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building, but a point where we are most sensitive, as a place that serves as a center for all our national enterprises, the heart and brain of the builders' camp. And third, what occurred here was not merely a disaster, but also a failure [emphasis in the source].
Later Schwartz cautiously wrote that after the details of the disaster became known, there was a general recognition that there was a failure in the building's security, "that we did not think upon the appropriate level. While some trace of such recognition also arose in the previous assassinations, but we tended towards leniency, this time the general opinion is actually towards severity." We must, Schwartz wrote, put our house in order, since after the first attack on the Jews of Jerusalem on the Jewish Center in Mamilla, immediately after the UN Resolution of November 29, 1947, the proper conclusions were not drawn, and that was a failure. Many months had passed since then and not much was done.
"We all admire our protectors-heroes, who give their lives day by day on the alter of the homeland, yet we all feel that allowing the Arab driver into the courtyard of the National Institutions in Jerusalem was a serious error." Schwartz wrote that a comprehensive inspection should be conducted and that all details of the incident should be examined, and only afterwards can adequate conclusions be drawn."
A proposal for preventing incidents such as those that occurred in Jerusalem over the past weeks was raised by the military commentator of "Haaretz" Newspaper (who remained anonymous) on the day following the explosion on the National Institutions compound. Under the title "A field security service should be established." it was written that after three attacks on the centers of the Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem since the beginning of February 1948, we must prepare differently in order to prevent similar terrorist acts in future. When operating against experienced terrorists and spies, a service of sentries cannot be satisfactory, no matter how good they are as soldiers. The security situation in the Land of Israel requires the immediate establishment of a field security department within our security forces according to the standard common among the regular armies." Such a service, continued the military commentator, would be comprised of officers and NCOs with experience in counterintelligence and counterterrorism. "Only this military service, of a special military police that is trains for a special combat-security duty, can most effectively prevent actions such as the bombing of the 'Palestine Post', Ben Yehuda Street and the National Institutions Building in Rehavia."
Over the following weeks and months, as the siege on Jewish Jerusalem tightened, conclusions were drawn and the National Institutions Building received increased security. No vehicle was allowed to enter the square in front of it, and barricades were placed on every side. Simultaneously, the restoration of the building began. Within a few months, the building was renovated and after less than a year, in February 1949, it hosted the first stage of Israeli Parliamentarism: The Constituent Assembly convened there, elected the first president and transformed within its walls into the first Knesset.
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