The legal legacy of a ‘hedonist’

Vita Bekker

• Last Updated: November 06. 2009 12:05AM UAE / November 5. 2009 8:05PM GMT

In 2006, Ehud Olmert began his premiership with the hopes of bringing Israel closer to a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

But Mr Olmert’s legacy turned out to be anything but peace. Instead, the veteran Israeli politician will be better remembered for the corruption allegations that forced him out of office last year and made him the country’s first prime minister to stand trial on criminal charges.

Mr Olmert’s court case, which started in September, is the most high-profile in a long string of scandals to rock the Israeli political establishment, instilling concern among many Israelis that public corruption is reaching new heights.

The police investigations have targeted some of Israel’s most senior officials.

In August, police recommended that Avigdor Lieberman, the current foreign minister and leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, a far-right party, be indicted on charges including bribery and money laundering.

This year, Mr Olmert’s former finance minister was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzlement; another former cabinet official began a four-year sentence for taking bribes; and the country’s former president started facing court proceedings on charges of rape and sexual harassment.

Michael Partam, a co-founder of the Movement for Quality Government, an Israeli anti-corruption lobby group, said: “There is a lot of dirty laundry coming out. It’s unprecedented in Israel to have a former prime minister and president on trial and a treasury minister go to jail for public offences.”

The Jerusalem-based group, which in the past has criticised the lack of accountability for senior figures, attributed the recent slew of high-profile corruption cases to an improvement in Israeli law enforcement. Shuky Levanon, the group’s spokesman, said: “It seems like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The police are carrying out investigations, there are indictments, people are being held to account.”

Still, experts say the efforts are far from sufficient and that the scandals are spurring a widespread loss of confidence in Israel’s political system. About 86 per cent of Israelis view the government’s attempts at fighting corruption as inefficient, according to a poll in March by the Israeli chapter of the Berlin-based Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog. In 1997, the organisation ranked Israel as the world’s 15th least corrupt country. Last year, Israel deteriorated to 33rd.

Although the recent graft cases have drawn much attention in Israel and abroad, Israelis have grown used to shenanigans in their top political ranks.

At least three of Mr Olmert’s predecessors – including Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister, whose first premiership was in the late 1990s, and Ariel Sharon – were investigated for allegations of financial misconduct, although none has been charged with wrongdoing.

The country’s presidency, a largely ceremonial role, also appears to have been stained by malfeasance.

Ezer Weizmann, who built the country’s air force and guided it to victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, resigned the presidency in shame in 2000 amid public pressure after revelations that he had accepted more than US$300,000 (Dh1.1 million) from two businessmen during the 1980s and 1990s, when he was a cabinet minister and member of parliament.

Police said Mr Weizmann’s failure to report the gifts to authorities constituted fraud and breach of public trust, but the case was closed because the five-year statute of limitations had run out on the charges.

Moshe Katsav, an Iranian-born former leading figure in Likud, the country’s main party on the Right, also brought unprecedented disgrace to the presidency.

In June 2007, he quit the post amid allegations of sexual misconduct, and last March he was indicted on charges of rape and other sexual offences against three women who used to work for him. Mr Katsav has denied any wrongdoing and has described himself as the victim of a witch-hunt spurred by rival politicians and the media. Aluf Benn, a prominent Israeli political commentator, wrote in a recent column published by the US-based Newsweek magazine that Mr Olmert and all the other politicians involved in scandals “behaved as if they were untouchable, as if the perks of their public office include illegal payments or sexual exploitation of underlings”.

He added: “Tellingly, none were accused of one-time blunders or of misinterpreting the rules; they were all accused of committing serial crimes.”

Mr Benn said the corruption of members of the top political echelon was rooted in the early days of the country’s establishment in 1948, when many turned a blind eye towards public figures’ shady dealings because the priority was building the state. Mr Benn said the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, in which more than 2,600 Israeli soldiers were killed, was a political watershed because public outrage about the military failure forced out the veteran leadership. That anger led to more scrutiny of senior military and political leaders, shedding light on misconduct at the top.

Still, experts say authorities never battled against corruption in full force because the issue has always taken a back seat to security matters amid the circle of violence that has marked the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Some analysts, however, claim that corruption poses a bigger danger to Israel than security threats. Yoel Marcus, a commentator for Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, wrote recently: “The basic problem threatening this country is its lack of political culture and a system that has become shameless over time … today we see ministers and VIPs coming and going from police investigation rooms with a stupid smile smeared on their faces, telling us that it’s all a huge joke.”

The indictment of Mr Olmert is especially enlightening in offering a rare glimpse into the workings of a high political office in Israel.

The charges against Mr Olmert, 64, include fraud, breach of trust and failure to report income. In the most damaging accusation, the indictment claims that Mr Olmert illegally accepted as much as $150,000 from Morris Talansky, a Jewish-American financier from New York who, it was alleged, funnelled the money to the former premier in cash-stuffed envelopes.

