Spokesman declines to answer if Home Front Command recommends generators
Dr. Aaron Lerner – IMRA 19 August 2016

On 14 August IMRA contacted the IDF Spokesman’s Office – that acts as
spokesman for the Home Front Command, and asked the following question:

Does Home Front Command recommend that civilians purchase an electric
generator?

IMRA explained that the context of the question was the July 7, 2016 Maariv
report that a senior official in the Home Front Command told the IDF Chief
of Staff that he expects civilians to invest in a generator for emergencies.

The Spokesperson’s Office suggested that the remark was taken out of context
and asked for a copy of the article along with the question by e-mail.

IMRA immediately sent an e-mail:

Does Home Front Command recommend that civilians purchase an electric
generator?

Along with the URL for the article
http://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/Article-548365

Along with the first two lines of the article: (translation of Hebrew sent)
======

Senior IDF Official: “Instead of upgrading their phones civilians should
invest in a generator for emergencies.”

Senior Official in the Home Front Command told the IDF Chief of Staff that
he expects that civilians “take more responsibility upon themselves”, this
in light of the scenarios according to which some 1,500 rockets will hit
Israel a day.

====

The IDF Spokesman’s Office asked for a deadline to provide a reply and was
advised that the deadline was Thursday.

As of Friday afternoon no reply has been received.

It should be noted that while the top brass in the Home Front Command
apparently believe that it would be a nice idea for civilians to do
something for themselves so that if and when the time comes that they are
out of electricity for days or weeks that they have a way to generate
electricity for themselves that the Home Front Command has done absolutely
nothing to indicate this to the public beyond a one time item in Maariv.

In point of facts, the Home Front Command website includes a list of items
that civilians should have for emergencies and a generator is not in the
list.

To be clear: the list of items recommended by the Home Front Command are NOT
items that the authorities supply civilians either at no charge or with a
subsidy. The Home Front Command would bear no expense adding such a
recommendation.

A cynical summary: so far it would appear that the only thing that senior
officials in the Home Front Command have done with regard to an apparently
important matter is to dutifully cover their backsides so that in the event
of a disaster they can bring to the attention of the investigating
commission the Maariv article that proves that they had in fact warned the
public.
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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on
Arab-Israeli relations

Website: www.imra.org.il