Public diplomacy minister fires director-general attacked as ‘leftist’
Likud’s Distel Atbaryan says unsatisfied with ‘professional performance’ of Gali Sembira, who reportedly raised ire among party activists with her positions
Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distel Atbaryan on Sunday fired her ministry’s director-general after just four months in the job, reportedly due to her political leanings.
A statement from her office said the minister had informed Gali Sembira that she was being removed from her position due to “dissatisfaction with her professional performance.”
But Hebrew media reports said Distel Atbaryan had faced criticism from others in her right-wing Likud party who opposed Sembira’s appointment due to the latter’s supposed “leftist” views. According to Ynet, Sembira had spoken out against the government’s plans for a drastic overhaul of the judiciary, which have faced months of mass protests.
The statement did not name a replacement for Sembira, but one is expected to be announced in the coming days.
According to unnamed source quoted in the report, Distel Atbaryan felt Sembira “didn’t deliver the goods” and did not manage to set up the ministry, which was freshly created with the installation of the new government at the very end of last year.
Two weeks ago, Walla reported that Sembira had asked to leave her job, though the ministry at the time denied the report. The report cited unnamed government sources as saying Sembira felt she “could not advance her goals” at the ministry.
With Sembira’s exit, the government is left with just one woman still serving as a director-general, out of 31 ministries — Merav Stern at the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, under Minister May Golan.
It is the lowest number of women in director-general posts in 20 years.
The women’s rights advocacy group Bonot Alternativa said in a statement that the situation transmits a message to the public that women are not fit to fill managerial roles in government.
“A government in which there is no woman in a key position is a sickly government, which conveys a very clear message to the general public — women can’t do it. No wonder that in the last six months, the cases of women’s exclusion in the public sphere have tripled. When this is how the government looks, this is how the public behaves,” the statement said.
The move came hours after the cabinet okayed the appointment of an official to head the public diplomacy office within the Prime Minister’s Office.
Israel invests vast efforts in public diplomacy, also called hasbara, aimed at battling bad press and boosting its image abroad. Critics say the government’s planned far-reaching judicial overhaul, and its tacit support for violent settler activity, have turned the nation into a veritable international pariah.
The country’s image took a further hit last week when far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that his family has more of a right to travel on roads in the West Bank than Palestinians do, in the wake of a spate of deadly terror attacks on Israeli settlers in the area.
The Biden administration and American Jewish groups denounced his comments, with the US State Department in a rare move calling him out by name. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later in the week countered Ben Gvir’s comments, declaring that Israel strives to allow the greatest possible freedom of movement for both the Israeli and Palestinian populations in the West Bank.
