Crisis at crumbling Foreign Ministry
Israel’s Foreign Ministry is crumbling, an MP claimed in the Knesset this week. It “has been taken apart, has been dismantled, and is unable to function”, said Ronen Hoffman of the coalition party Yesh Atid.
Normally, such statements could be dismissed as hyperbole. But right now there are major questions hanging over the ministry, which is responsible for Israel’s representation overseas.
The ministry’s employees are in the throes of a labour dispute, which began in March, but became more serious this week, after it emerged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had circumvented the strike to facilitate a trip he is making to Poland. He had a military attaché and Shin Bet staff make the arrangements instead, which had the knock-on effect of causing the Foreign Ministry workers’ committee to stop cooperating with the IDF and the Shin Bet.
The labour dispute is ostensibly about pay and benefits, but it goes far deeper.
When Netanyahu became Prime Minister in 2009, he appointed Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beitenu, as foreign minister. But because of Lieberman’s hard-right credentials, he had difficulty in the international arena, and increasingly, international contacts bypassed the ministry.
The bypassing of the ministry took on a life of its own, sometimes unconnected to what other countries think of Lieberman and more connected to a consolidation of power in the Prime Minister’s Office. Netanyahu has used his own envoys for the peace process and reconciliation with Turkey, and moved fighting the boycott and many aspects of relations with world Jewry to other ministries. The Foreign Ministry has been out of the loop on efforts to find a country to accept African asylum seekers.
What is more, it’s the minister-less ministry. It has no head, as the position is being kept open for Lieberman if and when he wins his ongoing legal battle. It rests under the direct authority of Netanyahu.
And so, as the labour dispute escalates, and as there is talk in the Knesset of a crumbling Foreign Ministry, the hugely important question of who represents Israel abroad is raised. The fighting of Israel’s corner internationally is always an uphill battle, but when the very question of who does it and how is left hanging, the gradient has become far steeper.
NATHAN JEFFAY
comments