Israel's State Comptroller, Matanyahu Englman, spoke at the Arutz Sheva Jerusalem Conference in New York City.
"I’d like to express my deep condolences for the families of our three soldiers that were killed on the Egyptian border," he began.
Englman explains his role in the government: "I was elected by the Knesset with the same procedure as the President of Israel, to ensure that I am objective. We work on how we can promote competition and bring down the cost of living in Israel, and on preventive issues like how can we be ready for emergencies such as earthquakes and armed conflicts."
"By law, each of the bodies of the government must explain how it deals with the deficiencies that we find. We found that 60% of the deficiencies are being fixed after we address them."
As an example, Englman points to Judea and Samaria: "We found that there were many terror attacks on the roads of Judea and Samaria, so we investigated the issues: Overall security of the roads, lack of cellular coverage, neglected barriers and checkpoints in order to prevent more attacks. We found that the separation fence wasn’t maintained as it should have been. the Israeli government invested 2.2 billion dollars in the fence and we found that it was totally destroyed. The cabinet decided to rebuild the fence and we hope that our findings regarding security in Judea and Samaria will be much better afterward."
Englman brings up another security issue subjected to investigation: "We published a report on Operation Guardian of the Walls, in which some of the findings were on the role of the ISA. We recommended that the cabinet should consider whether they should be more involved in the mixed cities. We recommended lawsuits against people that were involved in terrorist activities and damaged property.”
Israel’s system, he claims, has something to learn from the US: “We in Israel should study how the US handles civil cases against terrorists and fight them through what we call ‘following the money’. It could be related to those damaging us. We found that although police gave traffic tickets to Palestinian Arab drivers, but the tickets were never enforced, and the system became ineffective. Due to our recommendations, the Minister of Defense changed his attitude and the fines are now actually being collected.”
The US, Englman says, is already particularly close with his office: “I want to thank everyone that marched. It was amazing to see how connected the community here is to Israel. We have a strong collaboration with the state auditor office in Washington, a collaboration that will promote excellence for the benefit of the people of Israel.”