At the conclusion of the year of Naftali Bennett's tenure as Prime Minister, his management skills were noted, which were reflected in his matter-of-fact conduct.
In the humble ceremony at the end of his term, he said important things.
It is worth looking at his apt description of the deep division in Israeli society, in his critique of the situation in which "victory in the elections of half the people degenerates the other half into consciousness of grief and anxiety."
With these words, Naftali Bennett was able to diagnose the essence of the crisis of Israeli society, especially Jewish society.
The big problem is that rescuing the people of Israel from this crisis probably requires something completely different from that expressed in managerial excellence skills.
Influenced by leading business and public administration schools in the United States, Israeli society has taken issue with the promise that professional and skilled management also holds the key to tackling leadership challenges at the national level. Management skills are certainly required, but for leading complex systems like nation and state, they are not enough. Permit for management skills, reduced the approach to state leadership to over-focus on management issues.
The liberal worldview that seeks a state to cease its aspiration to build a nation, and to convert “nation” concepts into “civil society” concepts, provides significant support for the trend of dominance of management skills.
Thus, the leadership of a state focuses on improving the areas of "general good" - in the words of Prime Minister Lapid - as if the state were nothing more than a house committee, or a corporation of holdings for national infrastructure, including roads, hospitals, power plants, etc.
The Ben-Gurion model
Such a narrow approach consciously ignores Israel's unique vision and mission.
The crisis described by Naftali Bennett calls for clarification on the fundamental question of what the State of Israel needs in all its troubles: an outstanding operations manager, or a national leader with a Jewish spiritual stature.
Ben-Gurion, for example, whose achievements in the first decade of the establishment of the State of Israel were significant, did not really excel in the virtues of management.
Of course, effective managers worked alongside him, but he excelled as a national leader mainly in his ability to lead and build a nation in the challenges of grouping postcards and establishing state institutions.
In the first decade he emphasized:
"Security is only a condition for our existence and independence, for the State of Israel a special vocation. Every state must take care of their well-being and the progress of its inhabitants, our state also commands this, but that is not the point. '32).
In his remarks, he emphasized that the leadership of the State of Israel needs a leader and not just an effective manager, a leader who outlines a path, gives meaning to suffering and struggles for existence, has the ability not only to make right decisions but also to bring them to broad national consensus.
In such an approach, managerial excellence in itself is not only not sufficient for the leadership of a nation, but is also sometimes revealed as part of the problem.
A clear expression of the differences of perspective between national leadership considerations and management considerations is found in Ben-Gurion's decision to bring in all Iraqi immigrants at once, despite the lack of resources for their absorption.
Shlomo Hillel, who led the mission, talks about the briefing he received from Eshkol:
"Tell your good Jews that we will be very happy for everyone to come, but do not rush, we do not currently have absorption options ...".
Eshkol, who served in the early years of the state in charge of immigration absorption, highlighted the lack of resources.
Not only are there no apartments, tents are also insufficient, and certainly not jobs and not enough food.
He therefore demanded that they be brought to Israel gradually.
Ben-Gurion, who was the prime minister, called Shlomo Hillel to him and told him - everything that Eshkol warned was true, but "tell them to come quickly" (Ruach Kadim, p. 268).
When the gates of Iraq suddenly closed, a few months later, Ben-Gurion's decision turned out to be correct.
Herein lies the difference between a manager attached to the direction of staff work, and national decisions in emergency consciousness.
Bound for administration
The ability to act in the light of national vision and emergency logic is the main thing the government lacks that is fundamentally driven by the weighting point of "general good," and clings by its very identity to patterns of good governance and stable routine.
Declaring an emergency logic actually involves a consciousness of crisis, and seeks to direct officials to the awareness of the necessity to get off the rails of routine conduct.
But a government committed to the basis of its approach to accepted procedural patterns will find itself at critical decision-points when it is enslaved to the rule of officials.
In recent decades, in core challenges, Israeli governments have found themselves trapped in the procedures of the procedure track and the sanctification of routine logic.
Here is the lack of leadership with the authority and daring for national leadership, a breakthrough in emergencies.
In the past year, in several main areas - including the housing crisis, the loss of governance in the Galilee and the Negev and the barriers to Jewish settlement - the government has refrained from acting in an emergency consciousness.
On the issue of the loss of governance, for example, large-scale steps are required in operating an order of forces that is not currently in the hands of the Israel Police.
The steps taken towards the establishment of a national guard also express a slow action that is overly subject to staff work processes, and in the end does not bring any news to the security crisis in the routine of life.
The addition of Border Brigades in the reserve is certainly important for a state of war, but in the meantime, the Israeli citizen and his property continue to be threatened by criminal gangs in collecting sponsorship fees and illegal involvement in conducting local government tenders. On a large scale, with the measures currently in the hands of the Israel Police, there is no chance of suppressing the threat.
On the issue of establishing settlements in the Galilee, Negev and Golan Heights, despite the turnaround led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, the main barriers guiding planning authorities at the national and district levels have not been removed.
In Beit She'arim and Yodfat, which are blocked for expansion, young people are losing hope.
In the Mapai era, the government decided to establish a settlement immediately. The next day there was a hut and a tower, and the institutional planning for a permanent settlement was conducted in parallel with the immigration of settlers.
The call for state political conduct has recently flooded Israeli political discourse.
The first to define the concept was Ben-Gurion.
Statehood in his political doctrine expressed the national compass that should guide the leader even where he is in conflict with the representatives of "proper administration" and with legal and political objections.
Out of loyalty to the super story of the redemption of Israel and the gathering of exiles, statehood allows the leader the justification for action in emergency logic.
In the current crisis, the people of Israel desperately need national leadership, not just outstanding management.
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