I know everyone likes to complain about Israeli bureaucracy, and it can really be bad sometimes, but all governments have it. And sometimes the Israelis even get it more right than others and, yes I am going to say something shocking, the Americans can even learn from the Israelis.
One of my kids recently had to renew a passport - both the American passport at the US Embassy (or consulate - it was in Tel Aviv but I dont think they downgraded the status to consulate) and the Israeli passport at the Misrad Hapnim.
I wont even take into account how messed up everything is because of Covid, with the US Embassy in Israel (and all over the world) only offering a minimal number of appointments and having a tremendous backlog of expired passports and births abroad to register.
In today's digital age, at least most of these processes should be possible to be done online. The Ministry of the Interior in Israel does this. And they encourage people to use the online service by offering a discounted rate. You fill out the basic form online, you pay online (if you want to - if you do not, you can choose to pay in the office), you schedule a date from the available appointments, and that's it. We went to the office on the date of the appointment, got a number based on our appointment, waited two minutes, sat with the clerk who asked a couple of questions and took a digital fingerprint impression or two, take a digital picture and we were on our way. We were not even in the Misrad Hapnim for ten minutes and everything was completed.
The American Embassy was not bad. While it was difficult and took time to get an appointment, I wont complain about that. They are a bit paranoid and have limited availability because of that but so be it. We had to download and fill out forms to bring in to the embassy. We had to print out the appointment information to bring in. We had to go somewhere to take pictures according to the specs of the State Department. We had to go in and wait to be called. You show the clerk the forms, the clerk sends you to another window to pay, then you wait to be called again and sign and stamp and then you are on your way. The US Embassy took significantly longer than the Israeli Misrad Hapnim.
Neither was bad, not even the US Embassy, but the Israeli Misrad Hapnim process was significantly simpler and quicker. Yes, on somethings the Americans can learn from the Israelis.
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