Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

In an interview on Army Radio this week, President of the Reut Institute Gidi Grinstein explained that “In order to face national emergencies, such as a natural disaster, Israel must mobilize its society into a ‘Civil Resilience Network’

According to Grinstein, “Israel has learned to respond to crises on the home front that are limited in scope, such as during Operation Cast Lead last winter. However, in the case of a national crisis there will be a dramatic gap between the needs and the expectations of the population, and the capacities and resources of the emergency authorities. Therefore, Israel must empower thousands of households, non-profits and businesses to respond to emergencies, to support the population and back-up the emergency authorities”. 

As an example, the emergency drills like the one that took place in the north of Israel in the past few days; besides training the emergency authorities, the focus should be on instilling a “Culture of Preparedness” in civil society. In this context, it is possible to mobilize 70 nation-wide corporations to train their workforce for emergencies and to support the local authorities. Likewise, 1200 community centers in Israel should be mobilized to train for emergencies.

Related Links

The full interview (in Hebrew)

Reut’s Policy Paper: “Civil Resilience Network”.

Reut’s presentation on the “Civil Resilience Network”