Coronavirus: Netanyahu’s one-man show
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no qualms about testing the boundaries of democracy as he manages the coronavirus crisis in a quasi-centralized fashion.
The coronavirus crisis caught Israel with its political system at a prolonged impasse. Israel is currently ruled by an interim government endowed with limited authority, as it has been for the past 15 months, and its newly elected Knesset is barely functioning since being sworn in earlier this month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick off the mark in responding to the question of who should manage the coronavirus crisis. He surrounded himself with a team of advisers and close associates and started making decisions in what has turned into an almost one-man show. Sources well-versed in the decision-making process tell Al-Monitor that from the very start, the prime minister has been running a hub consisting of representatives from relevant government agencies, chief among them the ministries of Health and Finance.
On the side of the Ministry of Health, two people have the lead: Director-General Moshe Bar-Siman-Tov, an articulate economist who has become the public face of the crisis management, and head of Public Health Services Sigal Sadetzki, an expert in radiology and epidemiology. The ministry sets the professional tone in handling the crisis and is also the most hard-line agency in demanding radical steps to tackle it.
To Netanyahu’s credit, he is also open to hearing the views of former senior health officials, scientists and experts from other disciplines who are invited to internal discussions. For example, following the advice of external experts, Netanyahu decided to greatly increase COVID-19 testing, a policy the Ministry of Health was reluctant to adopt.
