During the election campaign and coalition talks, the national unity government was billed as the "emergency corona government." Two months later a government is in place and the coronavirus crisis is ongoing, but ways of managing it are nowhere to be found.
Way back, in March, Israel was a global leader in terms of curbing the worldwide pandemic. Infographics were plastered everywhere, compliments from world leaders were pouring in, and then we mistakenly thought it was all over.
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Alas, COVID-19 is still very much with us, and with it is a set of challenges that are waiting to be addressed. The only thing that fades quickly is the order that prevailed in the public sphere – the kind of order that emerges mostly during times of national crises to help us deal with them relatively successfully.
This crisis management endeavor stars three: the government, the media and the public. When they speak in the same language, the overall misery imposed on us by the pandemic becomes more tolerable. You may not like it and you shouldn't get used to it, but you also cannot give up on it – certainly not in the middle of the campaign.
Currently, however, each of these three leading entities is on its own planet. This is how we have gone from a situation where the government – for better or worse – was managing the crisis, the media was reporting on it, and the public was disciplined, to a situation where the media is hysterical, the public is indifferent, and the government is treading water.
You have to admit – and some may be embarrassed to do so – but the circus currently dominating the way in which the unity government is handling the corona crisis makes one long for the not-so-distant days of the previous government when the media delivered the daily briefing and the public followed government directives, as we are used to doing.
There are several important rules when it comes to successful crisis management. The most prominent among them include defining clear objectives and the strategy to achieving them, defining target audiences, selecting a regular presenter to mediate the messages, information and responses, and finally, using the available communication platforms properly.
You don't have to be an extraordinary crisis manager to realize that when it comes to managing the pandemic, the so-called "emergency corona government" is failing on all counts.
How can any headway be gained when the new health minister keeps changing direction, the new finance minister is flexing his muscles, the new education minister is being schooled, and the prime minister and pm-designate are busy with petty politics?
Public directives? Guidelines? Plans? Sorry, your own your own. It seems that is the election-stricken Israel, politics demands reality yields before it – not the other way around. Were we fighting a war – would anyone even imagine changing the defense minister and IDF chief mid-battle? Of course not.
Yes, elections took place but that doesn't mean the ministers and bureau chiefs that have already gained some experience in managing the corona crisis had to be replaced immediately. Personal appointments could have waited for the mere reason that the height of a pandemic is no time for the new guy to be learning the ropes.
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The media, by the way, are the last that should be complaining about the situation. They were the ones that were pushing for a unity government, and are now feeding us with nonstop tidbits about political squabbles, all while echoing the panic at the Health Ministry, instead of demanding the leadership provides them with clear messages to relay to the public.
As for the public – it has long lost interest in the endless stream of statistics and data and is now mainly engaged in escapism. Tanning lotion has replaced the hand sanitizer and rather than follow epidemiological queries, the public prefers to keep up with Reality TV.
That's what happens when there are no shepherds. The sheep stray.
