Government Intelligence

Author: جهاد حرب

The Palestinian government announced several decisions last Thursday through a directive from the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, containing various measures across multiple fields to alleviate the crisis of employees who have been receiving only partial salaries for almost four years, in light of the absence of a solution to the problem of the missing clearance funds due to the deductions, confiscation, and theft by the Israeli government of Palestinian funds.

These measures have come too late compared to the timeline of the crisis, and the actual needs of the employees, not to mention the exhausting commitments and needs of citizens’ lives under the conditions facing this country due to the occupation first, the high cost of living linked to the Israeli economy second, and also the influence of global price fluctuations third. All of these require due attention from the Palestinian government to manage the economic crises and to prevent their social impacts.

Due attention and crisis management, or ‘government intelligence’, are at the core of government work; the existing bureaucratic structure's role is not only to provide services—even though this is essential—but also to understand the challenges facing society and to proactively develop solutions to address the crisis and its impacts, which are more dangerous than the crisis itself.

In my opinion, government intelligence; that is, managing the crisis fairly cannot be beneficial without the early involvement of various parties in society and different sectors in decision-making to address the crisis, as well as being transparent with the public about the information and its interpretation; as one of the foundations of transparency that requires publishing clear, sufficient information in a timely manner, preventing disputes in the media, or denying citizens and unions the right to criticize, while considering the sensitivity of the announced situation in light of accompanying political and social crises alongside a suffocating economic crisis, and the daily behavior of the government "the administrative and political apparatus of the state" reflects the reality of an existing crisis and a fair distribution of burdens among the various groups and sectors.

At the same time, the responsibility to maintain public services, their quality, and their continued provision to citizens is a collective responsibility without exception, and the fair distribution of burdens necessitates the participation of different sectors, including service distributors and primarily the banking sector, to mitigate the impacts of this crisis; with the aim of enhancing the national and social resilience of the citizens.