Editor's Notes: Israel should listen to Musk and create a DOGE of its own

It would appear as though no day goes by without another scandal or story hitting the headlines involving Elon Musk – the candid, colorful billionaire who has become the right-hand man to US President Donald Trump since the campaign trail. He disrupted the car industry, space travel, and even the way that people pay their bills online. 

But imagine here that his next challenge is Israeli bureaucracy. I could envision Musk entering the Interior Ministry to get efficient service and digital handling. Instead, he finds long lines, reams of paper, and clerks who insist that his appointment never existed. 

He would probably write something nasty about it on X/Twitter and, true to Musk fashion, propose a radical overhaul. 

Well, that is just what Israel needs: DOGE, a Department of Government Efficiency. 

Not the Shiba Inu Dogecoin cryptocurrency, but an actual project along the lines of the new US Department of Government Efficiency that Israel really needs: A body dedicated to finding, streamlining, and cutting fat in government – because if there is one thing Israel knows how to produce en masse, it is bureaucratic red tape.

What always surprises me is how we live in a country where start-ups build up and sell out quicker than one can say “exit strategy,” and the government is this anachronistic beast, still slow, inefficient, and resistant to modernization. 

Of course, the IDF runs like a well-oiled machine when it needs to. The tech sector runs on agility and innovation. What about the government? 

Israeli bureaucracy has become a Kafkaesque maze

Basic services are the prey of some Kafkaesque maze, bound in a stranglehold by old systems and unnecessary middlemen. According to a recent report by the Israel Democracy Institute, about 70% of public opinion in Israel is of the view that excessive bureaucracy is blocking economic growth. 

In contrast, a parallel report from the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research evidences how an excess of regulations deters effective competition and retards urgent structural reforms.

A similar gloomy picture comes out of a report titled “Government at a Glance” by the OECD, in which Israel places among the lowest in digital public services in developed countries. 

At the same time, administrative bottlenecks cost the economy billions annually.

“A typical business in Israel spends 235 hours per year dealing with regulatory compliance, compared with just 81 hours in Denmark,” the report reads. A Shoresh study found that the sheer complexity of Israeli bureaucracy forces businesses to employ “compliance consultants” just to navigate government paperwork, an absurdity that hampers small business growth.

We have all heard the horror stories – entrepreneurs waiting years for business licenses, hospitals drowning in paperwork, and digital systems that would seem to have been coded from the Windows 95 era. 

According to a report by the IDI in 2023, “Government inefficiency and over-regulation are costing Israel nearly 10% of its GDP annually in lost productivity and wasted resources.” And let us not even get into the situation at the Interior Ministry, where renewing a passport can seem like an odyssey of almost a year – almost a year, maybe a bit less, but longer than many countries.

A DOGE for Israel wouldn’t just be a handy acronym; it would be a real game-changer. In contrast with the US, where the government can mask inefficiency behind a veneer of spin and PR, Israel’s small size and start-up mentality mean the problems are more overt. 

This implies a department for the efficiency of government here would have to be ruthlessly results-driven. A 2022 Finance Ministry proposal, establishing a “Government Innovation Authority,” modeled on the success of the Israel Innovation Authority came to nothing – bottom line – an absence not of ideas, but rather of implementation.

The leading mantra behind any envisioned Israeli DOGE is essentially its mission and a way for transforming the very culture of doing work within the different government offices themselves. 

Instead of automatically renewing the budgets for each ministry, DOGE would make departments justify their existence and prove their effectiveness. 

Many government offices in Israel are still a mess from the 1990s, even in bureaucratic ways. The shift pushed by DOGE would translate into modern services: fully digital, AI-assisted, and user-friendly, similar to the Estonian e-government model. 

What would a DOGE in Israel do? 

A dedicated team would hunt and kill unnecessary steps in every government process – driver’s licenses, registering a business, or even birth certificates.

Every ministry would have to meet an efficiency target or face the consequences. A monthly “Bureaucratic Shame List” can hang the worst offenders out to dry. Public pressure works.

