This week heralds a high-water mark for corruption-busters in Israel: state prosecutors have indicted the most recent prime minister, Ehud Olmert, just five months after he left office, on counts of fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate records, and tax evasion. Three of his predecessors were investigated for various offenses, but Olmert is the first prime minister accused in a criminal case. Unfortunately, he has ample company in the political firmament. Former president Moshe Katsav is standing trial for raping and sexually assaulting former female assistants. Another former president, Ezer Weizman, escaped prosecution on bribery and nondisclosure charges (though he was forced to resign in shame) only because the statute of limitations had elapsed. Former finance minister Avraham Hirchson, and former labor and welfare minister Shlomo Benizri reported yesterday to state prisons, beginning their jail sentences for corruption. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who has brought Olmert and Katsav to trial, will soon decide whether to indict the sitting foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for fraud, taking bribes, and money laundering. Why are Israeli politicians so corrupt?
The defendants may vary from the greedy to the lecherous, but they share a common thread: senior politicians behaved as if they were untouchable, as if the perks of their public office include illegal payments or sexual exploitation of underlings. Tellingly, none were accused of one-time blunders or of misinterpreting the rules; they were all accused of committing serial crimes.
Take the case of Olmert. According to the indictment, his office"”when he was mayor of Jerusalem and then deputy prime minister"”ran a sophisticated system to overbill for speaking engagements at galas for charities and NGOs, such as Yad Vashem (the national Holocaust memorial) and Friends of the IDF (Israel's Army). Through a travel agency, which served as the unindicted co-conspirator, fake itineraries were presented to the NGOs and to the state, resulting in overlapping payments for Olmert's first-class flights and luxury hotels. The extra payments of $92,000 over three years were collected by the travel agency, and then used as a slush fund to pay for overseas trips by Olmert's family members. The account was still in use when Olmert served as prime minister and led Israel during the 2006 war in Lebanon.
The secret travel fund was discovered by a fluke, when the police searched Olmert's office records in a different investigation. It also led to the exposure of Morris Talansky, an American businessman and fundraiser who had, for years, given Olmert cash-filled envelopes for campaign and personal use, and whose pretrial testimony led to the prime minister's resignation last year. The subsequent indictment offers a rare peek into the backyard of high political office in Israel: Olmert (guilty or not) comes off as an insatiable hedonist, constantly upgrading his flights and hotel suites, rubbing shoulders with rich American Jews, traveling to their parties, asking them for favors. "In his actions, the defendant has libeled the country "� and hurt the reputation of the Israeli civil service and the State of Israel," says the indictment.
Hirchson and Benizri, the jailed former ministers, were even less sophisticated. Hirchson"”who initiatied the yearly "march of the living" to Auschwitz"”was convicted for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a trade union he was chairing before joining the cabinet. Some of the stolen money was used to buy Victoria's Secret lingerie for Hirchson's girlfriend. Benizri was bribed by a government contractor in return for assistance in foreign workers' recruitment. President Katsav was surrounded by several women who testified on rape and sexual assault, but due to the statute of limitations, only one rape charge went to trial. Two years ago, Katsav agreed to a plea bargain on minor offenses but rescinded the deal. He argues that it is only a sham"”that he was libeled by angry former assistants and overzealous prosecutors. A couple of years ago, Israel's then justice minister, Haim Ramon, was convicted for forcibly French-kissing a female military officer; he served several months' time of labor on a horse ranch.
Part of the mindset that allows the powerful to believe they can get away it is a legacy from the early days of the Israeli state. After independence, the ruling elite closed ranks and avoided public exposure of corruption at the top. Building the Jewish state was paramount, and the system turned a blind's eye to personal weaknesses, as long as they served the higher political goals. When the Jewish Agency comptroller reported on corruption, Levi Eshkol, then finance minister, argued that you shouldn't "hold an ox in threshing""”meaning that nation-building was more important than justice. But the Yom Kippur War of 1973, in which Egypt and Syria attacked Israel by surprise and the country lost thousands of youngsters, was a political watershed. Public anger forced out the veteran leadership and held it responsible for the military failure.
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Too bad there is no one willing to prosecute Israel for terrorism, genocide, and false statehood. They have been a terrorist state as long as they have existed, breaking the laws of the Geneva Convention every single day oppressing and murdering the Palestinians from whom they stole their land, their homes, their hope and most of all, their very lives. Terrible.
Heh.The author should take a hard look at our own ''political class''.Item:Despite having been busted by the feds for income tax evasion, House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel[D-NY] will continue to keep his post, and Pelosi has directed that there be no ethics committee investigations. Heres the kicker.Ways and Means writes tax codes. And a new one penned by Rangel, is that the IRS can punish common-clay Americans for making even ''good faith mistakes'' that allowed Rangel to get off the hook.And to the tune of over 700 grand. Todays New York Post now calls for his resignation.
It is one of the basic human desires of greed and there is opportunity. This is further compounded by power and aggravated by not really believing in religion. There are stark differences between Zionism and Judaism and between a secular an an orthodox Jew. There is not much difference in other countries also.
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