"He did it."

Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to learn the lesson that Saul learned too late.

King Saul was returning triumphantly from the battlefield. Even then, he may have been trying to silence that still, small voice of conscience which was quietly calling out to him as he walked toward the prophet.

Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you to Hashem, I have fulfilled Hashem’s word.” Samuel said, “And what is this sound of flocks in my ears, and the sound of cattle that I hear?” Saul said, “I brought them from the Amalekites, as the people had pity on the better flocks and cattle, in order to sacrifice them to Hashem your God; and the rest we destroyed.” Shmuel said to Saul, “Wait as I relate to you what Hashem told me last night” - and he answered, “Speak.” Samuel said, “Even if you are small in your own eyes, you are the head of the tribes of Israel, and Hashem anointed you king over Israel… Why did you not listen to the voice of Hashem, and instead flew upon the spoils, doing that which is evil in Hashem’s eyes?” Saul said to Samuel, “I did listen to the voice of Hashem and went on the path on which Hashem had sent me…” And Samuel said, “Does Hashem want burnt offerings as much as He wants listening to His voice? Listening is better than sacrifice, obeying than the fat of rams…. Since you have rejected the word of Hashem, He has rejected you as king.” Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned…”

(Shmuel Alef 15:13-24)

Saul stubbornly refused to take responsibility until, faced with the undeniable facts and the loss of his kingdom, he acknowledged his wrongdoing.

In contrast, following King David’s sin with Batsheva, when he was confronted by Nathan the prophet, who pronounced, “You are the man!” - David immediately admitted, “I have sinned to Hashem.” In response, Nathan announced, “Even Hashem has removed your sin; you will not die.” (Shmuel Bet 12: 13)

David did not lose his kingdom because he accepted responsibility. Saul lost his kingdom because he refused to accept responsibility.

Thus we learn one of the most obvious truisms in the Jewish understanding of leadership: leaders sometimes make mistakes, but the leaders who deserve and maintain their positions accept responsibility once they realize that they are culpable.

Which brings us to today’s disgraceful response of the Likud Party to the findings of a state commission of inquiry established to investigate the Meron disaster, which took place almost three years ago.

On Lag BaOmer - April 30th, 2021 - a crowd crush at the burial site of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the Galilee village of Meron led to the deaths of 45 men and boys. 150 people were injured, as well.

Accidents happen, natural disasters happen, acts of God happen. But accidents that are preventable are not quite accidents; acts of God that were predicted cannot be blamed upon God. As early as 2008, the State Comptroller determined that the site was not large enough given the huge number of annual visitors. The Jerusalem Post reported, “Israeli officials had been warned of the challenges at Mount Meron in two State Comptroller’s reports published in 2008 and 2011. Additionally, a 2016 Police report said infrastructure at the site could not safely accommodate the large number of attendees and that the mountain lacked escape routes and access roads to provide rescue in the event of an emergency.” The New York Times wrote that while the government had agreed upon a plan to drastically limit the number of participants because of the coronavirus, the plan “was never implemented because none of the government departments took responsibility for doing so.”

The failure to fulfill responsibilities is not a neutral act. When action is designed to prevent harm, inaction is morally abhorrent.

The state commission of inquiry released its findings today, and, according to the Times of Israel, it determined that Prime Minister Netanyahu was “one of a number of officials responsible for the 2021 Meron disaster.” Frankly, for those of us raised to admire Harry Truman’s desktop plaque reading, “The buck stops here,” it would be hard to absolve Netanyahu even if he had known nothing about the dangers of Meron, as it happened under his watch. But according to the Times of Israel, the commission laid blame squarely at his feet, arguing that, “There is a reasonable basis to conclude that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi’s grave was improperly dealt with for years, and that it was liable to be a danger to the masses that visit the site, especially on Lag B’Omer. Even if, in the name of caution, we assume Netanyahu didn’t have concrete knowledge of the matter, he should have known about it after the issue was brought to his office many times.” 

The Likud’s response to this damning indictment? To cast aspersions upon the committee itself, calling it a political tool in the hands of former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, and refusing to take any responsibility whatsoever.

This has become Prime Minister Netanyahu’s modus operandi: take credit for anything positive that happens under his watch, refuse to take responsibility for anything that went wrong - while simultaneously blaming everyone else. Much like Saul after the battle against Amalek.

I’m reminded of Gary Wills's memorable account of the failure of the Catholic Church to take any real blame for creating the conditions that led to the Holocaust. An official commission appointed by Pope John Paul II spent more than ten years preparing We Remember, which was supposed to be an honest reckoning with the Church’s potential complicity in the murder of six million Jews. According to Wills, “Though expressions of sympathy for Jewish suffering are voiced in the new statement, it devotes more energy to exonerating the church - and excoriating the Nazis for not following church teachings - than to sympathizing with the Holocaust’s victims. The effect is of a sad person toiling up a hill all racked with emotion and ready to beat his breast, only to have him plump down on his knees, sigh heavily - and point at some other fellow who caused all the trouble.” (Papal Sin, p. 13)

The longer a person maintains power, the more likely he is to abuse that power and assume - in his own mind - the aura of infallibility. In the words of Lord Acton, speaking about Pope Pius IX, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I don’t expect Prime Minister Netanyahu to care about Lord Acton’s dictum, nor do I believe that the failure of We Remember will influence him one bit. I certainly hope that the Israeli voting public remembers, when all is said and done, that the leader of our country chose to look at events that took place during his premiership, surveyed the wreckage of his rule, looked squarely in the eyes of nine million Israelis, and pointed at someone else and said, “He did it.”