A press conference isn't bad - but it's not action

Cohen (R) and Lapid (L) speak to the media

February 6, 2022 [Image Source]

In the wake of the rash of violence and abuse at the Bnei Zion institution ["Again: An institution, a scandal, a petition", February 4, 2022], a press conference was held today. 

Yair Lapid, Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Meir Cohen, Minister of Welfare, both spoke.

"We don't intend to close all the institutions tomorrow morning," said Cohen. "This is accelerated process. We will limit them. But the personal choices of the families and people with disabilities will be wider."

The event coincided with the presentation of a memorandum of a new Welfare Law for People with Disabilities, and the invitation of public comments ["New bill to legally define rights, services for disabled citizens"]. Cohen said the law is expected to ease the lives of people with disabilities.

One reporter asked Minister Cohen what steps were being taken against Gidon Shalom, head of the Disabilities Administration, in reaction to his phone conversation with a distraught mother. 

I wrote about Shalom's outrageously dismissive and disrespectful response to that same woman when she  called him to report signs of abuse she had discovered on her son at B'nei Zion. That was one full year ago.

Had he acted then as his position compels him to, then the hundreds of subsequent cases of abuse could have been averted.

Yesterday, Minister Cohen answered: 

"We're looking into it. He has been summoned. I think everyone, including us, deserves several hours to check out the matters."

I would add that everyone, including us, deserves straight talk from our politicians at long last - unambiguous, free of sand in our eyes - about the end of institutionalization in Israel.  

A clear plan of action and time-line would be a good start. This conference did not deliver any of that.