Building Israel's next gov't with a hi-tech interview job model - opinion

In Israel, “the day after” is a euphemism for the issue of who will lead and administer the people of Gaza after the war ends. It is an important question, one the Israeli government doggedly seeks to ignore.

There is a far more important “day after” dilemma. Who will lead and administer the people of Israel after the war ends and when, in national elections, the current government is sent to the dust heap of history? I have a suggestion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assembled his far-Right coalition government based on old-fashioned horse trading, threats, promises, mountains of cash, and narrow sectoral interests (settlers, religious, ultra-Orthodox). The result was to lead Israel with a top-heavy government of 30 cabinet ministers, many of them utterly incompetent, with superfluous ministries bearing meaningless titles, unable to act decisively or act at all in the face of an existential crisis following October 7. 

Despite Israel’s desperate, costly defense needs, the 2024 budget fashioned by National Zionist leader Bezalel Smotrich left intact over NIS 2 billion ($528 million) in special earmarks for ultra-Orthodox education, including yeshivas, while other essential services were sharply cut. There must be a better way.

Competence replaces politics

Let Israel’s next prime minister assemble a lean team of highly experienced, competent ministers, each an expert in his or her ministry, no more than 18 in number – an iconic Jewish number represented by chai, “life,” in Hebrew letters. 

All the superfluous, costly, and imbecilic ministries Netanyahu invented to gain and retain power will be gone. For example: bye-bye, minister of national resilience, minister without portfolio, minister of intelligence, minister of national missions, minister of heritage. You could not make these “ministries” up. 

There is a serious plan afoot to appoint a government of technocrats to administer Gaza. Some reports suggest even Hamas is okay with this. In February, Sky News Arabic reported that Hamas had approved the establishment of a new technocratic government for Gaza – though this is likely a Hamas ruse to retain power and end the war.

What about a government of experts to run Israel? It would face massive challenges that require courage, wisdom, intelligence, expertise, experience, leadership, and guts. Qualities as scarce as hens’ teeth in the current government.

In hi-tech, candidates for a position, even a low-level one, undergo an intense job interview. They are asked many questions. Let us apply the same for candidates to lead ministries and apply what I believe is a best-practice benchmark for quality leadership.

Tom McCabe as a paradigm

Thomas B. McCabe was a longtime CEO of Scott Paper, a global US-based company. He led his company for 39 years, building it into one of the first truly global American enterprises. 

As CEO, he instructed his managers to mount a plaque on their walls with these words: “Whom do we serve? 1. Our customers. 2. Our employees. 3. Our nation. 4. The world. 5. Our shareholders.” 

And he practiced what he preached. In World War II, he played key roles in the Lend Lease program that sent weapons to the Allies, and in the War Production enterprise that ultimately overwhelmed Germany and Japan. He also served as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after the war.

Shareholders? Last place? McCabe explained: “If we serve the first four, then we will also be serving our shareholders well in the long run.”

New candidates for Israeli cabinet ministers! Whom do you serve? The people of Israel. The periphery. The border areas. Bereaved families. The wounded. The children. Young people. The elderly. The poor. The ailing. And…your political party. Last. 

Swear to the McCabe litmus test on a Bible. And put those whom you serve on your wall, next to the flag and the picture of President Isaac Herzog, and act every day as if you mean it. 

Job interview

First question: Are you a bona fide crackpot? Tell the truth. More than a handful of the current ministers can credibly answer “Yes, I am.” 

A “Yes” answer sends you back to your yeshiva, settlement, or family. 

The Times of Israel reported that in a radio interview on November 5, 2023, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip. Eliyahu is a member of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-Right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party.

“Your expectation is that tomorrow morning we’d drop what amounts to some kind of a nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there…” the Kol BaRama radio interviewer said.

“That’s one way,” Eliyahu responded. “The second way is to work out what’s important to them, what scares them, what deters them… They’re not afraid of death.”

The interviewer pointed out to the minister that there were some 240 hostages [at the time] held in the Gaza Strip. Eliyahu doubled down.

“I pray and hope for their return, but there is a price to be paid in war,” he said. “Why are the lives of the abductees, whose release I really want, more important than the lives of the soldiers and the people who will be murdered later?” 

A splendid streimel

Second set of questions: What is your proven expertise that qualifies you for your ministry? Experience? Advanced degrees? Policy innovations? Deep insights into the needs and dreams of those you serve?

