Full disclosure: I have a great deal of sympathy for Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis. Even during the previous government's tenure, whenever I sought a professional opinion untarnished with politics, I listened to what the doctor had to say. She was consistent, serious, professional and humble. She also doesn't hide from or dodge the media, goes on television and faces any criticism head-on and professionally. Dr. Alroy-Preis is the head of Public Health Services in the Health Ministry. She was there at the lowest points of the COVID crisis, she was part of the decision-making process relating to the vaccinations, and she is a critical component among the array of professionals tasked with running a country under a pandemic.
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This week, the amount of bile aimed at her crossed yet another line. "Senior" members of the coronavirus cabinet were quoted on Channel 13 News as saying she was "behaving like a crazy person, always shouting, doesn't let anyone else speak, and doesn't provide answers or data. When you present her with the numbers she stutters…" Those senior ministers were as brave as common schoolyard bullies with those remarks but weren't brave enough not to request anonymity. It took Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz more than 12 hours to respond to the disgraceful attack on one of his ministry's senior officials, and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett issued a statement of support for her the following day. Their responses were appropriate and correct but came too late. For many long hours, she was abandoned on the front lines, fighting alone in the public spotlight.
The current government insists on breaking records for ineptitude, populism and shirking responsibility when it comes to managing the fourth wave of the pandemic. After vocally lambasting the previous government's handling of the pandemic from the opposition, many times justifiably, the members of this government are showing that something bad can get even worse.
Instead of learning from what the previous government did right and wrong, they are repeating the same mistakes. The previous government paid an electoral price for its blunders, despite providing the vaccines that gave us all breathing room. Alroy-Preis is the bulwark against this present wave of populism and, together with the excellent Prof. Ran Balicer, is trying to provide a professional angle. For this, she's being assailed. She's getting hit by the leaders of the Balfour protest movement – Eldad Yaniv and Orly Barlev – who have questioned her integrity and accused her of having conflicting interests; and she is being hit from home, by those who are supposed to be running a country here yet are slandering her in the press instead.
Those same individuals, who for years preached that we mustn't attack the gatekeepers, are doing precisely that – only far worse. Those who complained, day and night, that Netanyahu was destroying the healthcare system and neutering the clerks and professionals, are now behaving as if none of that ever happened. It's okay to disagree with Alroy-Preis' professional opinions, and it's certainly okay to choose different policies than those she recommends. Not this way, though. The learned members of the coronavirus cabinet cannot leave their chief of staff in the war against the pandemic alone and exposed on the front lines, especially not against friendly fire.
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