Interior, finance ministers should remain in office, survey finds

Most Israelis believe Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz should not resign over the findings of the state comptroller’s damning report on their handling of the 2010 Carmel fire, according to a poll by Channel 10 on Thursday.

Forty-one percent of respondents believe Yishai is accountable for the failings and that he must quit, and 45% said Steinitz should resign. Thirty-seven percent believe Yishai was partly accountable but should remain in his post; 35% responded similarly for Steinitz. Twenty-two percent said Yishai is not guilty of the charges leveled against him in the state comptroller’s report, and 20% found Steinitz blameless as well.

Lindenstrauss’s report, released Wednesday, found fault with the police, the Israel Prison Service, the Israeli Fire and Rescue Service and, most vociferously, with the ministers of interior and finance. “The failures of the Finance Ministry and the Interior Ministry and their inadequacies are significant, fundamental and severe,” Lindenstrauss wrote in his report.

The two ministers denounced the state comptroller’s “baseless” findings and called for a government review. Yishai congratulated himself regarding his overseeing of Israel’s firefighting apparatus, saying, “If there hadn’t been deaths, I would have deserved a medal.”