Yuval Steinitz

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Yuval Steinitz Biography

Yuval Steinitz (Hebrew: יובל שטייניץ ‎; born 10 April 1958) is Israel’s Minister of Energy, in charge of Israel Atomic Energy Commission and a member of the Security Cabinet. He is a member of the Knesset from the Likud party. He served as Minister of Finance (2009-2013) and as Minister of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs (2013-2015). Steinitz holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and was a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa.

Born and raised in Moshav Ramot HaShavim, 30 km north of Tel Aviv, he is the eldest of four children. His father, Dan, is an engineer and his late mother, Mina, was a teacher of literature and philosophy. Steinitz served in the IDF as a soldier in Golani infantry Brigade (1977–1980). He sustained a leg injury during a battle with the Syrian army when he served as a reservist, during the 1982 Lebanon War.

Steinitz’s political involvement began in the early 1980s when he joined the ‘Peace Now’ movement as a young student. He was injured in his leg (the same leg again) during an anti-government rally in Jerusalem in 1983, when a right-wing extremist hurled a hand-grenade into the crowd, killing peace activist Emil Grunzweig. His reservations about Oslo Accords signed with the Palestinians, together with his concerns regarding the massive Egyptian military buildup despite the peace treaty with Israel, led him to shift to the right in 1995 and to publicly support the Likud Party.

Steinitz has published several philosophy books. The first, Invitation to Philosophy (1987), became a number one best-selling philosophy book in Israeli history, and was printed in 60 editions. Another book, A Logical-Scientific Missile to God and Back became a best seller as well and was printed in 17 editions. He also published philosophical papers in academic journals including The Philosophical Quarterly, American Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Cambridge Religious Studies, and The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly Iyyun.

After three years of compulsory military service, he was awarded BA and MA in Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with honors. His doctoral thesis From a Rational Point of View was completed at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. The thesis examined the possibility of logical arguments for the existence of God, and the rule of logical reasoning in modern science. In 1993 Steinitz was awarded the Alon Scholarship, the most prestigious award for outstanding young doctors in Israel, which led to a teaching position at the University of Haifa. Steinitz was chosen two years in a row as “The outstanding Lecturer” in philosophy and the philosophy of science. In 1996 he was appointed Senior Lecturer (the Israeli parallel of a tenured assistant professor).

In 1999-2004 he served as president of Israel’s Media Watch.

In 1999 he was elected to the 15th Knesset on the Likud list. A year later he became a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the chairman of its “Subcommittee on Defense Planning and Policy” and a member of the Constitution and Law Committee.

A few months later he established the “Investigation Committee for the Israeli Intelligence following the Iraq War” and appointed himself as its chairman. This was followed later on by the establishment of similar committees in the United States and the United Kingdom. The committee report in 2004 sharply criticized the Israeli Intelligence Community for misleading alerting reports, following its failure to detect the non-existence of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles in Iraq before the war. Additionally, the report also criticized the failure of the Israeli intelligence to detect the Libyan nuclear program on time. The committee’s public report included a number of specific recommendations:

Unlike Netanyahu, Steinitz did support Sharon’s 2005 plan to withdraw from Gaza. Yet, at the same time, he led a parliamentary battle against delivering the Philadelphi Corridor to Egypt, claiming that the Egyptians deliberately ignore Palestinian arms smuggling through the Sinai Peninsula. He also argued that the Israel-Egypt Philadelphi agreement might erode the demilitarization of Sinai.

Steinitz was reelected to the 17th Knesset in 2006 when the Likud has lost his leading position to Kadima. As an opposition MK became again a member on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and as the chairman of the “Subcommittee on Defense Readiness”. Steinitz was Netanyahu’s candidate for chairman of the “World Likud” in June 2006, but he lost to MK Danny Danon.

In 2008, when Israel refused permission for Palestinian Fulbright students to leave Gaza and study in the United States, Steinitz supported this action. He told the New York Times: “We are fighting the regime in Gaza that does its utmost to kill our citizens and destroy our schools and our colleges. So I don’t think we should allow students from Gaza to go anywhere. Gaza is under siege, and rightly so, and it is up to the Gazans to change the regime or its behavior.” He disagreed with former Governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, on various issues, and has a complicated relationship with Netanyahu, who bypassed him several times in his first year in office.

In 2009 Steinitz started an intensive diplomatic campaign to promote Israel’s acceptance to the OECD. In May 2010, after more than thirty years of failing attempts and despite strong opposition from the Arab World, Israel has finally become a full member of the OECD.

In April 2009 Steinitz appointed Prof. Omer Moav as head of his advisory committee. When Moav resigned a year later, Steinitz appointed Prof. Avi Simchon to the post. In November 2009 Steinitz appointed Haim Shani as director general, but he resigned a year and a half later following the 2011 social protests.

At the beginning of his term, Steinitz raised the VAT from 15.5% to 16.5% effectively from July 2009, but it was reduced to 16% in January 2010. In 2010 the Israeli economy has already shown the fastest growing figures in the western world, with 5% growth and sharp reduction of unemployment.

