Bennett Makes New Appointments after Resignations
On Monday, the office of the Prime Minister announced that the position of foreign affairs adviser and chief of staff had been filled, as the premier had appointed new people. The appointments come as two senior officials had resigned from their positions within weeks at Bennett’s office. The position of chief of staff will now be taken over by Eden Bizman. He had previously held the position of the deputy director-general for almost a year at the Prime Minister’s Office. He also worked at the State Comptroller’s Office as the deputy director-general. Before that, when Naftali Bennett had been the education minister, he had served as his chief of staff.
Bizman is a father of four and the 36-year-old got a bachelor’s and master’s degree in law and business administration from Bar-Ilan University. The premier’s office said that he would be taking over as chief of staff, once he receives approval from the Civil Service Commission. 32-year-old Keren Hajioffhas a political science bachelor’s degree and a master’s in political communications, also from the Bar-Ilan University. She served in the Israel Defense Forces as the head of public diplomacy and was also a spokesperson for the Northern Command of the military.
In 2009, she emigrated from the United Kingdom and had been a foreign media spokesperson for Bennett previously. These appointments came after the current chief of staff of Naftali Bennett, Tal Gan-Zvi, resigned last week from his position. Since 2013, he has been advising Bennett and his resignation came less than two weeks after his rival, Shimrit Meir, had announced her departure. She is also one of the closest aides of the premier and served as the senior adviser for foreign affairs. But, reports indicated that she had had a clash with others in Bennett’s office.
These included Gan-Zvi and some others who thought that she was trying to interfere in their spheres as well. Reports indicated that Meir had also begun advising Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on his responses to different crises, such as the defection of MK IditSilman from the government’s coalition and the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the report said that she was also advising about political strategy. Moreover, she was also considered responsible for drawing the premier to the political center, something that had made his Yamina party extremely unhappy. Nonetheless, her decision to resign from June 1st had come as a surprise.
Less than two weeks later, Gan-Zvi also tendered his resignation, which was considered yet another indicator of the instability of the Israeli government. The coalition has seemingly lost its majority in the Knesset and this has resulted in a lot of problems for it. The opposition appears to be making plans for toppling the government altogether and there is a possibility of success if lawmakers continue to defect from the coalition. The differences of the parties that make it up have intensified and this has given the opposition the opportunity it needs to damage the government.
