This is Horrifying

45 people have been killed in Israel in a crowd crush during Lag B'Omer celebrations at Mount Meron.

It appears that this situation has been predicted for over a decade, but political pandering, and a general unwillingness of the political establishment to challenge the Heredi ultra-Orthodox demands for impunity:

The man underneath Avraham Nivin was already limp and lifeless. The men above him were thrashing and flailing. The men to his sides were screaming for help and struggling to breathe.

And crushed in the middle of these limbs and torsos — his legs trapped, his shoes and glasses lost in the melee, his body perpendicular to the floor — was Mr. Nivin himself.

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He survived, but 45 others did not — turning a night that began as a pilgrimage for tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, and a joyous return to something approaching post-pandemic normality, into one of the deadliest peacetime tragedies in Israeli history.

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By Friday night, the stampede had prompted a surge of soul-searching about religious-secular tensions, the resistance to state authority displayed by some ultra-Orthodox Israelis and, above all, questions of blame, responsibility and negligence.

Gee, ya think?

For more than a decade there have been concerns and warnings that the religious site on Mount Meron in northern Israel was not equipped to handle tens of thousands of pilgrims who flock there each year to commemorate the death of a revered second-century rabbi.

Actually, that's one explanation, the more common reason given for this holiday is the end of a plague against Rabbi Akiva's students almost 2 centuries earlier.

In 2008 and 2011, reports by the state comptroller, a government watchdog, warned of the potential for calamity there. The leader of the regional government said he tried to close it at least three times. In 2013, the regional police chief warned in an official investigation of the possibility of a lethal stampede. And in 2018, a prominent ultra-Orthodox journalist called it a death trap.

And yet the government still authorized this year’s event, raising questions about its culpability and whether its reliance on ultra-Orthodox political parties had trumped concerns for public safety.

Of course it was politics.  This is Bibi Netanyahu we are talking about.

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Israel has been racked by tensions between the secular mainstream and ultra-Orthodox Israelis, also known as Haredim, particularly during the pandemic. Among secular Jews, there was widespread anger about a disregard for coronavirus regulations within parts of the ultra-Orthodox community.

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The night reached its crescendo shortly after midnight, as packed crowds gathered in a cramped open-air arena beside the tomb to sing, dance and watch the lighting of ceremonial bonfires.

The festivities turned to horror afterward as celebrants attempted to leave via a steep, narrow gangway that descends down a short set of steps to a narrow, covered passageway.

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The Israeli authorities had placed no restrictions on the number of attendees, despite warnings by some health officials about the risk of Covid-19 transmission.

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For the Haredi community — which was disproportionately hurt by the coronavirus crisis, both by the disease and by the stinging rebukes of secular society — it felt like a particularly cruel turn of events.

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The compound on Mount Meron includes several large gathering grounds with bleachers and stages, connected by a series of alleyways and path. The 2008 comptroller report said that various additions and changes to the site had been made without the approval of the local and district planning and building committees.

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Despite the warnings that the infrastructure could not safely bear large crowds, one former official, Shlomo Levy, who had chaired the Upper Galilee Regional Council, said he had come under political pressure to cancel a warrant he had issued in 2008 to close the tomb compound because of safety concerns.

Mr. Levy told Kan, Israel’s public radio, that the public security minister at the time told him he was afraid to touch the site and that it was a “hot potato.”

That wariness likely stemmed from the disproportionate political power long held by ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel’s coalition system. The ultra-Orthodox have been crucial members of successive Netanyahu-led governing coalitions.

One would hope that there would be some changes in behavior as as a result of this tragedy, but I would not hold my breath over this.