Israel Palestine Infos
Uri Avnery
October 30, 2010
Bread and the Circus
I WAS surprised when,
towards the end of 1975, I received an invitation from the Prime Minister,
Yitzhak Rabin, to meet him at his residence. He opened the door himself, poured
me a glass of whisky, poured one for himself, and without any further ado asked
me: “Tell me, Uri, have you decided to destroy all the doves in the Labor
Party?”
Some weeks before, my
magazine, Haolam Hazeh (“This World”), had started to publish disclosures about
the corrupt dealings of the candidate for President of the Central Bank, Asher
Yadlin. On the eve of the conversation, we had also started to publish
suspicions concerning the Minister of Housing, Avraham Ofer. Both were leaders
of the Labor “doves”.
I answered that,
unfortunately, I could not offer immunity to corrupt politicians, even if their
political positions were close to mine. These are separate matters.
I TOLD this story this
week at a conference held by
The panel was very mixed.
There were two former Ministers of Justice – Yossi Beilin, the chairman of the
“Geneva Initiative”, and Daniel Friedman, a right-winger whose unrestrained
attacks on the Supreme Court had aroused public indignation; Yedidia Stern, a
national-religious intellectual who is advocating reconciliation with the
secular camp, and retired General Yitzhak Ben-Israel of the Air Force and the
Israeli Space Agency, a member of the last Knesset for the Kadima party. I was
introduced as the creator of
Prof. Shain vigorously
attacked those who fought against corruption - including judges, police
officers, prosecutors and such. He claimed that they endanger Israeli democracy
and undermine national strength. These two words – “national strength”- are
typical of the Right.
And indeed, everybody
knows that corruption affairs are currently occupying the center of the public
stage. A former President of the state is awaiting judgment in a rape trial. A
former Prime Minister is suspected of accepting fat bribes. A former Finance
Minister is in prison. A former senior minister has been convicted of indecent
conduct for forcing his tongue into the mouth of a female army officer (it
happened on the day the government decided to launch
Shain’s book does not
deal with the affairs themselves, but with the place they occupy in public
discourse. He believes that they should be taken off the headlines and removed
from center stage.
His arguments deserve
consideration.
IN THE headlines,
corruption scandals often fill the space that should have been devoted to the
matters that are crucial to our future.
Take, for example, two
topical cases.
Case 1: A Knesset
committee has just adopted a law that enables “reception committees” of
“communal localities” with less than 500 families to refuse would-be residents
not to their liking.
The law, which will come
into force in a matter of days, is designed to circumvent the judgment of the
Supreme Court forbidding the refusal to admit Arabs. The wording of the law is a
masterpiece of verbal acrobatics, in order to avoid the use of the word “Arab”.
But the meaning is clear to everybody.
An investigation by the
Arab “Adala” organization has shown that the 695 agricultural and urban
communities to which the law will apply occupy the greater part of the lands
that belong to the government (most of which, by the way, were expropriated from
Arab owners after the foundation of the state). Almost all the real estate of
This is a clear case of
racial segregation, of the kind that existed in the
(Lately, the chief rabbi
of Safed, a government employee, has decreed that selling or letting apartments
to Arabs is a sin. Before 1948, Safed was a mixed town with an Arab majority.
Mahmoud Abbas was born there. The day before yesterday, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the
unquestioned leader of the Oriental Jewish community, also decreed that selling
land to “foreigners” – meaning the Arabs who have been living here for more than
a thousand years before the venerable rabbi himself was brought to this country
from
Case 2: A senior army
officer has distributed a document that describes an alleged plot by the
incoming Chief of Staff (Yoav Galant) to smear the present Chief of Staff (Gabi
Ashkenazi). The document is a forgery, and many signs indicate that it
originated in the immediate surroundings of Ashkenazi. It appears that the
forger is a personal friend of Ashkenazi and his wife. The State Comptroller is
now investigating the matter.
A juicy affair, by any
standard. An intrigue in the highest echelons of the army.
How were these two
matters covered by the media? The first one was mentioned a few times. The
second has occupied the headlines for months now, with no end in sight.
NO DOUBT, the big
corruption scandals help the media – and the public at large – to push aside the
central problems of our existence: the occupation, the elimination of the
chances for peace, the enlargement of the settlements, the continuing blockade
of Gaza, the racist laws against the Arab minority in Israel proper, all the
dangers connected with the ongoing 130-year-old conflict between us and the
Palestinians.
The public does not want
to hear about this. It wants all these matters to disappear from its sight, so
as to be left to enjoy life. This is a national exercise of escapism.
It is much more
convenient to deal with a forged document in the safe of the Chief of Staff,
Ashkenazi, than to deal with the war crimes committed in the course of the “Cast
Lead” operation, whose commander was Ashkenazi.
It is much nicer to
pursue the private affairs of public personalities who are caught in
flagrante: the Philippine maid illegally employed by Ehud Barak, the air
ticket fraud of Ehud Olmert, the long tongue of Haim Ramon, the fat bribes
handed out to municipal leaders in Jerusalem for a permit to build an
architectural monstrosity on a hill overlooking the center of the city.
The rulers of ancient
ALREADY WHILE serving as
editor-in-chief of Haolam Hazeh, when we were conducting the fight against
government corruption, I was conscious of the dangers inherent in such a
campaign.
More than once I was
troubled by the thought that when we reveal the repulsive doings of corrupt
politicians, we may be encouraging the public to detest all politicians, indeed
politics as such. Are we not helping to create a public climate of “they are all
corrupt” and opening an abyss between the public and the political system?
If politics stinks, good
people will not opt for a political career. Politics will be left to people of
low intelligence, bereft of talent and ethical standards, even criminal
elements. The results are already obvious in the present Knesset.
The loathing of politics
and politicians can pave the way to fascism. Fascist movements all over the
world exploit the contempt for politicians in order to arouse the longing for a
“strong man”, who will turn the rascals out.
ALL THIS may lead to the
conclusion that we should reduce the fight against corruption, or at least
refrain from talking about it.
But this is a very
dangerous idea.
A society that confers
immunity on corrupt leaders is digging its own grave. That is the way the Roman
republic rotted and imploded. This has happened to many states since then, even
in our lifetime. It is not the talk about corruption that destroys democracy,
but corruption itself. Corruption cannot be swept under the carpet for long.
Even if the media were to stop dancing around it, rumors would get around and
undermine trust in government even more.
When ministers fill
public positions with their political protégés or their relatives, the
management of public affairs and monies is turned over to the incompetent and/or
the dishonest. The best and the brightest are pushed aside by “political
appointments”. When politicians are bought - quite simply – by business tycoons,
they are compelled to serve them against the public interest. The quality of
leadership goes down, and incompetents decide our fate in matters of life and
death, peace or war.
This is not a
specifically Israeli problem. Corruption rules many countries. Some believe that
the
THE STRUGGLE against the
occupation and the fight against corruption do not contradict each other. On the
contrary, they complement one another.
The occupation destroys
our ethical standards. A society that loses its repugnance of the daily cruelty
in the occupied territories loses also its resistance to corruption.
The occupation is a
life-threatening disease, corruption is “simply” nausea.
But if the patient is nauseous, no
medicine will stay down.