Moneygrabbers
By Hannah Kim
Haaretz, 26,December 2003
There was an atmosphere of looting this week in the Knesset. Everything is up for grabs now, and who knows whether tomorrow there will be enough money "for all of us," as MK Omri Sharon, the prime minister's son, is heard to say on the video cassette that was authorized for broadcast this week, referring to the Appel-Sharon affairs.
On the day on which the Knesset House Committee voted not to lift the parliamentary immunity of MK Yehiel Hazan (Likud) - contrary to the attorney general's request - so that Hazan could be indicted for double-voting, the members of the Knesset voted themselves an exemption from having to pay for use of the Trans- Israel Highway, a toll road. And on the day that the House Committee declined to lift the parliamentary immunity of another Likud MK, Michael Gorlovsky, so he could also be charged with double-voting, the members of the Knesset decided to establish a television channel for themselves, without the supervision of the cable authorities, at a cost of tens of millions of shekels a year - a channel to their liking, which will commission independent productions from outside sources and will broadcast to the nation only what the MKs deem the public should see.
In this same week the chairman of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Michael Eitan (Likud), found time to have his committee discuss the amendment submitted by MK Daniel Benlulu (Likud), which will be referred to the Knesset plenum for approval as early as next week. What's the big rush? Well, it turns out that the big rush right now is to ram a law through parliament according to which the term of the members of the executive of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, most of whom are political appointments, for more than two terms - will be increased by another 28 months.
Immune before the law, immune before the media, overseeing the collapsing public broadcasting system in the country and creating their own broadcast channel: There's no doubt that the members of the Israeli parliament this week lived up to the negative image that clings to their club as a kiosk for quick snacks that are manufactured mainly for them or for their cronies.
There is no ideological aroma to the looting spree. MKs Dalia Itzik (Labor) and Avshalom Vilan (Meretz) joined forces with the supporters of Benlulu's amendment, and the rivals from the Shas party voted against lifting the immunity of the two MKs from the Likud. Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
Among those present at the gathering organized this week by Minister of Industry and Trade Ehud Olmert (Likud) at the Tel Aviv Fair Grounds were casinos owner Reuven Gavrieli and the strongman of the Likud's Ramat Gan branch, Shlomi Oz. The internal confrontation now under way within the Likud over Olmert's recent statements is not only ideological. On October 28, Yossi Melman reported in Haaretz that Olmert had asked Labor and Social Affairs Minister Zevulun Orlev to ask Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze to assist Reuven Gavrieli's business interests in Georgia. "Olmert will continue to assist every Israeli businessman everywhere in the world," the spokeswoman of the Industry and Trade Ministry said in reaction. Gavrieli, who was a donor to Olmert's election campaign for mayor of Jerusalem, is also assisting the person who says he will assist every Israeli businessman everywhere.
On January 5 the Likud Central Committee will convene, and if the agenda includes a political discussion, the internal clash in the party may boil over. The clash looks ideological but is really about the succession in the party. Until then, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will have enough time to decide whether he is going to evacuate Migron or some other illegal settler outpost. The silence this week of the National Religious Party and the National Union, both members of the coalition, says it all. Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the National Union, spoke with Sharon before the prime minister delivered his much ballyhooed speech at the Herzliya Conference a week ago, and was given to understand that no settlement will be moved. As for the outposts - we'll just have to wait and see.
In the upside-down world that prevails today in Israel, it turns out that the country's taxpayers are the ones financing the illegal outposts, as was confirmed this week by Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim (Likud), at a meeting of the Knesset's Control Committee. What was not made public from that meeting is the following: The illegal outposts are being financed by the state - from heating and cooling to the supply of fuel for the power generators (amounting to some NIS 4 million paid by the state to the Paz fuel company), to the payment for the caravans and the establishment of permanent structures by the Housing Ministry and the settlement department of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
The electricity in the illegal outposts comes from Israel's Electricity Corporation, the water is from Israel's Mekorot company, security is provided by the Israel Defense Forces, the roads are built by the Transportation Ministry (including the asphalt road leading to Migron), and the outposts are hooked up not only to the national telephone system but also to the cellular networks.
In this topsy-turvy world, Tal Silberstein, who until a few years ago was the director of the not-for-profit organization "Dor Shalom" (A Whole Generation Demands Peace) and purported to be engaged in the education of children, has become a strategic adviser to businessman and contractor David Appel, along with the legal adviser of the Labor Party, Eldad Yaniv. The two have recruited the celebrity U.S. lawyer Alan Dershowitz for Appel's media blitz ahead of the indictment against him for allegedly bribing Sharon and Olmert in connection with the "Greek island affair."
Making the desert bloom
Over the years the WZO's settlement department has become a kind of "Shabbat goy" (referring to a gentile who does work that Jews are unable to do on the Sabbath) making kosher the flow of state funds to the settlements under the cover of the Jewish Agency. The method had its beginnings in the period of Mapai, the precursor of Labor, and it's still ongoing.
According to its "job description," the WZO settlement department is supposed to finance various activities to develop the Negev and across the 1967 Green Line. Its budget this year was NIS 130 million. There is plenty to finance in the Negev. In fact, NIS 130 million is a meager budget as compared with the area's development needs.
So, what proportion of the settlement department's budget was earmarked for Jewish Agency settlement development projects in the Negev? A third? A quarter? Guess again: not even a tenth. MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) this week discovered that according to documents of the settlement department only about NIS 10 million of the NIS 130 million budget was to be transferred for development in the Negev. Less than 10 percent.
Did that NIS 10 million reach the Negev development authority? It did not. According to senior officials in the authority, only about NIS 2 million of the NIS 10 million that was supposed to arrive actually arrived.
