Roni Eitan
@roni_eitan · Public intellectuals, authors & commentators
Roni Eitan is an Israeli lawyer and religious-Zionist community activist.
The spin along the lines of "How is it that the right, which is against rule by bureaucrats, doesn't let a minister fire a bureaucrat?" is delusional. Let's set things straight: A. Yehuda Eliyahu was brought into the Israel Land Authority to fight the bureaucracy's control over the organization. Katz, as a labor-union man, is acting as a servant of the apparatus and the workers' committee. B. This is not a question of authority. Katz has the authority to replace Eliyahu. The public is allowed to think this is a really bad idea.
Translated from HebrewSo Haim Katz, a day after his place on the list was finally secured through a reserved slot, is making a move against the right, flexing his muscles at Netanyahu, refusing to back down and echoing the committee's arguments, and maybe, just a suggestion, it's time to kick him out of all the portfolios he was entrusted with and never showed any interest in until there was some rotten workers' committee to submit to.
Translated from HebrewSo who is Shelly Yermiyahu, chair of the workers’ committee at the Israel Land Authority, who stitched up a dismissal letter for Yehuda Eliyahu today and caused Minister Haim Katz to notify him of a pre-dismissal hearing? Hear a story. In 2023, the Israel Land Authority’s vice president of human resources, Mali Wagner, decided to recommend firing Sharon Mizrahi, the person responsible for logistics and procurement at the Israel Land Authority, after it was discovered that he had made purchases at inflated prices, including unclear duplications and without approvals. In her recommendation, Wagner noted that this involved unusual conduct and serious waste of public funds. Did you think she would manage to fire a rogue employee? You made the committee laugh. From that moment, the chair of the Israel Land Authority workers’ committee, our acquaintance Yermiyahu, opened a war against Wagner and told her: “The war with Sharon will cost you dearly! Sharon will turn to the national committee!” She made it clear to her that he had the committee’s backing, and that if she acted against him “it would blow up in your face.” Wagner did not understand the hint and continued with the dismissal process. In response, Yermiyahu began collecting complaints for the Histadrut about Wagner’s conduct in order to remove her from the matter and make her pay a price for the terrible thing she had done - the attempt to end the employment of a harmful employee in the civil service. The person who tried to interfere in personnel matters found herself being persecuted. In the end, after a hearing, Wagner managed to convince Yanki Quint, then director of the Israel Land Authority, to fire him. And of course, as with everything connected to an attempt to fire a rogue employee, the matter reached the labor court, which, following its recommendation to reach a compromise, left that marvelous employee at the Israel Land Authority in another position (because what could be more logical than forcing a government body to take an employee whom management decided had failed in one job and put him in another), while Wagner became an outcast in the organization. So there you have it - this is the type of person whose recommendation to kick Yehuda Eliyahu out Haim Katz decided to adopt, on the grounds that he dared not to bow to the demands of her committee. This is the reason to fire someone who came to shake up the Israel Land Authority, a body that does not want to shake itself up. Yet another public body that stopped serving us long ago and moved on to serving unionized workers who are sure they are the whole story. If you remember that this is Haim Katz, a union man of the old, bad kind, it really should not surprise anyone. The question is whether, besides the committees, we still have a state here every now and then. (The story was first published, in an expanded version, in an investigation by Amir Kurtz for Calcalist)
Translated from HebrewWhat rot. The letter makes it clear that the real reason for Yehuda Eliyahu's dismissal is turning appointment tenders into external ones, against the committee's wishes. Anyone who knows the public sector even a little knows just how much internal tenders are a means of reproducing mediocrity, something the Israel Land Authority has no shortage of, and a union man like Haim Katz will not forgive harm to it.
Translated from HebrewAnyone who knows the terrible conduct of the Israel Land Authority understands very well how critical the appointment of someone like Yehuda Eliyahu is, if we want to save the Galilee and the Negev as regions of land that belong to the Jewish state. The choice of the king of Likud wheeler-dealers, Haim Katz, to fire him reminds us what a political wheeler-dealer monster, which has nothing to do with the right, has developed in Likud.
Translated from HebrewI wished Smotrich, the finance minister whose effective fight against black money is one of his most significant achievements, success in this joint run with Feiglin, who is sure that a country that does not allow money to be laundered and hidden freely is the first step toward North Korea.
Translated from HebrewFocusing on the question of the specific warning—whether there was one or not and to whom it was given—and on the question of who alerted whom or did not alert whom and why, in relation to Hamas’s attack at the specific time when it was carried out, is a gift to those who were involved at least a decade before 7.10 in building the conception, because everyone is dealing with the wrong question, whose answer concerns at most the timing of the attack.
Translated from HebrewWow, what a cynical campaign by Shas. It doesn't even try to answer the arguments. It has no real answer to the question of why some people do hundreds of days of reserve duty, while others are not affected by it at all. So it delegitimizes the very possibility of arguing with the Haredim about enlistment, portraying it as forbidden and foolish brotherly hatred. Shmaltz covers all sins.
