More corruption and incompetence

In yet another case of corruption in our Government, the Minister of Finance Avraham Hirschson is accused of embezzlement! He is now in the Kadima party, but this charge arises from his activities when he was in Likud. It is alleged that he took ca. m$1.2 from the National Labor Federation when he was in charge of it. A former employee of that organization came forward and testified that he saw Hirschson receiving envelopes full of money. He allegedly used some of the money to pay off his son’s gambling debts. He also once arrive in Poland carrying k$250 in his bag! Since he is so far only accused of this crime he does not yet have to step down, but the idea that the Finance Minister is accused of embezzlement just doesn’t inspire confidence, and he is likely to be asked to step down soon by the Atty. General.
At present there are 6 cases of corruption of high members of the Govt., these include: 1. President Katsav, who is charged with sexual harassment and rape as well as giving favors for payment; 2. Justice Minister Ramon, who was found guilty of sexual harassment (forcibly French kissing a young female soldier); 3. Prime Minister Olmert, who is accused of illegally giving ca. 100 jobs to Likud party members before he joined Kadima, although the case is still pending; 4. Chief Inspector of Police Moshe Karadi, who was forced to resign with several of his top aides, due to the Perinian gang scandal; 5. Esterina Tartman, the candidate of Yisrael Beiteinu for the position of Tourism Minister was forced to step down when it was found that she had lied about her qualifications (no actual degrees); 6. Now we have Finance Minister Hirschson. Also, MK Yoram Marciano has been accused of violent behavior at a club in Tel Avviv, caught on camera, when he hit two bouncers.
What a list! But, there are two ways of looking at this, either Israeli politicians are extremely corrupt, and this is endemic here, or the system works because it is catching them, and the AG is not afraid to proceed with cases against them. But, why so many now? One theory is that when former PM Sharon established the Kadima Party many opportunists and hangers-on saw their opportunity and left Likud and Labor to join him. That way some of them achieved high office much sooner than they would have done if they had remained in the opposition.
Apart from this Defense Minister Peretz is an embarrassment. A few weeks ago he was photographed looking thru binoculors several times with the caps still on the lenses. So although he couldn't see anything he looked thru the binoculors for abut 30 mins. What an idiot! Because his English is so bad, last week he took his favorite female translator with him on his tour of the US. She had difficulty translating his speech to AIPAC, so another aide had to step in to save the moment. He was largely ignored by the US Defense Establishment because he has no credibility. He should resign.
Today the Winograd Committee investigating the Second Lebanon War (now its official name) published the first of its interviews with Govt. leaders, following an order from the Supreme Court to do so. They had decided to hold thier interim report until April, but the Court ruled this was agaisnt the public interest. The first revelation was that Vice PM Shimon Peres told the Committee that he opposed going to war against Hizbollah. However, now he has issued a clarification saying that he supported going to war at the time to support PM Olmert. What a prevaricator.
Thursday it was announced that Naomi Blumenthal, former Likud leader, who was found guilty of having paid for the hotel rooms of Likud Central Committee members as a form of bribery for votes, and she tried to cover it up with threats to her employees, will go to jail for 8 months. Benjamin Netanyahu now claims that he has cleared out all the corrupt members from the Likud, some are going to jail and others are in Kadima. I wish I could believe him.