A cautionary tale
Astate commission of inquiry delivered its report to the government on the Mount Meron disaster on Wednesday. Its findings showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Police commanders, and other officials were responsible for the crowd crush that caused the death of 45 people.
The incident took place on Lag Ba’omer 2021, when at the traditional bonfire lighting event on Mount Meron, an excessively large crowd crammed into a narrow, slippery stairway. The stampede that followed ended in a deadly crush.
The commission found that 16 of the 18 officials it reviewed bore personal responsibility. It stressed the judgment’s ethical – not legal – nature. It also criticized 11 organizations, including the Israel Police and various government bodies, for their failings.
Netanyahu was held personally accountable. The Prime Minister’s Office was criticized for failing to resolve inter-ministerial disputes and it called to prioritize issues involving a danger to human life.
Then-interior minister Amir Ohana and Police Chief Kobi Shabtai were also held responsible. The police faced criticism for inadequate preparation, lax law enforcement, and a failure to carry out thorough preliminary inspections.
Police officers were not adequately briefed on plans to handle congestion, either, and communication was lacking between the various bodies who were there to prevent the havoc that ultimately occurred.
According to the Jerusalem Post’s Jewish World Correspondent Michael Starr, the report detailed how negligence, lack of preparation, absent governance, no enforcement of construction law, and conflict over responsibilities, authority, and jurisdiction by politicians, civil servants, and law enforcement led to dangerous overcrowding and hazardous and illegal conditions year after year during the annual pilgrimage.
A recommendation was made to fire National Center for the Development of Holy Sites director Rabbi Yosef Schweinger and he resigned after the report was released.
Before the holiday bonfire, the center had ignored police demands to make infrastructure changes and allow for pre-event engineering inspections. They clashed on the issue of appointing an event manager. You did not misread: No official body was responsible for the event.
The bottom line was: This disaster was preventable. Fingers are now being pointed every which way, shifting between Netanyahu and the police, the police and the center, the center and Netanyahu. However, the government must recognize that it has overall responsibility for policy-making for such events and that the disaster and the commission’s conclusion is that policies must be put in place to protect lives at holy sites, at all times.
Overcrowding at religious sites is not new, and the warning signs were clear. For example, Arieh Amit, a former senior police officer, recounted to Maariv, the sister publication of the Post, one Ramadan when “there were 200,000 worshipers on Temple Mount, and there was no special safety issue with that.
“If we even increase the number of visitors – what will happen is that the very crowded alleyways of [Jerusalem’s] Old City, where there is a very high danger of overcrowding, will be filled with worshipers, by the way, angry that they are not allowed to go to the Mount, and this will be a much greater danger than if they allow in everyone who wants to ascend and pray,” he said.
At the Western Wall, also, there is a constant concern before religious holidays regarding possible overcrowding. This past Rosh Hashanah, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation deployed ushers to direct and assist visitors. Still, the infrastructure is simply not able to withstand the huge number of visitors at certain times.
The government cannot turn a blind eye to this and allow independent organizations to manage holy sites without appropriate enforcement of safety regulations. Proper resources must be allocated to mitigate potential danger to crowds at holy sites where the freedom to add more safety features may be limited.
The Meron disaster was a terrible tragedy, but it also shines a bright red light. Israel – especially its government – must learn from its mistakes; otherwise, another disaster is inevitable and it could be even more tragic.