Defense officials in recent days have expressed deep frustrations over the situation and the future.
It must be said from the start: One doesn't need to agree with every word emerging from the defense establishment. But, at the very least, its senior officials should be heard. These are people for whom crises are a daily reality, and whose profession is managing large systems. And yes, without exaggerating, these people are also the cream of our crop, who throughout their lives have put the country's interests above their own. The "we" before the "me." For whom it's hard to understand what they have to gain from managing such a battle, as there are no citations or medals awaiting them at its end.
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And no, the reference here is not to Defense Minister Naftali Bennettt, but to others, from several bodies and organizations, who are involved in the current war and are scared – there's no other word for it – about the manner in which it is being handled.
The thrust of the criticism is toward the Health Ministry and the people heading it. About their unwarranted sense of superiority; their outright rejection of all other opinions, including those expressed by renowned experts from Israel and abroad; their intentional invalidation of any idea, proposal or decision counter to their own; the lack of transparency; the manipulation of the numbers; the bureaucracy intended to obfuscate; and mainly (in the words of one very senior official) the "dangerous game with all of our lives."
The heart of the matter, as it stands today, is the testing for the virus. The Health Ministry is blocking the move toward mass testing. Although it doesn't consistently publish the scope of tests being administered, this past weekend the number of tests was less than half the previous weekend. To anyone who has forgotten, the prime minister promised we would soon reach around 30,000 tests per day; on Friday we were at about one-sixth of that number.
Only on Saturday (as exposed by Channel 13 News journalist Nadav Eyal), the Health Ministry finally ordered labs to also work nights. It took a month, a little longer than it took the ministry to order work on the weekends. Along the way there have been battles with several senior Health Ministry officials; numerous professors who criticized the ministry's policies say they have received clear insinuations that it would behoove them to be quiet.
The "quiet while we're shooting" mantra of the 1982 Lebanon War has been replaced by "quiet while we're testing" of the 2020 Corona War. The Health Ministry isn't willing to accept criticism, nor does it want help. Over the weekend, ministry officials launched an artillery barrage on senior IDF officers in the wake of two articles that appeared in Israel Hayom.
In one, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi – in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – proposed the military take control of managing the crisis. In the second, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir said that if the IDF is put in charge of testing it can reach the target of 30,000 daily tests within two-three weeks.
The main claim by Health Ministry officials is that pandemics are not matters for militaries. They are right, of course, it's just that unlike other countries – which have robust, functioning civilian systems geared toward handling such crises – in Israel only the IDF Home Front Command, backed by the IDF and Defense Ministry. is capable of coping with a crisis of this scope, which is far more than strictly a health matter.
And this is the crux of the issue: The immediate concern today still revolves around health. But the primary concern is economic. If the economy doesn't get back on track soon, the outcome will be devastating. Many more people will die from the economic damage than the coronavirus.
This bottom line is agreed upon by at least five teams currently working on "the day after" strategy," some of them with the blessing of the prime minister. To free the economy, however, tests need to be administered. In massive quantities.This will tell us how many people are actually sick, help us mark problematic areas, locate outbreak centers, time decisions about when to impose quarantines and when to lift them.
Also required are serological tests to identify people who are asymptomatic and those who were sick and recovered. It's also advisable to conduct a comprehensive survey (similar to the one in Austria, for example), that will identify trends and directions.
All these things are being blocked by the Health Ministry. Either way, it isn't actually capable of implementing the necessary next step. The database it relies on would be completely outdated by now had the Military Intelligence Directorate not built it an innovative system for managing and controlling the information. In all matters pertaining to procurement, the Health Ministry needed the Mossad and Defense Ministry; and the transition to tens of thousands of tests per day will never be implemented without the IDF's logistical capabilities – from testers to mobile and stationary testing stations, to transferring the tests to labs around the country in real time.
The collapse could come
Suffice it to say, there are other reasons for criticism. There's the matter of the nursing homes; the failure to address the situation in Bnei Brak in a timely fashion, or the issue of returning flights from the United States which, if handled properly, could at the very least have prevented a part of this mess and at most – saved lives. This is milk that's already been spilled, but we should learn from it for the future: The Health Ministry cannot manage this event. It doesn't have the necessary tools or the right personnel.
The Health Ministry needs to function as a professional consultant on health matters. Its recommendations at the outset of the outbreak helped position Israel in a good place in terms of morbidity rates compared to other countries. This of course also stems from Israel's unique conditions – a young population (certainly compared to Spain and Italy), and one gate in and out of the country to better control who comes and goes – but credit should still be given. However, this is already in the past. Now the warning bells are ringing loud and clear: If the crisis isn't managed properly, a collapse is imminent – healthwise, economic, or both.
