Liberman aide quits so his mother can help pick next IDF head

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s adviser on new media stepped down Wednesday so that his mother, Professor Talia Einhorn, can join the government committee that vets appointees to the most senior public service positions.

Yisrael Einhorn announced he was leaving after only a few months in the position, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest with his mother’s new role, and to allow for her appointment to be quickly approved.

“Defense Minister Liberman told Einhorn that he sadly, but understandably, accepts his decision,” the minister’s office said.

It was announced Tuesday that Talia Einhorn and Moshe Tery had been tipped to join the panel, following last month’s resignations of former national security adviser Yaakov Nagel and Iris Shtark, a noted accountant. Their appointments will put the selection of new heads for the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces back on track.

Talia Einhorn is a law professor at Ariel University and is on the faculty of Tel Aviv University.

Tery served as chairman of the Israel Securities Authority from 2002 to 2008. He has also served as general manager of the Israel Postal Authority and director of the Israel Airport Authority.

The court had ordered a freeze to all proceedings of the four-person committee headed by Eliezer Goldberg, a former Supreme Court justice and state comptroller, following an appeal by the Movement for Integrity watchdog group, which had insisted that both Nagel and Shtark were too close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Goldberg Committee is charged with examining any ethical difficulties that arise in the choice of appointees to the heads of key state agencies, including the IDF, Israel Police, Mossad, Shin Bet and Bank of Israel.

The Goldberg Committee’s fourth member is the serving head of the Civil Service Commission, a post currently held by Daniel Hershkovitz, the former science minister and president of Bar Ilan University.