As I had been sitting in front of the computer screen for six hours, in a futile attempt to book an appointment with the Ministry of the Interior to issue my first passport to my youngest son, I suddenly realized what the great failure of the outgoing government was.
Do not think it is easy to choose one failure out of the glorious failures that make up the legacy of the Bent Lapid government.
And yet, without the winner it is impossible: the complete disregard of the citizen is a mega-failure of those who they say have come to heal and nurse.
Given the opening figures of the Bennett-Lapid government and its eclectic (not to say strange) composition, it actually made sense to expect its various components to put the individual at the center of their desires.
In the absence of a common value and ideological basis - unless one mistakenly considers Netanyahu's hatred of value - the practical solution for the coalition that brought the right together with the Islamists and new hope with Meretz, was to put the macro aside and focus the effort on micro-treatment.
Not in hollow slogans of abstract "change", but in a thousand and one details that make up the daily lives of all Israeli citizens, regardless of opinion and worldview.
The task of lowering the cost of living has been big on the outgoing coalition in the first place, and the insane price increase we have experienced in the past year is a natural consequence of an amateurish government with no coherent economic policy.
But this government could have chosen other, more realistic goals for its implementation.
If there was a little integrity in the hearts of the coalition leaders, and a little common sense in their minds, they would invest a few days at the beginning of their tenure (really do not need more than that) to formulate a list of things that simply interfere with Israelis living.
Such a list, along with the cost of living that has risen at a dizzying pace over the past year, should have included dozens of small problems, the common denominator of all of which is a shaky service to the citizen in public systems.
Everyone is familiar with these matters, which have the power to drive even the calmest of us crazy: from the queues at government offices, through their limited reception hours, to the contemptuous attitude on the part of the system.
The disparaging attitude, by the way, is embodied not only in a clerk who does not bother to answer a citizen's phone call.
If the Bennett-Lapid government had taken care of these small issues and devoted to them even a percentage of the energy devoted to the fight against Netanyahu, its record would probably have been less dismal.
But the exact opposite happened.
During one year, the affairs of the Israeli citizen were disgracefully neglected in every sector.
The old problems have not been solved, and new, even more annoying problems have been added.
Citizen service was replaced by citizen queues, and queues popped up everywhere.
Instead of fighting the ugly phenomena and providing the citizen with a proper service, the government chose to contain, and honestly earned the nickname "queue government".
Queues at ports are delaying and micromanaging millions of products, impairing the ability of Israeli businesses to compete in world markets and paralyzing the local economy.
The queues at Ben Gurion Airport require Israelis who want to fly abroad to arrive at the airport five hours before takeoff and crowd, sometimes outside the terminal, under the scorching sun, in the company of thousands of unfortunates like them.
Perhaps in the eyes of government leaders there is nothing like standing in a common line to nurse and heal.
However, the huge queues that prevent passport booking are symbols of this government's resounding failure in the civilian spheres.
Issuing a passport is a basic and simple service, and there is no reason why it should not be accessible to every citizen at all times.
If there is an increase in demand for the service, more manpower is routed to it, which is not lacking in the civil service, and the working hours of the Ministry of the Interior branches are extended.
The solution is so easy when decision makers take care of the citizen.
When they only take care of themselves, it is easier to contain.
"We have come to work," the founders of this government promised us.
At the end of a year it is impossible not to answer them: if this is your job, it is better that you stay at home.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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