Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Ron Dermer, one of his closest advisers and a member of his Cabinet, will soon leave the government, though he will continue to remain close to Netanyahu and handle certain matters.
The announcement came during a Cabinet meeting in which Netanyahu also instructed Justice Minister Yariv Levin to advance a new Basic Law that would allow incoming governments to replace senior civil servants in top positions. The outlines of such legislation were first revealed in July by Ynet.
Netanyahu said it was “not reasonable” that, in his view, an overwhelming majority of senior officials come from the same political and professional background. “This is an anti-democratic system,” he said.
He told Levin to submit legislation that would, in his words, “allow proper diversity and enable every government, from any political side, to function without the bureaucracy sabotaging its work and blocking it.”
The Cabinet meeting also approved the appointment of Maj. Gen. (res.) David Zini as director of the Shin Bet internal security service. Netanyahu said the choice of Zini reflected a broader change. “There are excellent, talented people not only on Kaplan Street,” he said, referring to the central Tel Aviv site of protests against his judicial overhaul plan. “It is time these people receive equal opportunities and are chosen for the most senior positions.”
Netanyahu linked Zini’s appointment to his broader push for reform. “The presentation of the judicial reform revealed the fact that in all systems, at the top are people from the same group,” he said. “The case of Zini proves that when someone from the ‘right’ group is nominated, the rules are bent to appoint him. But when someone from the ‘wrong’ group is nominated, everything is done to thwart him. We are in a process of change, reflected today in the appointment of Maj. Gen. Zini.”
The idea of allowing new governments to replace senior officials was introduced earlier this year by Knesset member Tzvika Fogel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who chairs the parliament’s National Security Committee.
Following Netanyahu’s remarks on Tuesday, Fogel urged the prime minister not to introduce a new bill, but to move ahead with the one he already submitted. “Mr. Prime Minister, there is no need to introduce a new bill,” Fogel wrote. “I already submitted the ‘governability reform,’ which passed the ministerial committee. Now is the time to advance it quickly into Israel’s lawbook. The government should govern, not the bureaucrats.”
Under the proposal, a new government would be able to replace the attorney general, the military chief of staff, the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet, the national police commissioner, the prisons commissioner, the head of the Civil Service Commission and the director of the Finance Ministry’s budget department, within its first 100 days in office.
The only restriction would be that an official could be dismissed only if two-thirds of his or her term had already passed. Even in cases where less time had elapsed, the bill would still allow for dismissals, but only after a longer process that includes a hearing before a ministerial committee.
The legislation would also grant the government authority to cancel or change decisions made by senior officials dismissed following the swearing-in of a new administration.
The stated purpose of the bill is “to allow a new government to make personal changes in key positions, so that it can implement its policies in the best possible way, while maintaining the necessary checks and balances through approval by a majority of the Knesset.” It adds: “The democratic interest of allowing a new government to implement its policy outweighs considerations of institutional stability.”