Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2003, page 23

Special Report

 

Election Scandals in Israel Rock “Only Democracy in the Middle East”

 

By Delinda C. Hanley

It seemed like a scene straight out of the television series “The Sopranos”: A group of political insiders gathers at a swank restaurant, owned by a suspected mob family, and is allegedly plied with food, drinks and cash-filled envelopes while considering nominees for plum political posts. After enough drinks and cash are passed around, the restaurant owner’s 27-year-old daughter, a law student and part-time waitress, ends up poised to represent her party—and it’s feared, her family—in the state legislature.

Forward’s Dec. 20 description of the events that led to Inbal Gavrieli’s 29th placement in Likud’s tainted Dec. 8 primaries—or, as analysts have taken to calling them, “Crimaries.”

A series of scandals that rocked the Likud Party eroded Ariel Sharon’s seemingly unsurmountable lead in the country’s Jan. 28 elections. Sharon’s main opponent, Labor leader Amram Mitzna, described Sharon as a “godfather” running the “family” business. “There is no doubt that organized crime is apparently infiltrating a party, a ruling party,” Mitzna said, according to the Forward article cited above.

The Gavrieli family—a frequent target of police investigations—has exerted back-room influence on the Likud Party for years. Their posh restaurant is a favorite meeting place for Likud bosses like Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, his deputy Gideon Ezra, and ministers Danny Naveh and Roni Milo. Israeli voters have to wonder what the Gavrielis did to secure Inbal, an inexperienced waitress, whose two brothers have served prison time for criminal offenses, the 29th placement on Likud’s list—above Jerusalem’s popular mayor, who only placed 33rd.

Israelis, of course, already know that corruption is rampant in their country, which is home to a powerful criminal underworld. Drug money finances the smuggling of guns and people. Israel’s shady diamond industry may even exchange so-called “conflict” diamonds for weapons in the Congo and other African countries. Illegal foreign workers are imported and kept in terrible conditions, and prostitution is a big racket. Over the years, Russian, as well as South and North American Mafia have flourished in Israel. Crooked millionaires, like American fugitive and financier Marc Rich, have gained respectability by making contributions to Israeli universities and institutes.

Israeli banks are a favorite place for international money laundering. British media tycoon Robert Maxwell poured his ill-gotten gains into Israel, before his mysterious death on his yacht in 1992—after his money-laundering and outright thefts became public knowledge.

It should come as no surprise, then, that corruption also is rife in Israel’s government. Scandal has always dogged politicians in “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Perhaps because they now take it for granted, allegations of corruption never have much of a long-term impact on Israeli voters.

Sharon’s predecessors also were embroiled in funding irregularities or corruption scandals. Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, always were up to their necks in charges and investigations, only to emerge unscathed, ready to run again. Ehud Barak remains enmeshed in a scandal involving shell companies that poured foreign funds into his election campaign. In 1977, allegations of corruption were instrumental in the late Yitzhak Rabin’s fall from power.

Analysts lose count of the scandals Prime Minister Sharon has faced over the years. His most recent troubles began in mid-December, when several Likud candidates defeated in the Dec. 8 primaries went public with stories of having been approached by “vote contractors” offering to deliver votes in return for cash. Members of the Likud Central Committee, the 2,940-member body that chooses who has what position on Likud’s candidate list, were accused of selling their votes to potential candidates for as little as $200 and as much as $70,000 to ensure a “safe Knesset seat.”

In addition, would-be candidates reportedly wined and dined committee members, offering them free rooms in luxury hotels and trips to a Dead Sea resort. The Israeli daily Ma’ariv described a hotel lobby filled with candidates waiting to meet with “vote contractors” to purchase their votes, and who were also availing themselves of expensive call girls. One candidate even hinted that his secretary would provide sexual favors in return for a vote, according to a Dec. 19 Washington Jewish Week report.

The Jan. 9 Washington Post explained how easy it is to buy a seat in Israel’s parliament, or Knesset: “Under Israel’s parliamentary system, voters cast ballots for a party, and then seats in parliament are awarded to parties based on the percentage of the votes they receive. The parties select members for parliament from a prioritized list published in advance of the vote. Thus, there is intense competition among candidates to be placed as high as possible on the list, to increase their chances of getting a seat.” The system creates opportunities for “deal-making” and allows “hand-picked candidates” to win with only a small number of votes.

Noted the Dec. 12 Detroit Jewish News,“ Some of the money for this heavy-handed canvassing was believed to come from underworld figures, some of whom recently joined Likud.”

Criminal families seem to be funding the campaigns of Knesset members and evencabinet members. Not surprisingly, as a result some Knesset members are beholden to their criminal benefactors. Others are merely buying seats for themselves. Chemei Shalev, an analyst for Ma’ariv, warned Israeli voters that if representatives of the underworld are elected directly to the legislature the result will be wholesale corruption.

Taking a brief stab at combating corruption, Sharon recently fired Knesset member Naomi Blumenthal, a deputy minister in the Infrastructure Ministry (who placed ninth in the Likud list of candidates) for refusing to answer questions by the police regarding her role in the free hotel payoff scandals.

On the other hand, Sharon is criticized for employing a double standard because his son Omri, who is also his closest adviser, “pleaded the Fifth” in a separate police investigation into financial shenanigans surrounding Sharon’s 2001 election. Needless to say, Omri wasn’t fired.

Omri, 38, is in hot water again for making shady deals with criminals to help him win the No. 25 spot on the Likud Knesset slate. Musa Alperon and Shlomi Oz, who were jailed for counterfeiting in the 1980s, and other thugs who managed to get onto Likud’s Central Committee, helped Omri gain a Knesset seat. In return, newspapers charge, a security company with which Oz is affiliated has been awarded government security contracts for the country’s main airport, Likud Party headquarters, the prime minister’s office and other government facilities.

Sharon’s other son, Gilad, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in “consulting fees” from an Israeli industrialist, David Appel, who is developing a holiday resort in Greece. Gilad, who has little business experience, was promised $1.5 million if he could persuade the Greeks to issue a building permit and another $1.5 million upon completion of the project. His father, who was then serving as national infrastructure minister under Netanyahu, recruited high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials to help Appel get his resort permits.

Sharon and both his sons are in even more trouble after Israel’s press revealed, in the first week of 2003, that Israeli prosecutors are investigating a $1.5 million loan made in 1999 to Sharon by his old friend Cyril Kern, a South African businessman. The loan served as collateral for a bank loan taken out by Sharon’s sons to help replace other illegal campaign contributions Sharon had been forced to return. Sharon père is accused of taking a loan from abroad, which may violate Israeli laws banning foreign political contributions, covering up that loan, and perhaps even accepting a bribe, if it can be proved that Kern received favors or paybacks in return.

The vote-buying and bribery scandals, however, may end up having little effect on either the elections or the Likud Party. While the Israeli police fraud squad is investigating corruption charges, the state prosecutor’s office has been ordered not to publicize the matter until after the Jan. 28 elections.

This means that U.S. aid to the tune of $5 billion in new military assistance, and $10 billion in unconditional loan guarantees, will be handed over to a totally corrupt Israeli government. In addition to tying U.S. aid to Israel’s withdrawal from occupied land, President George W. Bush should, in the interest of U.S. taxpayers, demand a regime change in Israel—or at least major political reforms to end rampant corruption before any more U.S. funds start flooding Israeli banks.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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