Three reasons why Bennett's dig on doctors at UN became top news - analysis

• Published date: 02 October 2021
• Author: MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

In the aftermath of his speech, one would have expected a frenzy over the way Bennett hammered into Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. There should have been a discussion about whether his overtures (of which there were none) toward Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would move the peace needle forward.

Instead, for four whole days, the post-UN headline on the front page of the country's newspapers and websites was about the prime minister's strained relationship with the head of public health services.

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"While doctors are an important input, they cannot be the ones running the national initiative," Bennett said. "The only person who has a good vantage point of all considerations is the national leader of any given country."

Bennett ran for office on the back of COVID-19, with a message to the public that he was the only leader who could fight the pandemic in a professional manner. He set aside annexation and fighting the legal establishment in favor of a unity government that could battle the virus and the havoc that 18 months of the pandemic have wreaked across Israel.

While the virus burned across the country, the opposition blamed Bennett. On Monday night, there is expected to be yet another vote on the government's "failure" to manage the pandemic.

At the same time, many of the current ministers have chosen not to engage with COVID, so much so that top officials didn't even show up at coronavirus cabinet meetings.

But Bennett has not been deterred. He boasted at the UN that he personally runs Israel's national COVID task force – that meets every day to "bypass slow governmental bureaucracy, make quick decisions and act on them right away."

In other words, as daily and serious cases start to decline as the third-shot campaign takes hold and the new Green Pass outline goes into effect, Bennett wants the credit.

He wasn't putting doctors down; he was bolstering himself up.

THE PRIME minister and his party received only seven seats (and had only six by the time the unity government was formed). There are likely still many who question his legitimacy as Israel's leader and Bennett must know this. So, he strives to be the king of COVID.

Moreover, Bennett comes from the hi-tech world and is running the country like he would a company – which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Anyone who has worked in the corporate...