What happened at the Capitol can happen at the Israeli Knesset - comment

• Author: YAAKOV KATZ
• Published date: 07 January 2021
• Date: 07 January 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

But watching the images of thousands of people breach the Capitol on Wednesday with the encouragement of the US president seemed like a new low for what was supposed to be a beacon of democracy to the world.

The Capitol was breached, the president let it happen and even pushed people to do it, and when the time came for him to call for it to stop, he couldn't bring himself to do so. And while in the end President-elect Joe Biden's election victory was certified early Thursday morning, America has to go through a reckoning to understand how it reached this point, and how it will hopefully never find itself there again.

As Israelis though, we have to ask ourselves whether something like what happened at the Capitol can happen at the Knesset. Is it possible that we will one day see anarchists and terrorists running through the Chagall Hall like they did through the Rotunda, or through the Plenary like they did through the Senate Chamber?

As much as it pains me to write this, we cannot rule out this possibility.

What happened in Washington can one day happen here in Jerusalem. Discussions in Israel on Thursday naturally focused on the operational mistakes that allowed the protesters to enter the Capitol. Where were the police? Where was the National Guard? The rally was not a secret. Everyone knew it was happening. People wanted to know why security was not beefed up.

While those are important questions, they only scratch the surface. There will be an investigation in the US, and the security agencies will learn the tactical lessons. But the thought that something like this cannot happen in Israel because Israelis are better at security or intelligence is not only arrogant, but naïve. It is the same sentiment that people used to share until November 4, 1995, when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Until then, people were sure that something like the JFK assassination could never happen in Israel. It did.

The reason what happened at the Capitol can happen here is because we already have all the same...