Translated from HebrewForget about closing a consulate that nobody cares about. The real reason for the holy European outrage is the desire to prevent the link between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim and from there all the way to the Dead Sea, so there is no better time to respond by evacuating Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin settlement established under European pressure specifically to sever that same contiguous corridor a little farther east.
Translated from HebrewIn the end, in the end, remember that we did not get hit with these sanctions because of "settler violence" (which certainly did not help), but because Israel insists on not allowing Ma’ale Adumim to become isolated à la Netzarim, only this time with a population of 36,000. When you refer to the Israeli steps that led to the British measures, keep this very firmly in mind.
Translated from HebrewThinking out loud — given that all the "illegal" settlements in Judea and Samaria are in Area C (apart from a few negligible exceptions that the state evacuates again and again), that is, areas that under the Oslo Accords themselves are under Israeli control (especially the specific settlement that got Britain and company worked up), and yet we are still being hit with sanctions, what do we gain by insisting on continuing to uphold the agreement and not expanding the settlements into Areas A and B (especially when, at the same time, the Palestinian side openly does not adhere to this division and is trying to create territorial contiguity through construction in Area C)?
Translated from HebrewOne of the frustrating things about the current political picture is that it seems the lessons of 7.10 regarding society internally, which we all felt in our bones at the beginning of the war, have gradually faded away. Few people have internalized them more than Roi Konkol, and no one is more deserving than he is of being a member of the Knesset, regardless of the specific political constellation he chose. Best of luck, brother!
Translated from HebrewI have quite a bit of criticism of Smotrich, including his performance as finance minister, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that he stood out as the most rational economic actor in this government, saving us more than once from all sorts of terrible populist initiatives, like the one we almost got this morning under the auspices of Dichter’s vanishing political tenure.
Translated from HebrewSmotrich - is running a stupid campaign about an artificial reduction in fuel prices. Lapid - "Hold my cup of 95 octane, please."
Translated from HebrewAnyone who knows how to read polls should understand that Netanyahu’s only chance of surviving these elections is if Winter runs and clears the threshold, but he is so unable to tolerate a right-wing party that is not attached to him by a leash that he would rather lose than restrain himself and not take him down by force (by the way, exactly the same mechanism caused Netanyahu not to win in 2019A).
Translated from HebrewI cannot stand the stance of the official and unofficial coalition spokespeople who lecture Winter that he is endangering the bloc, when they could have lowered the electoral threshold for four years and did not want to. A thuggish cartel of parties that blocks competition and then scolds whoever nevertheless tries. If it were up to them, we would remain with the current political structure that got them elected for another hundred years.
Translated from HebrewEveryone points out that even in the elections after Yom Kippur, the political system did not change, and that it took another round for the war to have an effect, but do you know what the difference is? The 73 elections took place in 73, right after the war, whereas today we are three years after it began; meaning, chronologically, we are much closer to 77, and we are stuck with the same names.
Translated from HebrewMy grandmother, who truly went through a lot in life, including periods of hunger, would take the leftover soup from Shabbat and make a casserole out of it. The fact that after 7.10 the political map feels like a mixing and re-serving of the existing political forces with a little extra seasoning here and there is really discouraging. And unlike them, that casserole was tasty and nutritious.
Translated from HebrewUnbelievable that what ultimately led to the decision to replace Gafni was that he wasn't *enough of an asshole*.
Translated from HebrewAnd after that Shas whines when they are suspected of taking Rabbi Ovadia’s memorial ceremony, which is funded by public money, and turning it into an election event
Translated from HebrewThese two axes are very important. From a settlement perspective, and also from a security perspective, a permanent Israeli military presence between Ramallah and the clusters of villages surrounding it would be very beneficial. But this requires more soldiers, when the forces in Judea and Samaria are already stretched to the limit today. Anyone who wants to advance the settlements like @bezalelsm should have simultaneously promoted more recruitment. In practice, he did the opposite.
Translated from HebrewThe only reason Karin "Natural gas can wait" Elharrar, who canceled gas exploration, is not the most failed minister in the history of Yesh Atid is that she has stiff competition in the form of Yael "I was unable to understand why pediatricians, dentists, and even public-health doctors united in favor of water fluoridation" German, who canceled fluoridation. We will not miss her.
Translated from HebrewDr. Hami Schiff of “Emek Shaveh” waxes lyrical in a column about the Israel he has lost, comparing tolerance for monuments commemorating enemy soldiers who fell in battle while serving in their state’s army with the Israeli desire to smash monuments commemorating martyrs who murdered Israeli civilians. You couldn’t make this up, honestly. (The discussion of how Sukkot did it is separate.)
Translated from HebrewAnd for anyone who thinks that the ones really calling the shots in Shas are the "great rabbis of Israel" and not Deri, I have a used chopped onion to sell them.
Translated from HebrewWhoever is responsible for establishing a network whose sole purpose is to raise generations of ignoramuses with no future employment opportunities who will continue to vote for Shas is up in arms against the state Haredi education system (Mamlachti Haredi, Mamach) with arguments about control, without bothering to sugarcoat the words. He wants to control schools that will be subordinate to him, not to the state. And he, with the utmost audacity, demands that the state intervene at only one point—the opening of the wallet.
Translated from Hebrew
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