After few weeks at office, Steinitz has launched an emergency plan entitled “Blima & Tnufa” (Break and Accelerate) aimed at returning the country to positive economic growth, through dramatically encouraging investments in the high-tech industry, in R&D, and in construction and transportation. As part of the program, a “triple package deal” between the government, the Histadrut Unions Association and the Israel Manufacturers Association was signed. The employees agreed to contribute 3.5 Billion NIS to help accelerating growth. In April 2009, Steinitz announced his unprecedented plan to enact the first biennial budget in Israel’s history, as part of his counter-crisis policy. In July 2009, the government approved the biennial budget (since then all budgets in Israel were biennial).

With the establishment of the 32nd by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Steinitz was appointed Minister of Finance. He took up this position in March 2009, during the beginning of the global economic crisis, and after the Israeli economy already suffered from two quarters of negative economic growth which led to almost 10% unemployment.

He was the first Finance Minister of Israel to submit to the Knesset a two-year budget, instead of the until-then customary one-year budget. This move generated some controversy, with some accusing it of decreasing government transparency and others praising it for its greater efficiency. Since then, Israel continued with the biennial budget and became the first country in the west to institute such a policy change. In 2009, most experts in the Bank of Israel and the Ministry of Finance opposed Steinitz’s move, but today the biennial budget had a wide approval among the officials in the Bank of Israel and the Ministry of Finance.

After being reelected to the 18th Knesset, and following the Likud 2009 victory, Steinitz was appointed Minister of Finance and a member of the inner Security Cabinet by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

During his tenure, Steinitz made efforts to develop business connections with China and India. In 2010–2011, Israeli exports to these countries increased by 35%. During his three official visits in China and India, Steinitz led negotiations for the signing a series of bilateral agreements designed to increase the volume of trade with these countries. Among other things, the agreement included specific steps to encourage young doctors from China and India to make their Postdoctoral Researches in Israel.

In 2010 Steinitz established the Sheshinski Committee to examine ways to increase the level of taxation on Natural Gas and Oil fields. Steinitz announced that he intended to raise the level of the over-whole “government-take” on gas and oil from 20% to around 50–60%. This led to a very aggressive campaign against him by the energy lobby, including pressures from the United States White House on behalf of the American Noble Energy. In 2011 Steinitz legislate the committee recommendations in the Knesset, raising the “government-take” on big gas fields to more than 60%. In addition, Steinitz has doubled the royalties paid by “Israel Chemicals” from using the Dead Sea natural resources and cancel its historic tax exemptions.

In September 2011, S&P raised Israel credit rating to A+. This decision took place in light of the fact that Israel managed to continue to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio, and despite the global economic crisis.

In the summer of 2011, and alongside with the doctors strike, a series of social protests against the cost of living in Israel took place. Demonstrations took place for a prolonged period of time, focusing on the high housing prices and the cost of daycare. The protesters were accompanied by doctors, teachers, students, and dairy farmers, who called for a change in the government social outlook. At the beginning Steinitz rejected the protesters’ claims. But with the continuation of the protests, Steinitz began to show a more flexible attitude. One step was lowering taxes in order to reduce petrol price hike. Following the appointment of the “Trajtenberg Committee”, Steinitz dealt with implementation of the committee’s recommendations.

In 2011, a doctors’ strike broke out and paralyzed all Hospitals and Clinics around the country, in what became the longest strike in Israel history. The strike ended after five months with a compromise between the Ministry of Finance and the Doctors union, which included the improvement of the doctors employment conditions, especially in peripheral hospitals, as well as Steinitz’s demand that hospital doctors will be subjected to time clocks. Nevertheless, hundreds of interns and 200 senior doctors continued the strike and the protest against the deal, until eventually the protest petered out.

Two other important committees were the “Concentration Committee” (established at winter 2011 together with PM Netanyahu), which led to unprecedented steps to reduce economic concentration in Israel, like enforcing separation between significant Financial and Real holdings; And the “Investment Taxation Committee” (established in 2010 together with Minister Ben-Eliezer), which led to significant increase in Israel’s investments incentives.

In 2012 the state annual deficit reached 39 Billion NIS, almost twice as much as was predicted, but the Debt-to-GDP ratio continued to decline. The average economic growth during Steinitz’s tenure as Finance Minister (2010-2012) was 4.5%, the highest economic growth in the entire developed world.

In July 2012, Steinitz led the signing of an economic agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. As part of the deal, it was decided to increase joint enforcement against smuggling of goods, and Israeli assistance to the Palestinian tax collection capabilities.

In July 2012, Steinitz led the signing of an economic agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. As part of the deal, it was decided to increase joint enforcement against smuggling of goods, and Israeli assistance to the Palestinian tax collection capabilities.

After the 2013 elections Steinitz was appointed Minister for Intelligence, Strategic Affairs and International Relations, and became responsible to several topics:

In December 2015, after the assassination of Samir Kuntar, he claimed in the newspaper Haaretz that the Finnish Intelligence services was perhaps behind this affair. After contact from the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, Haaretz claimed that it was a joke, putting to serious threat Israel’s foreign policy.

In his capacity, Steinitz initiated a plan to eliminating the use of coal and polluting fuels in the State of Israel, and replacing them with natural gas and renewable energies. Within three years, the percentage of coal and mazut dropped from 65% of electricity production in 2015 to 25% in 2018. According to the plan, in 2027 Israel will no longer continue to use coal. Steinitz has also promoted a plan to shift all transportation in Israel from traditional fuels to electricity and natural gas, by the year 2030.

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