Once coronavirus has passed, another virus is likely to attack the Israeli system even before our immune system has had a chance to recover – the state commission of inquiry.
Journalists will whip up drama, well-known faces and "formers" will be mobilized, and politicians may mistake the media hysterics for "public pressure" meant to prevent a repeat of the failures. There is usually no need for these commissions.
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We can already save the millions of shekels, the nonsense and the superficial – sometimes even distorted – lessons of the commission by revealing its conclusions even before they have been formed: That Israel was not properly prepared for the pandemic, and responded late and not systematically in the early stages of the crisis.
We can already send the bitterly disappointed op-eds about the "negligent disregard" for the commission's conclusions to print. We can even predict the grievous distortions that would happen, if, God forbid, the recommendations were fully implemented.
The commission of inquiry causes considerable damage – even before it is formed. Decision-makers tend to err on the side of exacerbated threat assessment at the expense of effective policy. They assume that they will find it difficult to explain the softer assessments, while the fact that the more severe assessments did not materialize can be credited to the success of the countermeasures taken.
It is absolutely correct that professional bodies examine the performance of the government, health, and financial systems. It is correct to highlight the failures and to recommend a path for the future – as long as they are not led by jurists or public officials and their discussions are not held in public, i.e. it is not done "for the record".
Jurists tend to look at procedural issues or market their worldview with professional acclaim. Their training does not give them a professional edge in strategic thinking.
There is not a single country – certainly not a democratic country – that is sufficiently prepared for extreme scenarios. In hindsight, once the scenario has come true, those that are wise in retrospect – usually jurists – can point to credible warnings about its feasibility. But there are always such warnings about a wide range of scenarios. The problem is that the national costs of preparing for the majority of them will paralyze the country.
State commissions of inquiry have contributed little to finding the truth and often caused considerable damage. For the sake of brevity, we will look at only two examples: The Agranat Commission into the Yom Kippur War, and the Orr Commission into the October 2000 riots among the Arab citizens of Israel.
In the shadow of the Agranat Commission, Israel built up a massive and cumbersome military, which led to a lost decade for the economy. For many years, defense spending swallowed up close to a quarter of GDP (for comparison, today it is about five percent). Governments formed by Labor and Likud could not risk being seen as neglecting national security and so authorized expenses that were unjustified even under the conditions that existed before the peace treaty with Egypt and with the Iran-Iraq war.
Yitzhak Rabin, who became prime minister after the commission published its findings, spoke of the "deep defect that the Agranat Commission sought to put into our lives." He added: "because of the Agranat report, the army has tried to build an alibi for everything; for amassing, for preparedness and for defense against every possible surprise. As the Agranat Commission has undermined the essential value of mutual responsibility [of the political and military echelon – DS], the chief of staff has been sure to prepare his defense in advance, for any scenario." Rabin also believed that the "entire intelligence outlook of the commission was distorted," and added that as prime minister, he did not appoint an intelligence adviser as the commission had recommended, admitting that he only did it near the end of his term to "tick the box." He explained that anyone who tried to replace the military intelligence directorate as the body responsible for national assessment and warning did so by "kicking up sand in the eyes and exposing his ignorance."
The events of October 2000 are no less important than the lessons of the Yom Kippur War: The Orr Commission report demonstrated a total analytical failure to understand reality, even before evaluating the validity and effectiveness of its recommendations. On the issue of the economy of the Arab minority, the commission systematically avoided differentiating between describing the disparity between the Jewish and Arab populations and the issue of discrimination. The omission was done in a way that assumed that the disparity itself was evidence of discrimination and deprivation.
The choice is between elected leadership that tries, to the best of its understanding and ability, to manage risks under conditions of uncertainty and to balance the national needs optimally, and CYA of decision-makers who fear dubious denouncements of the wiser-after-the-fact.
It is important to have the monitoring of experts, journalists, and parliamentarians in real-time. Afterward, professional internal commissions can study the lessons. With the right perspective, historians will discuss the issue.
Commissions of inquiry are like one's appendix: In the best case superfluous, in the worst case – harmful.
