In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Thanks to the Recovery Diva, Claire Rubin, for sending me an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, “Public Indifference To Civil Defense Drills Highlights Israeli Apathy” about the Mideast nation’s Turning Point 4 exercise this week.
Israel is often cited as a model of civil defense and the nationwide Turning Point drill includes significant civilian involvement. [...]

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Israel yesterday began its 4th annual Turning Point national civil defense drill Sunday. The five-day exercise, developed in response to a concern about the nation’s preparedness, involves the Israeli public of all ages. Though the U.S. does not face the daily threats of Israel, the Turning Point exercise offers useful guidance for this country’s public [...]

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Whether the U.S. was lucky or good (or little of both) that the attempted terror incidents in Times Square last week and on the airliner near Detroit on Christmas Eve failed, the fact is that terrorists are going to pull off a successful attempt at some point, maybe soon. So, it is important that the Administration [...]

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As the concept of ‘resilience’ in homeland security gains prominence here in the U.S., the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University hosted a timely speech by Brigadier-General (ret.) Meir Elran, of The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, “The Israeli Experience: From Civil Defense To Resilience.” According to the HSPI summary [...]

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I was just sent an interesting new book, Safeguarding Homeland Security: Governors And Mayors Speak Out (Springer), edited by Simon Hakim and Erwin A. Blackstone. The book is comprised of individual chapters written, as the title indicates, primarily by state and local officials about their own experiences with some aspect of homeland security.
Several of the [...]

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Just weeks after the release of a Department of Homeland Security report indicating that the U.S. could learn from Israel about citizen preparedness,  the Mideast nation last week undertook its largest civil defense drill ever,  a five-day exercise called “Turning Point 3″. 
As has been mentioned regularly on the blog, Israel offers a helpful model for the U.S. [...]

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I want to bring to your attention a terrific new report, 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). The study was [...]

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Israel is in the midst of Turning Point 2, the most extensive civilian preparedness drill in the nation’s history.
At 10:00 this morning, sirens sounded on every street in the country signalling the drill. Mock emergency television messages were broadcast on television. School children went into bomb shelters where they discussed emergency procedures.
Turning Point 2 has already produced an early lesson for the Israelis. It [...]

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