The government approved today (Sunday) in a telephone referendum the cancellation of the Ministry of Information, headed by Minister Galit Distal Atabrian, and the transfer of its budget and standards to the Gaza Envelope Rehabilitation Administration established last week.
According to the decision-makers' proposal, the administration will be transferred the budget surpluses of the canceled Ministry of Information totaling NIS 24 million, as well as 29 standards.
Quit. Galit Distal Atabrian/Reuven Castro
The Ministry of Information was a government ministry that was reinvented at the beginning of the year after more than a decade in which it did not exist, and the information activity was concentrated in the Foreign Ministry and the information headquarters in the Prime Minister's Office. The ministry was established as a political work arrangement for Distal Atabrian, who was not given real powers and found it difficult to start activities for months.
According to the powers granted to the ministry and approved last July, the responsibilities are public relations in the international arena as well as internally, and the ministry was supposed to establish a "division to promote the resilience and cohesion of Israeli society." However, despite the fact that the office existed for only a few months, there was an unusually high turnover of employees and managers: In August, Distal announced that it had decided to oust the CEO she appointed, Gali Sambira, after four months in the position, and the alternative candidate she chose gave up the position. In addition, advisers and trustees in the bureau left their positions, amid reports of problematic working relations with employees.
Distel resigned from her position about a week after the war began, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu established a government information forum to which she was not invited, as reported in Walla!, and transferred the authority of information to the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, headed by Minister Amichai Shikli.
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