The accelerated demands for the dismissal of IPS chief Katy Perry have only just begun - and here is the initiative to establish an investigation committee for the escape of prisoners. What else connects this to the political culture that developed following the Yom Kippur War?
Since the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli government has learned a solution: After an unexpected crisis occurred - especially one that took the masses to the streets - the following rule can be applied: Protest raging? Is the opposition pushing for the overthrow of the government? Are there any who apply to the High Court in a lawsuit for the dismissal of those responsible? A tent has been set up outside the Prime Minister's Office of concerned citizens? The media started producing articles about past failures and teaching that the disaster would have been avoided? Well, it's time to run and set up. A committee of inquiry, a committee of inquiry, will be parliamentary, will be headed by a judge, will be state-run, will be national - the public does not distinguish between the nuances either. The main thing is that a committee be set up. See how many interests it serves: the angry masses will feel that this is their achievement, but the establishment will gain the quiet it needs - because who would dare to interfere, protest or shout while the judges interrogate?
In the research we are conducting for the third year, we have learned that the establishment of a commission of inquiry is seen as the ultimate achievement of the audience, the media, the street, the victims and especially of the protest movements. They feel that they have succeeded in enforcing the investigation on the establishment. And it does not matter whether it is a study of the Yom Kippur War following the Moti Ashkenazi protest, or a study of housing prices following the Daphne Leaf protest. But in practice this is a huge achievement of the establishment. For, from the moment the investigation begins, the legitimacy of the protest stops, and the establishment regains its silence.
In general, the same committee will eventually issue a belly report, and it will issue it at a time when it is doubtful whether the decision-makers related to the disaster will still be in office. Not to mention - it will be a report attached to previous reports, And to public policy and law, and not once (and not twice) is it repeated in previous reports. They are a non-disappointing source for sensational newspaper articles, but never (ever!) For insights derived from public policy applications.
The main illusion given by the commission of inquiry is that the failure it is examining was one-time, and now, after being examined and investigated, it will remain a one-time historical occurrence.
But after reading the reports of the Yom Kippur War, Sabra and Shatila, and the Second Lebanon War, or the report of the commissions of inquiry into the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre or the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, not to mention reports on the investigation of training accidents and operational failures - we learned that if hidden Before the reader of the incident whose interrogation report he is reading, he would not have known at all what disaster it was. The disasters recur and the reports are restored.
Committees of inquiry are a tool of the establishment: not to raise an issue on the public agenda but to lower it from it, and especially to ward off pressure.
No wonder ministers offer them just as dismissal lawsuits begin to be heard against them.
