Rabin: Government Has Begun to Implement Some Recommendations

Premier Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset today that his government has already begun to implement some of the recommendations in the Horev Committee’s report on the Maalot massacre. He said the government saw its main task “not to discuss the past but to draw all the lessons implied by the committee’s work and its recommendations for the future.”

He indicated that since his government had not appointed the committee and that none of its actions or decisions had been examined by the panel, it was unnecessary to discuss or dispute the committee’s findings or its criticism of ministers or others involved in the Maalot episode.

Rabin, making his statement at the opening of a three-hour Knesset debate on the Horev Committee’s report, noted that the recommendations are largely of a technical nature pertaining to procedures inside the Cabinet, standing orders to school authorities with regard to student outings, division of responsibility between the army and police and coordination between police districts.

SOME ACCEPTED RECOMMENDATIONS OUTLINED

The committee recommended that a small ministerial body be set up to deal with such emergencies in the future rather than the entire Cabinet. Rabin announced that in compliance with that sug-

Rabin also stated that the committee’s recommendation that police manpower be increased to cope with terrorist acts and that civil defense, volunteer groups and other auxiliary bodies that help the police have their roles more clearly defined, would be incorporated in the Police Minister’s plan to increase police manpower. He said the Police Minister and Defense Minister would jointly submit proposals to the Cabinet for a re-division of authority between the police and army on matters of internal security.

Rabin said the Education Ministry was preparing new guidelines for school outings which define in detail the obligations of adults accompanying the students. He said that new standing rules for security on school outings would soon be issued in coordination with the army and police.

The Horev Committee recommended that media coverage of incidents such as the Maalot episode be restricted, particularly with regard to security actions against the terrorists, to prevent the latter from knowing what the authorities are about. Rabin said the Cabinet had taken note of that recommendation and asked the army and the Information Ministry to implement it.