu seems intent on using Turkey's assistance during the wildfire crisis as an excuse to climb down the tree that the Israeli government has climbed up vis-a-vis the attack on the Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara. It seems that the Israeli government will apologize for the loss of life and may even pay some compensation to the families. All of this would allow for resumptions of relations between Israel and Turkey.

A series of Israeli rabbis are embarrassing Israel in new ways. It started when the State paid Rabbi of Safed came out with a ruling that Jews could not rent or sell to Arabs. When he came under attack, he received support in the form of a letter signed by 65 other community rabbis. They have come under criticism from both left leaning Orthodox rabbis and far right Charedi rabbis. Both making the same argument- what would Jews possibly say if Christians did that to Jews overseas? Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Peres have condemned the statement. Netanyhu has the power to fire these rabbis, but he does not have the guts.