Three reasons why Bennett’s dig of doctors at the UN has become the most important news

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett intended to use his first speech on the international stage to rise to the level of other world leaders. Instead, a slip of the tongue brought him back to where he was 13 years ago, as chief of staff to then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The day after his speech, one might have expected a frenzy over the way Bennett hammered Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. There should have been a discussion about whether his overtures (of which there were none) to PA President Mahmoud Abbas would advance the needle of peace.

Instead, for four whole days, the post-UN headline on the country’s newspapers and websites spoke of the prime minister’s strained relationship with the chief of public health.

“While physicians are an important contribution, they cannot be the ones leading the national initiative,” Bennett said. “The only person who has a good point of view on all considerations is the national leader of a given country.”

Bennett ran for office in the wake of COVID-19, with a message to the public that he was the only leader capable of dealing with the pandemic in a professional manner. He put aside annexation and the fight against the legal establishment in favor of a unity government that could fight the virus and the havoc that an 18-month pandemic has wreaked across Israel.

SHARON ALROY-PREIS participates in Ministry of Health video urging citizens to follow coronavirus regulations. (credit: REUVEN KASTRO)

As the virus burned across the country, the opposition blamed Bennett. On Monday evening, there is expected to be another vote on the government’s “failure” to deal with the pandemic.

At the same time, many current ministers have chosen not to engage with COVID, so much so that senior officials have not even shown up to coronavirus cabinet meetings.

But Bennett was not deterred. He bragged to the UN about personally leading Israel’s national COVID task force – which meets daily to “bypass sluggish government bureaucracy, make quick decisions and act immediately.”

He did not belittle the doctors; he was getting stronger.

THE PREMIER and his party won only seven seats (and had only six when the government of national unity was formed). There are probably still a lot of people questioning his legitimacy as leader of Israel and Bennett must know that. Thus, he strives to be the king of COVID.

Plus, Bennett comes from the high tech world and runs the country like he would a business – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Anyone who has worked in the corporate world, at least outside of Israel, knows that there is a corporate hierarchy and that the CEO is at the top.

The job of business leaders is to hear feedback from their staff and advisers, all of whom come with their own expertise and perspective, and make the final decisions.

Bennett said that “running a country during a pandemic isn’t just about health: it’s about carefully balancing all aspects of life that are affected by the crown – especially jobs and education. “.

The data shows he was right about it. The negative impact of the previous three closures and the shutdown of the school system have put tens of thousands of people out of work and left some of the country’s most at risk youth even further behind than they were before the crown. Phantom pandemics in the form of domestic violence, declining mental health, food insecurity and more are shaking Israeli society.

Not all of these aspects are the responsibility of the Department of Health, but it is Bennett’s job.

Finally, the Prime Minister’s speech was lackluster – relatively featureless, with no sexy headline or takeaway – so the media had to find one.

The ironic part is that the line that reporters focused on, and then interviewed him in a subsequent briefing to develop the story further, was not even in Bennett’s original transcript. He improvised it while he was on the world stage.

Jerusalem post had a copy of Bennett’s speech before his speech. The 20-page, 18-point document was typed in Microsoft Word and included the ability to boast its “take on all considerations”. But nowhere does the word “doctors” appear.

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz starred in the story, responding on Twitter. At the end of the vacation in Israel, he and the director general of the Ministry of Health, Professor Nachman Ash, were talking on television about how hurtful the comment was for the medical establishment.

And public health chief Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis spoke about it the next day with members of the Knesset as they were supposed to debate a recommendation that employees at health, recreation and well-being must adhere to the Green Pass plan.

A weekend N12 poll showed that while only 43% think they are handling the coronavirus well, 60% think Alroy-Preis is doing a good job. In other words, Bennett didn’t just look bad for starting the dispute on the international stage, he didn’t take the opportunity to improve his position at home.