Half a year after the government solemnly decided to merge the Ministry of Strategic Affairs with the Foreign Ministry, the procedure stalled and the fight against the boycott movement faded.
Evidence obtained by "Israel Today" shows that 30 employees of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs were only included in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a limited extent.
Most of the operations taken within the original office have been discontinued, and budgets have been dramatically reduced.
All this is happening against the background of statements by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid that 2022 is expected to be "a crucial year in which Israel may be stuck as an apartheid state."
Jerusalem Foreign Ministry, Photo: Noam Rivkin Fenton
As is well known, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs has acted since 2015 as a special arm of the government to combat the delegitimization movement (DLG) against Israel. A public benefit society was opened, and the ministry also revealed problematic links between it and the terrorist organizations, but some of the ministry's initiatives failed.
Terrorist budgets have been halted
Among other things, the ministry published in 2019 the report "Terrorists in Suits", which recently led to the characterization of six such organizations as terrorist organizations, and to the decision of several European countries to stop budgeting for suspicious organizations.
Former Minister Gilad Ardan, currently Israel's Ambassador to the UN, headed the ministry during the years in question and believes to this day that his activities were essential. "The work of the offices we canceled will merge with existing offices and save money and bureaucracy." His deputy, Idan Roll, was appointed to lead the struggle, and manage the merger of the offices.
The information that reached Israel Today shows that the merger process is progressing sluggishly, and at the same time, the fight against the GD is significantly reduced. "C fell.
The research work was stopped, new reports were not expected to be published, the extensive engagements with civil society organizations were stopped and the budget was taken.
Only today is the government supposed to approve a project worth NIS 25 million.
This is at a time when in the past the budget was NIS 120 million, and it was possible to raise the same amount.
The direct budget for the fight against the GDL has also dropped dramatically. Last year it was NIS 35 million. This year it dropped to NIS 8 million. That the budget is over.
"The result is that there is no longer any monitoring of the leakage of money from 'human rights' organizations into terrorism. There is no examination of state funding from Europe, there is no examination of what is being done in academia," Israel Today was told.
According to officials, top Foreign Ministry officials, both at the political level and in the management, were interested in promoting the merger, but it was mainly the workers who stuck the move.
About three months ago, the workers' committee in the ministry instructed "not to take any action regarding the implementation of the ministry for strategic issues."
In addition, there has been a fierce rivalry between the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Strategic Affairs for years, and some Foreign Ministry employees take revenge on who they see as rivals.
"The offices' systems have not been connected. The employees of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs are not connected to the Foreign Ministry's computers, so they do not know what is happening in the field they are still in charge of, in which they specialized for years," says one source.
Another official notes: "Former employees of the ministry have not received Foreign Ministry badges and are not allowed to arrive without a permit."
He said, "There was a task force here that was set up to coordinate the fight against the DLG, and it was disbanded without the establishment of a replacement body.
I was worried. "
"The allegations are wrong"
The Foreign Ministry angrily rejects the allegations.
A source confirms that the workers' committee is indeed failing some of the merger steps, such as connecting the computers and the employee tags.
He said these issues will be resolved soon, when the labor dispute in the office ends.
He said, "The allegations are wrong and misleading. The employees of the former strategic affairs office were fully integrated into the work of the Foreign Ministry within the framework of the public diplomacy system."
Yair Lapid, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
He further notes that the merger "significantly increased the resources that Israel devotes to the fight against delegitimization and created synergy and efficient and synchronized work in the face of the significant challenges facing the State of Israel."
To be clear, not only have the budgets of the struggle against delegitimization increased, the areas of activity of the workers have also expanded with their entry into the ranks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "
"The ministry's employees regularly come to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, and the directors of the Department of Public Diplomacy come to the offices in Tel Aviv on a regular basis."
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