FOR THAT, we need visionary, no-nonsense business leaders who understand the meaning of efficiency and disruption. 

In the US, Musk is often discussed as a model for shaking up outdated systems. Who could play that role in Israel? Several names come to mind.

Rami Levy is the supermarket king who shook up the country’s groceries by slicing consumer costs and smoothing out supply chains; his logistics and cost-cutting acumen could be utilized to make government procurement and public spending far more efficient.

Dovi Frances is a financial entrepreneur and investor who has made his name and money by increasing efficiency and disrupting markets; he would bring performance budgeting and private sector-style accountability into public administration.

American-Jewish billionaires Michael Dell and Larry Ellison, who respectively made their fortunes in enterprise software and cloud computing, would modernize Israel’s governmental IT infrastructure so it worked seamlessly.

Roman Abramovich has made strategic investments and is recognized for his financial acumen-he could help advise how to make such a model self-sustaining, by reinvesting savings into public services. 

Mark Rowen, Bill Ackman, and Howard Schultz are some of the influential business strategists who could introduce efficiency audits and lean management systems, thus introducing a results-oriented culture into governance. 

Sylvan Adams is a well-known philanthropist and entrepreneur deeply involved in pro-Israel advocacy, and huge sports events, who could restructure our outdated Foreign Ministry and become some sort of “Super Diplomat” advising Israel on creative and competent management of our foreign relations. 

Given her experience in scaling operations at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg could bring valuable insights into the efficient management of large-scale government projects. 

Marius Nacht, cybersecurity and fintech expert, may help with strengthening digital government security while making sure digital reforms are safe and resilient. 

Canadian wonder-men Ronnen Harary and Anton Rabie, co-founders of Spin Master, may help leverage knowledge on innovation and consumer engagement for a user-friendly government. 

Morris Kahn, a pioneer of Israeli hi-tech, could play a role in fostering public-private partnerships to implement digital reforms at a faster pace.

Diaspora Jews have long played an important role in the development of the Jewish state. 

An efficiency-oriented initiative like DOGE would be a new and significant way for Diaspora leaders to be involved in rebuilding the Jewish state, bringing their knowledge and business acumen to bear on strengthening governance and improving the daily lives of Israeli citizens.

Walk into any hospital in Israel, and there are thousands of plaques on the walls, buildings, and benches. 

Why not? Why not permit the most exceptional Jewish brains to advise the government or the prime minister? 

Why not create an advisory body where these successful Jews advise our leaders in a kind of community service to help Israel get modernized and, at the same time, grow closer to Jewish communities worldwide to whom the country is so dear?

What would be the first step? 

The first step would be the creation of a Government Efficiency Task Force. A committee comprising business leaders, economists, and tech experts might perform a six-month audit of the most inefficient government departments. 

A fully digital system should be tested in one high-friction ministry – for instance, the Health or Interior ministries – and AI-powered customer service should be introduced to cut down response times. 

The Knesset should pass a law enacting a “one-click” rule: any government process that requires more than three steps must be reviewed and simplified. A public platform needs to be created whereby the citizens can report government inefficiencies, delays, and bureaucratic nightmares. 

Incentives need to be created for government workers who would come up with ways of efficiency improvement and propose their implementation.

Israel is the country that goes into space, has the best cybersecurity in the world, is a leader in medical innovation – and can’t issue a passport in less than six months. 

What’s wrong isn’t the brains, the technology, or the drive. It’s a system of government that is stuck to the past, refusing to make a change. 

Creating an Israeli Department of Government Efficiency with its make-up comprising Israeli and Diaspora leaders is not a dream or a joke. 

The government needs to be managed with the insight of a start-up: agile, digital transformation, citizen-first services. 

We are the State of the Start-Up Nation and need to act like it.

Will that be easy? No. But if there’s any country in the world that can make chaos work efficiently, it is Israel. 

All the Start-Up Nation needs to do is to apply its magic to its government.