Foreign, defense ministries to stop assisting PM’s trips abroad over budget cuts

Employees of the foreign and defense ministries announce they will no longer assist with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trips overseas amid a budget dispute between the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry.

According to Hebrew media, the move is to protest various cuts to the Foreign Ministry that its workers say hinder their diplomatic work. The announcement is made to all of Israel’s missions in overseas.

A report in the Israel Hayom daily this morning said that as a result of the cuts, the Foreign Ministry was forced to unilaterally cancel student exchange programs with 50 countries.

“Another demonstration of the budgetary disaster in which the Foreign Ministry is subject to and the tough costs that Israeli foreign policy is paying as a result,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon writes on Twitter.