Crisis Preparedness – What We Can Learn From Israel
May 24, 2009 by national
Filed under Emergency Preparedness
Report suggests that America can learn much from Israeli example on public crisis preparedness.
It’s a widely accepted truism in American politics that an engaged citizenry is the best defense. Yet, when it comes to emergency preparedness, the American public remains incredibly unengaged in the process, largely lacking both the knowledge and the opportunity to participate proactively and constructively.
A report titled Public Role and Engagement In Counterterrorism Efforts: Implications of Israeli Practices for the U.S., prepared for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Science and Technology by the Homeland Security Institute (a federally-funded research and development center which serves as the Department’s think tank) examines both why that is the case, and how study of Israeli citizen involvement in crisis response might help US preparedness and “social resilience” improve.
The study was co-authored by Dr. Sibel McGee (the principal investigator), Catherine Bott, Vikram Gupta, Kimberly Jones and Alex Karr. Published as a PDF document it has not yet been released on the web.
“The successful management of emergency situations,” according to the report, “ requires not only competent emergency response personnel and prudent and effective emergency plans by the local/state/federal government, but also a public that is equipped and empowered with knowledge and information.”
The report cites Israel as a primary example of a nation with an effective track record in motivating and maintaining public mobilization in support of counterterrorism efforts. A reflection of that success, the report suggests, is that “the level of public understanding of the terrorist threat and readiness for terror-induced emergencies is such that Israeli public has an impressive ability to bounce back from frequent terrorist attacks.”
To accomplish this, according to the report, the Israeli government pursues a comprehensive and diverse program to bolster a strong public resilience and utilizes it as a deliberate counterterrorism tool.