Last year, Mr Talansky testified in an Israeli court that although the funds were meant for Mr Olmert’s political campaigns, he believed the former prime minister made personal use of them. Mr Talanksy’s testimony played a large role in forcing Mr Olmert out of office because it helped turn public opinion against the veteran politician.

The prosecutors also charged that Mr Olmert, as mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and as trade minister from 2003 to 2006, ran a sophisticated scheme in which he double-billed the government and non-profit groups for official travel abroad and then pocketed the extra money. The indictment said about $90,000 collected for the official trips, often to the United States, accumulated in his account at an Israeli travel agency and was then used for personal holidays and other expenses.

Mr Benn, the Israeli commentator, said: “Olmert comes off as an insatiable hedonist, constantly upgrading his flights and hotel suites, rubbing shoulders with rich American Jews, travelling to their parties, asking them for favours.”

Even Mr Olmert’s indictment charged that in his actions, he “has libelled the country … and hurt the reputation of the Israeli civil service and the state of Israel”.

Mr Olmert resigned his office in September 2008 amid the allegations, although he stayed on as caretaker head of government until Mr Netanyahu took over the post in March.

Legal experts have said Mr Olmert, who denies any wrongdoing, could face up to five years in jail on each of the four charges in the indictment if he is found guilty. Mr Olmert’s trial comes just months after his former finance minister, Avraham Hirchson, as well as a former welfare minister, Shlomo Benizri, were jailed for corruption offences.

Hirchson was imprisoned in June for five years and five months after he was found guilty of stealing more than $500,000 from the trade union he headed before becoming a minister in the governing coalition formed by Mr Olmert in 2006. Some of the stolen money, according to Israeli media, was used for buying Victoria’s Secret lingerie for his girlfriend.

On the same day, Benizri was sentenced to four years in prison. The charges against him included accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of services from a government contractor, including the purchase of furniture and installation of an air conditioner, payments to a charity and renovations, while he served as a government minister. In return, he helped the contractor advance a business that brought foreign workers to Israel.

In the verdict, Israel’s judicial system suggested it was prepared for tougher action against public misconduct. The appeals judge in the case had more than doubled the sentence that Benizri had originally received, stating that he wanted to set an example and battle the tide of corruption in Israel’s political arena.

The judge wrote: “There is a phenomenon of increasing corruption in Israeli society, to which the institutions of power have not been immune. To address this scourge and act as a deterrent … the time has come for action and to exact a higher price.”

Benizri was a key member of Shas, a powerful Jewish ultra-Orthodox political party that has been dogged by a series of corruption cases. Indeed, seven Shas government ministers or legislators have been convicted in the past few decades – more than any other political party in Israel.

The government of Mr Olmert’s successor, Mr Netanyahu, is also not a stranger to scandals. Mr Lieberman, the controversial ultra-nationalist politician whose party has drawn allegations of racism from Israel’s Arab citizens, has faced police investigations for at least 10 years.

Indeed, Mr Lieberman has grown so used to being watched by police that, according to media reports, he constantly switches phone numbers and removes the battery from his mobile phone during private meetings because he fears investigators are listening in on his calls. The indictment against Mr Lieberman suggests he managed a “well-oiled” business machine through front men even after taking public office, and earned millions of dollars from the ventures, according to Haaretz. The report said Mr Lieberman and his associates were suspected of creating several firms, including one run by his daughter, to launder money and funnel it into their pockets.

Although Mr Lieberman could be forced to resign if charges are pressed against him, Israeli history has shown that an indictment need not prompt his exit from political life.

Haim Ramon, one of Israel’s most prominent politicians, is an example. Mr Ramon, who had served as Mr Olmert’s vice premier and justice minister, was convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old female soldier in 2006. Ramon was accused of forcibly kissing the woman, who served in the prime minister’s office, after she asked to pose for a picture with him when he was on his way to a cabinet meeting.

Women’s groups appeared angered by Mr Ramon’s act, but the general public was more incensed about its timing. Mr Ramon had committed the offence just hours after two Israeli soldiers had been kidnapped by Lebanon’s Hizbollah, when he was on his way to a government meeting in which Israel resolved to retaliate for the abduction, sparking the 34-day war with the Shiite group.

Mr Ramon, who served out his sentence by doing several months of community service on a therapeutic horse farm, in July 2007 returned to the cabinet at the beckoning of Mr Olmert, serving as his vice premier. Last June, many months after Likud took power and the Kadima party – of which Mr Ramon is a senior figure – moved to the opposition, he announced his resignation from parliament to pursue private business.

Some analysts caution that Mr Ramon may yet make a comeback.

Marcus of Haaretz wrote: “In a state that has no shame, it would be premature to mourn the death of his political career.”



foreign.desk@thenational.ae