A rather scary image has been seared into my brain. Yaakov Litzman, a leader of United Torah Judaism, was minister of health from December 29, 2019, to May 17, 2020. He is a Hassidic rabbi. He was appointed because he was titular head of Agudat Israel, a haredi political party that originated in Poland. 

At the onset of COVID, a government press conference was called on March 10. It was the evening right after Purim. Rabbi Litzman, the health minister, appeared on TV wearing a splendid shtreimel (bear fur hat), since he was still celebrating Purim. 

The Israeli minister in charge of strategizing the Health Ministry’s response to COVID, a virus that would kill seven million people worldwide and infect 700 million, was a Hassidic rabbi without a scrap of secular knowledge that could enable him to say even three intelligent words about how to shape public health policy to deal with the crisis. 

We, the people of Israel, were on a leaky ship during a hurricane, and our captain was a Hassidic rabbi who did not know the difference between port and starboard.

This, too, is essentially what happened to the people of Israel on October 7. We were left with an incompetent band of cabinet ministers totally ill-equipped to deal with the most severe military and political crisis Israel has known since its birth. Many of them wore figurative shtreimels on their heads. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a splendid shtreimel – except perhaps the sad plight of Canadian or Russian sable, European pine marten, or gray fox, whose fur is used. Fashion designers long ago ceased using animal fur. But its place is definitely not on the heads of those who lead a crucial, complex ministry. 

The housing crisis

This is not an isolated instance. Consider housing. Israel faces a serious housing crisis. Residential real estate prices in January 2024 rose 37% from already high levels in January 2018. Despite a flagging economy, housing inflation has resumed. Young people are despairing of ever owning their own home. Many may move abroad as a result because rental housing is also scarce and exorbitant. 

Minister of Housing and Construction Yitzhak Goldknopf, United Torah Judaism, is Litzman’s successor. In September, he will be 74. His declared goal is to secure housing for his haredi constituents. The odds that his ministry will fashion policies to create affordable housing for all Israelis are zero. In recent governments, the ultra-Orthodox members have been given crucial ministries (health, housing), mainly to enable them to benefit their fellow haredim. 

In recent weeks, I and a Neaman Institute colleague interviewed senior industrial managers to better understand the global business and economic challenges they face. Some countries no longer supply goods to Israel, and some no longer buy from us. Start-ups struggle to raise funds, and the number of new start-ups annually has fallen by half. 

One of these high-level managers commented matter-of-factly that in his opinion, few of the current band of cabinet ministers could find employment in the private sector, even at minimum wage, if they were to leave their cushy ministerial posts. For the record, ministerial monthly salaries were raised in a Knesset decision in January 2023 by 15% to NIS 58,200 ($17,180) – four and a half times the average monthly wage, and 10 times the current minimum monthly wage. 

Adverse selection

I remember being called up as an IDF reserve soldier in the middle of the night of October 6, 1973, at the onset of the Yom Kippur War. I recall the chaos and panic, and the failed leadership of Golda Meir and her cabinet. Golda struggled to form a new coalition government in March 1974, and she resigned on April 10 – exactly 180 days after the start of that costly war. 

[Note: I am writing this on the 200th day of the Gaza war. Our prime minister and his cabinet ministers are glued to their chairs with extra-strong Super Glue.]

What followed for Israel was the Arab oil embargo, recession, a second oil price hike in 1979, double-digit inflation in 1980-81 – in short, almost a full decade of economic tzuris (trouble). 

I’m afraid this is more or less what lies in store for Israel today. Lots of tzuris. To endure and to prevail, we will need new strong leadership. But there is a problem.

Economists call it the adverse selection process. Comedian Groucho Marx summed it up: “I refuse to join a club that would have me as a member,” he once quipped.

What bright, capable, energetic, experienced hi-tech expert would willingly choose to join a moribund club of corrupt, incompetent, narrowly partisan, sectarian politicians that now lead our country? Only others who are equally or even more incompetent willingly join, for all the wrong reasons. 

This is the lasting legacy of the 37th government of Israel, formed on December 29, 2022. It must be changed. We desperately need new, competent leadership to lift Israel out of the economic, political, geopolitical, and social morass that we are now in. 

We need competency so the competent will select in, and the incompetent will select out. And we will make it happen. It is called democracy.■

The writer heads the Zvi Griliches Research Data Center at S. Neaman Institute, Technion and blogs at www.timnovate.wordpress.com.