Monday, November 06, 2006
11/06/2006 01:19:00 PM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
There is no doubt (as Sharon proved) that Israeli politicians are the worldwide experts at openly manipulating and circumventing the law to their personal benefit.
As the Jerusalem Post article on Shimon Peres shows, Israeli politicians can be broken up into two groups.
The first, those that openly break the law and get caught.
The second become so intensely familiar with the law, they can openly take the same exact improper actions but without “officially” committing a crime.
Peres’s Center for Peace alongside Peres’s “Peace Technology Fund” is one such dubious example of questionable financial activities and political conflicts of interest.
Donations and investments go in and out of different Peres Pet Projects, yet somehow Peres comes out of it completely clean (or the investigations are inconclusively closed, or never opened in the first place as we see today), even as his investments and political activities intertwine and create clear conflicts of interest when it comes to what is good for Israel.
So now Shimon Peres won’t be charged (surprise) for illegally receiving some very large donations because he managed to time it exactly so he received them during a two-week limbo period.
I don’t fault Shimon.
His behavior, just like Sharon’s and Olmerts is the standard for Israeli political society. He is simply smarter, and better connected than many other politicians (and certainly must have juicy stuff on a lot of people), so he gets away with it – at the country’s expense.
We don’t even need to discuss administrative detention against (obviously settler) Israeli Citizens, one just needs to look at Peres see the Rule of Law in Israel is one broken rule and the attitude towards it is that it is just a tool to hit your opponents over the head with.
As the Jerusalem Post article on Shimon Peres shows, Israeli politicians can be broken up into two groups.
The first, those that openly break the law and get caught.
The second become so intensely familiar with the law, they can openly take the same exact improper actions but without “officially” committing a crime.
Peres’s Center for Peace alongside Peres’s “Peace Technology Fund” is one such dubious example of questionable financial activities and political conflicts of interest.
Donations and investments go in and out of different Peres Pet Projects, yet somehow Peres comes out of it completely clean (or the investigations are inconclusively closed, or never opened in the first place as we see today), even as his investments and political activities intertwine and create clear conflicts of interest when it comes to what is good for Israel.
So now Shimon Peres won’t be charged (surprise) for illegally receiving some very large donations because he managed to time it exactly so he received them during a two-week limbo period.
I don’t fault Shimon.
His behavior, just like Sharon’s and Olmerts is the standard for Israeli political society. He is simply smarter, and better connected than many other politicians (and certainly must have juicy stuff on a lot of people), so he gets away with it – at the country’s expense.
We don’t even need to discuss administrative detention against (obviously settler) Israeli Citizens, one just needs to look at Peres see the Rule of Law in Israel is one broken rule and the attitude towards it is that it is just a tool to hit your opponents over the head with.
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4 comments:
I think the problem is more in the mechanics of government here.
The question is: How does a person who loses like 20 consecutive elections end up in a position of power? A functional democracy would have flushed this kidney stone long ago.
It is important to understand the origins of Israel's political system. Israel is presented as being a "thriving democracy" and a miniature version of the United States, with people like Ben-Gurion being viewed as something like the American Founding Fathers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The founders of Israel's political system were Eastern European Marxists/socialists and they had no use for American-style democracy. A significant, influential minority (MAPAM) were great admirers of Lenin and Stalin. Their use of the word "democracy" means "manipulating the masses to sieze and maintain power". Israelis of the ruling class have nothing but contempt for the common man. Just read Ha'aretz and the other newspapers.
It was Lenin, who in his seminal work "What is to be Done?" (IIRC it was written in 1902) who defined the Party as NOT a mass, democratic movement, but as a centralized body tightly controlled by an elite and operating basically as a conspiratorial body. Ben-Gurion and all the others had read this and used it as a model for the MAPAI and MAPAM. They set up a centrally-controlled economic system through the Histradrut and were able to strong-arm people whose personal ideologies were far away from the atheistic Marxist/Socialism of the MAPAI to vote for them by using methods like telling the people in a certain town that the factory that employed most people there will be closed down if a certain number of votes for the MAPAI weren't delivered.
Since the average person, even members of the party, really had no say in the party's policies or operation, it favored intriguers and conspiratorialists. Shimon Peres is the ultimate creature that came out of this. The MAPAI/MAPAM establishment made sure to only allow "reliable" people to man the coercive arms of the state, i.e. the Army High Command, the police, the State Prosecutors Office and the state-run media. Peres, through years of patient effort and constant intrigues (see Rabin's autobiography) made sure that those in these positions were loyal to him personally. Thus, his power is stronger in these institutions than it is in the Labor itself, which as we see, rejected him, and yet he is now poised to become President of the State...all in spite of the fact that he is probably the most hated man in Israel, EVEN WITHIN THE LABOR PARTY. However, everyone fears him, because his loyalists in the police and State Prosecutor's Office have files on everyone, and so anyone who crosses Peres can expect to have a criminal investigation opened against him (or even worse), examples being Deri, Ezer Weizman, Rabin (the bank account in 1977). This is why he wants to change the law to make the Knesset vote for President open. Peres always loses secret votes, but it takes a very brave sole to oppose him openly.
I am sorry that I am being long-winded, but it is important that people understand where the source of Israel's present sickness lies.
Just as Lenin's corrupt, diseased system did attain total power, but then lead inevitably to total collapse of the USSR, the MAPAI system has also achieved total power, but at the price of weakening the state, as we saw in the disastrous Lebanon II war and the Gaza/Gush Katif disaster.
b_k: Exceelnet history lesson.
evan: I think you got the answer to your question
Va'ashiva shoftayich kevarishona, veyoatzayich kevatchila, tziyon bemishpat tipadeh veshaveha b'tzedaka!
Amen, ken yehi ratzon!
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