Israel’s Council for Higher Education has appointed Professor Miriam Markovitz Bitton and Limor Samimian-Darsh to the Planning and Budgeting Committee, acting on Education Minister Yoav Kish’s proposal. The committee controls funding for higher education institutions and is widely seen as the most powerful body in the council, while its chair is considered the top executive post in academia.
Kish spent nearly three years building a majority in the council that let him appoint his ally, Professor Dudi Schwartz of Ono Academic College, as deputy chair of the council, effectively its acting chair. He is now pushing decisions with relative ease, including approval of a Hungarian university branch in Eilat for pre-med studies.
Three of the committee’s seven members are now finishing three-year terms, and two replacements are under discussion. The open seats are those of Professor Shiri Navon-Vanatia of Ariel University, who is ending a second three-year term, and Professor Bracha Shapira of Ben-Gurion University, who is ending her first term. In practice, the education minister is expected to consult the Committee of University Heads and choose from its recommended candidates.
Markovitz Bitton opposed shutting down universities during the judicial overhaul protests, a stance Kish values highly. He previously threatened legislation imposing heavy fines on universities that strike over public issues. Markovitz Bitton, a Bar-Ilan University law professor, was also once proposed by Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg as a compromise candidate for the Supreme Court, and she serves on the Council for Higher Education and the committee to expand the health basket.
Samimian-Darsh, a sociology and anthropology professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s School of Public Policy and Government, was recommended by the Committee of University Heads. She has written that the trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is so absurd that “Kafka could not have written such a ridiculous play,” and urged people to stop what she called the injustice and appeal to judges, the president, and others to end the trial. She has also said that “only he has fought all these years against the Iranian nuclear program,” and recently wrote that the Likud camp, led by Netanyahu, is the force truly protecting Israel’s sovereignty.
