Finance chief resigns with broadside at Netanyahu’s handling of civil service
SHAUL MERIDOR, the head of Israel’s budget department, sent a long and angry resignation letter to Finance Minister Yisrael Katz on Sunday. He accused the government of neglecting the Israeli economy by not authorising a new budget since the beginning of 2018. Mr Meridor wrote that in recent months the situation has worsened, with the minister refusing to listen to expert advice and “trying to change budget estimates in order to create fictitious sources (of funding) to allocate additional budgets.”
“Meridor’s letter is the tip of the iceberg,” said one senior civil servant. “In recent months, especially since Netanyahu went on trial and began blaming ‘unelected officials’ for trying to bring him down, the hostility from Likud ministers has become unbearable. Many of us are considering resigning.”
Mr Meridor’s letter did not specifically name Mr Netanyahu but his mention of “those who called me and my colleagues ‘terrorists’ and tried to delegitimize the diversity of opinion in
the public service” was a clear reference to Mr Netanyahu and his proxies. Two months ago the prime minister publicly attacked the budget chief, writing on his Facebook page that: “It is inconceivable that bureaucrats brief against decisions made by the govern
ment and act to cancel them. We won’t accept it.” Mr Meridor had been quoted criticising the prime minister’s plan to dole out cash grants to citizens as an instant coronavirus stimulus.
Finance Minister Katz responded to the letter by accusing Mr Meridor of harbouring political motives. The now former budget chief is the son of former Likud minister Dan Meridor, who has been openly critical of the prime minister and said he can no longer contemplate voting for Likud.
Another former senior official to criticise Mr Netanyahu this week is expolice commissioner Roni Alsheikh, who directed the investigations against the prime minister which resulted in three indictments. Mr Alsheikh, a former deputy chief of the Shin Bet, was personally appointed by Mr Netanyahu but they became estranged due to the investigations.
Mr Alsheikh attacked the prime minister in a series of interviews. “In the middle of my term he stopped inviting me to meetings and to cabinet, which is improper,” he said. “No one wants to believe the stories,” he said of the investigations. “There comes a stage where you see there is another incident and you finally say, there’s a foundation of evidence. When does it become uncomfortable? When you say, whether or not it’s criminal, it’s terrible. I didn’t enjoy discovering it. I got indirect messages that I’m being called a traitor by the prime minister’s circle.”
The prime minister’s office accused the former commissioner of authorising illegal interrogation tactics and of having awarded fraudulent tenders for police surveillance to a company lead by Defence Minister Benny Gantz.
Mr Netanyahu’s confidant and Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, who is in charge of the police, refrained from responding to Mr Alsheikh but instead continued the attacks of the prime minister and his proxies on Avichai Mandelblit, the attorney-general who indicted Mr Netanyahu. “He is acting as if he’s entirely invested in the political assassination of Netanyahu,” he said at a conference on Tuesday. “Mandelblit decided to indict Netanyahu and from that moment his entire prestige and future is bound up in Netanyahu’s conviction.”
His entire prestige is bound up in Netanyahu’s conviction’