In the name of 'governance': politicization may reach the Supreme Court President as well

In the name of 'governance', the Israeli government is destroying every good part of the civil service. The attempt to move the Central Command chief from his position on live television is a new low, but even before that, the government worked to politicize every position it could get its hands on. The result is terrible: chaos in the streets, near-disasters on Israel Railways, an increase in traffic accidents, endless murders, rampant cost of living, and more. If the politicization of the civil service while crushing the professional echelon continues, it is likely that the damage to the State of Israel, to the quality of life of its citizens, and subsequently to their lives, will be irreversible.

One of the banners raised by the government that is ending its life these days is 'governance'. The claim underlying the promotion of 'governance' was that although right-wing governments are elected in Israel again and again, and although Benjamin Netanyahu, the undisputed leader of the right, has been serving almost continuously for 15 years, in practice the left continues to rule through the 'deep state' — those anonymous officials who actually run the country. What is important, the government spokespeople and its ministers preached, is not professionalism or relevance to the position. What is truly important is the path, and more importantly — personal loyalty to the leader. Be it the relevant minister, the Prime Minister, or both together.

'Governance' was promoted by the government and its ministers with an aggressive pincer movement. One arm was a series of bills and decisions, the purpose of which is to make every significant position in the public system political. Above all, the politicization of judicial appointments echoes. The mechanism expected to be activated starting from the next Knesset gives politicians unprecedented power in determining the identity of judges in Israel. But it didn't stop there: a series of bills promoted by the government are intended to allow it to appoint almost any significant officeholder in the civil service, the army, and the police according to its decision, and also to fire any such officeholder with the entry of a new government. In other laws, it created mechanisms that give politicians control over regulation in the media field and in other areas.

The second arm was in action that does not shy away from means on the part of government ministers for the politicization of the ministries and bodies they are in charge of. The competition is tough, but it is possible to point to several 'diamonds' that shone in it: the Minister of National Security acted in the police as a super-appointer. His involvement in appointments while rewarding his loyalists reached the last police major. The Minister of Transport Miri Regev also did not shy away from means. She turned her ministry into a well-oiled mechanism for political appointments and drove away almost all the professional public servants who worked in it. She was followed by the Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi, who sowed the media oversight bodies with political appointees to his liking. And that is even before we talked about the celebration of political appointments in government companies. Another hair-raising political appointment, which has been stopped for now, is that of Netanyahu's personal lawyer for the position of State Comptroller. And the list is still long.

Political appointments to government positions create systematic damage to the core of the civil service. They disconnect the position from competence and subject it to loyalty, degrade the quality of decisions in areas where lack of professionalism costs money and human lives, and empty the civil service of its institutional memory and the best professionals. They exchange excellence for flattery and erode the balances between the political and professional echelons. They open a wide gate for corruption and the perception of the public position as a 'party prize', and crush public trust in institutions.

For years, the civil service in Israel — even if not free of flaws — operated based on an ethos of statehood. The politicization of the civil service turns it into a party branch, where functionaries rule whose loyalty is to the party and the appointed minister. If we continue on this path, the day will not be far off when even the Supreme Court President will be dismissed on live television if their decisions do not please the government.