Last update - 00:00 04/09/2006
Betrayed by the state
All the committees of inquiry that will be set up cannot atone for the real crime that took place before our very eyes during the second Lebanon War. The state simply disappeared, as if the earth had opened up and swallowed it. It was not present in northern towns at the toughest moments for those residents who stayed in their homes. The substance of the state is tested during moments of trial. In this test, Israel failed.
The corpses that continued to float in New Orleans days after Hurricane Katrina subsided revealed the true face of the United States. This enormous power displayed a helplessness more appropriate to Bangladesh. President George Bush, so quick on the draw when it comes to war, let four days go by before he visited Louisiana.
Katrina exposed the weakness of an ideology that preaches weakening the state in favor of private economic organizations in a free-market economy. So long as plenty reigns, and is supposedly enjoyed by all, everything is fine. However, the moment a humanitarian crisis occurs, the cruelty inherent in such an outlook becomes evident.
That is what happened to northern towns during the war. The state went to war in Lebanon and at the same time fled the north, expecting nongovernmental organizations and other humanitarian assistance groups to do its job for it. This flight was an accurate reflection of the new face of Israel. In electoral victories by both the right and the left during the past 20 years, the state has abandoned its basic functions and given them up to the free market and to voluntary aid groups.
The sights in northern towns were heartbreaking. The cop-out began as early as the second and third days of the war. Anyone who could took his family and fled. I witnessed convoys of thousands of vehicles fleeing Haifa when the war began. Each to his own. Tens of thousands of people who were unable to flee, because of either their economic situation or their health, were left behind. During the first days, no one told them what to do. When they were eventually told to hide in shelters, it turned out that the bomb shelters were not fit for habitation. The state focused on the front and abandoned the rear.
With the state went the local authorities. In the absence of instructions, some of their employees also fled south. The local authorities that did manage to function found themselves facing a hopeless situation. Even before the war began, most local authorities faced budgetary crises and could barely pay their employees' wages. When the time came to provide services to thousands of people stuck in bomb shelters, they discovered that they lacked both the manpower and the financial capabilities. The mayors turned to the government for assistance, but there was no one there to hear them.
Thus tens of thousands of people found themselves living in uninhabitable bomb shelters, without food and drink, without medical attention or support. Throughout the war, not a single government authority stepped forward to deal with the home front. All state-provided social services broke down.
This vacuum drew nonprofit organizations, industrial firms and volunteer groups, who were faced with devastation the likes of which they had not witnessed since the establishment of the state. Gilles Darmon, founder of the humanitarian aid group Latet, sent 70 volunteers to the north on a daily basis to distribute food. "We found ourselves distributing bags of food to the ill, the infirm and the old," he said. "People told us that no government office approached them with an offer of help. There were days when even mayors asked us to distribute water to residents. I saw terrible scenes. Each time truckloads of food arrived, people swarmed on them like in countries in Africa."
During the war, Latet used the services of 1,000 volunteers. It distributed 25,000 care packages and 250 tons of food. "I had the sense that this was the end of the state," Darmon said, "as if there were no more state. This was the case in Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Nahariya, Ma'alot, Safed, Acre and dozens of large, medium and small towns, for Jews, Arabs, Druze and Circassians. Everything collapsed."
Attorney Ami Zaneti, who stayed in Kiryat Shmona during the war, said that "people survived in the town through improvisation and the contributions of voluntary organizations. The state collapsed entirely."
The social crime that took place during the war was the result of an ideology that aspires to transform Israel into a mini-America. In the meantime, it is more like a caricature of the original. Over the past two decades, the social safety net and the state's commitment to weaker groups in society has worn out, and the balance between defense and welfare spending has been changed to the latter's detriment. This situation peaked during the five years of Likud rule under Ariel Sharon.
It is hard to imagine that less than six months ago, elections were held in which a central theme was the aspiration to repair a society that has been distorted beyond all recognition by social inequality. Ehud Olmert, and especially Amir Peretz, won the support of the public on the basis of their promises to correct the situation.
The social failure in the north is a crime that struck hardest at the weakest members of Israeli society. It is difficult to estimate how many citizens died as a result of the helpless situation in which they found themselves. No one is going to set up memorials in their honor.