Fall of the Israeli Foreign Ministry
The traditional roles of the ministry — namely building bridges of common interests with the international community or engaging in a viable Middle East peace process — have evaporated with Israel's most right-wing government.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once described Israeli foreign policy as the direct extrapolation of Israeli domestic policies. This description has never been as accurate as it is these days. No definition of diplomacy could even propose that Israel today has either a foreign policy or a foreign ministry to speak of. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned both policy and ministry into instruments of public relations at the service of a right-wing ideology. The traditional roles of the ministry, namely building bridges of common interests with the international community or engaging in a viable Middle East peace process, have evaporated with Israel's most right-wing government. This is clearly evident with the nominations Netanyahu has made in the foreign policy field.
He did not appoint a foreign minister, even though he could have appointed a relatively pragmatic Likud minister such as Gilad Erdan or Tzachi Hanegbi. Instead, he appointed Tzipi Hotovely as deputy foreign minister; Netanyahu named himself foreign minister. The new deputy foreign minister is, by proud self-admission, in favor of the annexation of great parts of the West Bank. On her first day on the job, she announced to the entire Foreign Ministry staff that Israel has the right to all the land of Israel "from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River."
