From the Liveblog of
Monday, January 15, 2024
Lapid: State comptroller appointed by PM cannot probe Oct. 7 failures
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman cannot be relied upon to adequately probe the government’s failures on October 7 because he was appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares, calling for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry.
“An auditor appointed by Netanyahu who did not publish any report on Netanyahu’s personal responsibility cannot investigate this failure,” Lapid tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, arguing that as a state employee Englman “cannot investigate the biggest failure in the state’s history.”
Following Hamas’s attack, during which over 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage, Englman criticized the government over its lack of preparedness for the outbreak of war, telling Netanyahu that there was “no justification for the late awakening of the Israeli government.”
Late last month, Englman said his office would “leave no stone unturned” in its investigation into the multiple failures that occurred before, during, and after the Hamas terror group’s October 7 massacre, as he laid out the parameters of a gargantuan probe into the matter, including an examination of those with “personal responsibility” for the “failures on all levels – policy, military and civilian.”
Netanyahu and members of his government have expressed opposition to the formation of any independent probe into the government’s failures prior to the end of hostilities in Gaza.
The Times of Israel Community.