The ministry appointments have more correlation with prestige than with prior experience. Here’s what should have happened with the coalition shuffle.
By SARA MILLER19th Knesset(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Does a personal fortune and a history of chatting to guests on TV make Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid qualified to run the suddenly flailing Israeli economy? Does selling a technology company for millions mean Bayit Yehudi’s Naftali Bennett should be in charge of trade and industry? When was the last time Limor Livnat engaged in any sporting activity that didn’t involve leaping into someone else's Olympic spotlight?Every cycle, every government slides inherently unqualified and ill-informed pols into positions of immense import, ministries where they arguably have no right to be.While civil servants might be the grease that oils the machine of state infrastructure, they are there to implement government policy, and policy is dictated by the ministers. And nine times out of ten, these are ministers who have inveigled their way into senior roles through contacts among the party faithful or simply by dint of having survived the longest.Silvan Shalom grew up and went to university in the Negev. But this former journalist appears to have zero experience in town planning and business development. Why a man approaching his 70th year with a background in engineering should be running the Tourism Ministry is entirely baffling. Uzi Landau is indeed an educated man, possessing a certain dignity, but a ministry which aims to promote Israel's image abroad is not the place for a man whose voice is at best a monotone. Switch them, Bibi. Landau has degrees in mathematics and engineering; Shalom has a way with people, and his wife is famous for her love of the less war-torn things Israel has to offer.And Bibi, you shouldn't stop there. Take Yaakov Peri (former Shin Bet chief – you might remember him from The Gatekeepers) out of the Science Ministry and put him in the Communications Ministry, where his many years of experience as Cellcom CEO can be put to good use. Oust Yair Lapid from the Treasury and put him in Culture and Sport; he's a journalist for heaven's sake. Beg Stanley Fischer to take the FinMin job when he leaves the Bank of Israel in a couple of months. Give Limor Livnat the job as Minister for the Advancement of Women -that's what this bright, formidable and successful female politician is good at. Yes, you will have to (and should) create the ministry first, but we already have a Welfare Ministry and a Pensioners Ministry; an Energy and Water Ministry and a Science Ministry and an Environmental Protection Ministry. With a little imagination, you could find the rightful place for everyone.It's time Israel's leaders stopped viewing ministries as place-holders before ascending to a higher role, or as a reward for a party leader who suddenly finds himself in the position of political kingmaker.If these people are as devoted to the good of the nation as they say they are, let them put their money where their mouths are, swallow their pride and do the job that they know how to do, not the one they believe to be more prestigious.
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