Health minister’s intervention highlights Israel’s protekzia problem, healthcare gaps - editorial

SEPTEMBER 18, 2026 05:57A haredi (ultra-Orthodox) journalist set out this week to defend Health Minister Haim Katz (Likud) from what she described as Israeli media’s “derisive” treatment of him. In doing so, she inadvertently illustrated a much deeper problem with the way Israeli society works.Katz has been overseeing several ministries, including the Health Ministry, since Shas resigned from the government in July 2025. The journalist wanted to show that despite claims Katz is stretched too thin to make a real impact in any one ministry, he is capable of getting things done.Writing on social media, she shared the story of her uncle, who is suffering from a serious illness and urgently needed radiation therapy to relieve a blockage that was causing him excruciating pain.He did not want to be hospitalized, and his family was told the next available appointment would only be in three weeks.So, shortly before Rosh Hashanah, she contacted the health minister directly. “To his credit,” she wrote, Katz sprang into action. The next morning, her cousin told her Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer had called: An appointment had been found, and her uncle was already receiving treatment.Israel's Health Ministry. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)Of course, every life saved or suffering alleviated by the health system is something to be grateful for. And if Katz intervened to help a seriously ill patient receive urgently needed treatment, that is something to acknowledge.But there is something deeply troubling about the story being presented as a testament to the minister’s performance – and, perhaps more troubling still, about how naturally the writer appears to regard the underlying circumstances.When healthcare access depends on who you knowThe most striking thing about this story is what it says about access to Israel’s healthcare system: A sick man – or his relatives – needed a personal connection to a health minister to get help navigating it.Not every sick Israeli has a relative who can call a government official. Not every injured person has a friend in a powerful office, a journalist with access to senior officials, or someone who can pick up the phone and make an appointment happen.Most Israelis enter the healthcare system through the same channels as everyone else. They call, they wait, they appeal, they are transferred from one department to another, and they are told that the appointment they desperately need is unavailable.And when the system is stretched, those without connections have little recourse. But what happens to the person who is suffering just as much but does not have anyone to call?The journalist’s post was intended as praise. Instead, it reads like a description of Israel’s protekzia (connections) problem.Israeli culture of protekziaIsrael has a long and complicated relationship with the idea of protekzia – the ability to get something done because you know the right person. It can be treated as a cultural quirk or a useful shortcut through inefficient bureaucracy.But protekzia is something else entirely when the thing at stake is medical treatment. And it is particularly jarring when the very act of using personal connections to gain access is presented as proof that the system is working.The post was shared with the best of intentions, as a genuine attempt to thank a minister who helped her family at a moment of terrible distress. But its obliviousness to what it reveals is precisely what makes it so telling.The question raised by this story is not whether Katz helped a sick Israeli. He did. The question is what happens to the sick Israeli who does not have access to the health minister.For every appointment that is moved forward after a call to a minister, there is another patient whose appointment is pushed back. Others must simply wait – sometimes for weeks and in considerable pain.Measuring healthcare by how it treats ordinary patientsThis is not a personal or professional indictment of Katz, but rather an indictment of a failing public system. The real measure of a functioning health system is how well it treats the person who has nobody powerful to call – not how quickly it responds when someone powerful intervenes.And for the Israeli who has no connections, no powerful friends, and no minister to call, there is only the wait in line.Follow us on Google