It's hard for me to accept the sweeping demand to make classified government debates public. I agree that the secrecy that enveloped the discussions of the government's highest institutions was overblown, and that there are plenty of advantages in presenting the deliberations of decision-makers and legislators to the public as they are taking place, and not only after historians leaf through old protocols. But the transition from smoke-filled rooms to sunlight must, in my opinion, be made cautiously.
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Four decades ago, when I was cabinet secretary, I was surprised to find that all government discussions were classified "top secret." The automatic secrecy led to leaks and violations, and attempts to decrease the classification were not successful.
But the ministers' sense that in cabinet meetings – especially those of the defense cabinet – they have more freedom to express their true opinions, created serious debates. In governments in which the concept of collective responsibility has meaning, and whose ministers do not speak out against cabinet decisions or the prime minister's stance, the level of the debate is more important because it takes place behind closed doors.
There is no doubt that the nature of debate in the Knesset committees has changed for the worse ever since they were opened to media coverage. I'm not rejecting the possibility that making them public might come with certain advantages (such as public involvement and solutions being proposed by the public after they are exposed to different positions), but there is also a hefty price to be paid: the discussion is cheapened, its honest is jeopardized, and sometimes the participants' behave in a way that puts more emphasis on the cameras than on the matter at hand.
The solution is to not to make all discussions fully public, but to open them to a certain extent. The Supreme Court found the right balance when it made some of its sessions public. Some protocols form ministerial discussions can also be made public, based on a decision by the prime minister.
An opportunity for a necessary change
When the state of Israel was founded, there was no longer any justification for the existence of the Jewish Agency, which until then had played a role of unparalleled importance. But like many other organizations, it stayed around, because it was already there.
There is a country and there is a government, and the government includes the Aliyah and Integration Ministry as well as the Diaspora Affairs Ministry. Whereas the Jewish Agency, by its very existence, prevents an alternative that makes sense: a global Jewish body that represents the many differences of the people and comprises a meeting place for people of different opinions, to whom Jewish continuity is important and who have different ideas about how to ensure it.
The Jewish Agency should reinvent itself, and the person who has a real chance of making that happen is for the woman who served as aliyah and integration, foreign, and justice minister: Tzipi Livni, who has proved her leadership in public roles. It was recently reported that she had been offered the job of head of the important government company NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System. Transporting the masses in the greater Tel Aviv area is an exciting and complication challenge, and I'm convinced she'll rise to it, but changing the face of the Jewish Agency is even more important.
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