Doctor in state’s employ disciplined for 2023 op-eds against judicial overhaul

The Civil Service Commission is carrying out disciplinary proceedings against a Finance Ministry-employed psychiatrist over “insulting and offensive” statements he made in opinion articles opposing the government’s judicial overhaul effort in 2023.

Dr. Eran Rolnik, who serves part-time as the chief physician for the Finance Ministry office that handles German reparations payments for Holocaust survivors, was questioned about several articles he wrote for the Haaretz daily, in which he denounced the government’s judicial overhaul effort as an authoritarian coup, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “traitor” and “megalomaniac,” and urged Israeli citizens to take to the streets in protest.

Rolnik, the brother of a well-known Israeli journalist, was questioned in November 2023, and in May 2025, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him. The Civil Service Commission said the process was delayed by a manpower shortage due, among other reasons, to the ongoing war in Gaza.

“The interrogation [in 2023] went on for three hours,” recalled Rolnik, as quoted by the Ynet news site. “They went line by line over statements from the judicial overhaul period that dealt with the influence of the judicial overhaul on the mental health field.”

“I was asked if I participated in the Kaplan protests, if I was part of a group that organized the Kaplan protests,” he said, referring to the weekly demonstrations in Tel Aviv against the highly controversial package of legislation, to significantly weaken the power of the judiciary relative to the political branches of the state.

“It’s really unfortunate that the government decided to file suit against a doctor and intellectual, who wrote reasoned and learned opinion articles, and took part in protecting freedom of expression and the mental health field,” Rolnik said.

Among the passages that investigators took issue with, Rolnik said, was a comment at the end of one Haaretz op-ed about Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister’s wife: “We remember the screams of the child psychologist and the wife of the prime minister who was recorded shouting ‘BA, MA.’ Well, now is the time to shout that out,” he wrote.

Rolnik, himself a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a supervising analyst in Israel’s psychoanalytic society, responded that he was “giving her the utmost respect” by appealing to her credentials.

The Civil Service Commission said in a statement: “In May 2025, it was decided to file a disciplinary complaint against Dr. Rolnik over the disciplinary infractions of working privately without a permit [by writing the articles], and expressing offensive and insulting criticism of the government,” and that “the questions that Dr. Rolnik was asked in the investigation were relevant to the suspicions against him.”

According to Rolnik, his direct supervisor at the Finance Ministry knew that he regularly wrote opinion articles. He also maintained that the articles expressed a legitimate political opinion, and said they do not violate the prohibition on “offensive and insulting criticism.” He also said he maintains “total separation” between his work for the government and his personal opinions and activism.

In its statement, the commission added that “a negotiation is being conducted by the sides in an attempt to reach a plea bargain.”

According to Rolnik, the commission recently offered him a deal, under which he would receive a harsh reprimand and deduction of a month’s salary — but he rejected the proposal.

“I can close this story and resign from the civil service and say ‘Go to hell and thank you very much.’ But I won’t do that. I will stay in my position until the government fires me, and I will fight,” he said.

MK Naama Lazimi, of the left-wing Democrats party, responded to the affair, saying in a statement: “The Civil Service Commission’s conduct with Dr. Eran Rolnik is no less than political persecution, testifying to the loss of the commission as an independent body.”

The Civil Service Commission has been in headlines recently, after an August 2024 cabinet resolution overhauling the process for appointing its commissioner was struck down by the High Court of Justice last month. Later that month, it was revealed that Netanyahu’s pick for acting commissioner himself has a disciplinary investigation against him.

Protests against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in 2023. The effort was largely frozen after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack started the ongoing war in Gaza, but much of it has since been revived.