Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Public corruption

Tuesday, September 1, was a bad day for Israeli politics. On this day, two former Ministers started jail terms, a former PM was charged with various crimes and a former President's trial started.
The two Ministers were former Finance Minister Avraham Hirshson, who was convicted of stealing ca. m$1 from Union funds (small change compared to Madoff) that he controlled while he was Minister and he will serve over 5 years, and former Health & Welfare Minister Shlomo Benizri, who was convicted of accepting bribes and will serve 4 years. The former PM is of course Ehud Olmert, who is being tried on 3 charges, including misuse of his position and accepting bribes from an American businessman (2 other charges were dropped), and the President is Moshe Katsav, who is charged with sexual misconduct. In his trial, one of the women who claimed he had sexually abused her gave evidence for the first time today.
The case of Ben Izri is somewhat different because he is a member of Shas, the Sephardic religious party, and he is the fourth former Shas Minister to be jailed for misconduct. There appears to be a climate of corruption in Shas, so that giving and receiving money for the cause is not considered immoral. He was seen off by the usual group of Shas members and supporters who loudly proclaimed his innocence (even though he was convicted). Don't worry he will be able to study the Talmud with the other religious prisoners in jail.
The question arises, what does this coincidence say about the level of corru[tion in ISraeli political circles. It obviously points to a terrible lowering of standards since the great leaders of the early State. However, as Michael Partem, the head of the Movement for Quality Government pointed out in an interview on IBA News, the fact that all these politicians of the top ranks have been both indicted and convicted does give one hope that the legal system in Israel is actually working. If we assume that similar activities are happening in other countries but their leaders are immune from prosecution, it means that Israeli democracy is working.
To reduce the degree of corruption in the Israeli politcal system would require a complete overhaul and reorganization of the system, from a party-based proportional representational system to a constituency based system. Although many politicans agree with this sentiment, and there are bills before the Knesset to bring about such changes, the chance of the current crop of politicians actually reducing their own power and giving the citizens more say is highly unlikely. So we'll have to keep on fighting the political corruption and putting our leaders in jail.

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