PM Olmert is Israel's Most Corrupt Politician
Pastor Dale Morgan
PM Olmert is Israel's Most Corrupt Politician
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by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com)
The results of an extensive poll on government corruption released
Wednesday finds that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, for the second year in
a row, is considered the most corrupt politician in Israel. Fifty-six
percent of the public defined his behavior as “corrupt to very corrupt.”
Olmert, who also heads the Kadima party, received 42 percent of the vote
in 2006.
The poll was conducted by the prestigious Maagar Mochot survey institute
for the Fifth Annual Sderot Conference for Social and Economic Policy
which took place on Wednesday at the western Negev town’s Sapir College.
One of the conference’s main panels dealt with the spread and
proliferation of corruption in Israeli society. “The corruption is a
kind of cancer,” said Rabbi Yuval Cherlow. “We are not confronting
something that is coming from the outside, but something is coming from
the inside of Israeli society and I really believe that the prophets,
when they spoke about corruption, when they spoke about leadership and
all the problems that were present with leadership in those times, their
words were for us as well. We see that it is the same; nothing has
changed. The Prophet Micha said that though in his time Jerusalem had
been built with marketplaces and all sorts of things, it was built on
corruption and there was therefore no value to it. Jerusalem will collapse.”
Rabbi Cherlow hoped that the leadership of Israel will regain the faith
of the nation.
In the corruption poll, former Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson
(Kadima) came in a close second, with 55 percent of the public calling
him “corrupt to very corrupt.” Hirschson is accused of stealing public
funds. Vice Premier Chaim Ramon (Kadima) and Minister of Strategic
Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) tied for third place, with
33 percent of those surveyed defining the two as corrupt.
“We decided to hold a conference that puts the social agenda at the top
of the Israeli list of priorities,” conference chairman Ido Ohayon
explained to Israel National TV. “We deal with economic and security
issues from a social perspective that was missing from the public
discourse in Israel. It is important that this happens in Sderot –
because it is symbolic. We are not only dealing with Sderot, but the
national agenda. Many of Sderot’s issues – such as the Kassam rockets –
are a national issue.”
Trauma in Sderot
Psychologist Dr. Ronny Berger spoke about the continued damage to the
residents of Sderot caused by the rockets being launched from Gaza. He
said that although those reading about it in the papers get used to it
over time, it only gets worse for residents as the phenomenon continues.
“We see that as time passes and the exposure to shelling is greater, the
residents condition is weaker,” he said. “We see post-traumatic symptoms
in a large part of the population. This requires professional
intervention. There is an attempt to help, but the degree of distress
and hardship is so high that the needs still far surpass the assistance
provided.”
The Brain Drain
Another major topic of discussion was the state of education in Israel
and the low wages paid to teachers. “Israel is leading the West in
growth, but the inequality in society is the worst,” said Labor MK
Avishai Braverman. “Education performance is the lowest in the West.
Salaries and status of teachers is the lowest. Major reforms and changes
in the budget in the opposite direction as it is being changed these
days are needed. I call on this government to expand spending on
education, culture and the periphery before we become a country that is
only for the top class.
"If we don't make the necessary changes, then the biggest threat is not
Iran. Iran is also Americas problem, Europe's problem, Russia's problem.
Our problem is what the young people of Israel is will do. And if the
young people see that the only objective function here is money, they
may go to Silicon Valley, they may go to Germany, they may go to other
places. For me it is about moral change and moral leadership and a
change of priorities that needs to happen now."
Tel Aviv University President Tzvi Galil said the 'brain drain' has
reached crisis proportions. "41 of every 10,000 undergrads, 2 percent of
all masters students and 6.5 percent of senior faculties in Israeli
universities emigrate," he said. He himself moved to the US for more
than 20 years, returning, he said, to help solve the crisis of emigration.
According to a study conducted by Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University
and presented at the Sderot Conference, one out of every four Israeli
academics works in the United States. Ben-David said that many academics
chose to work in the US due to the higher salaries, better working
conditions, and relative ease of receiving tenure.
Nobel Laureate Professor Yisrael Aumann, an expert in game theory, said
that Israel must free its universities from government control in order
to counteract the problem. Universities must be allowed to set their own
acceptance standards and tuition requirements, he said. He said that
government intervention in wages will not help the matter. "I know many
economists who live here happily, though they could make more elsewhere,
but they are not miserable," he said. "It's not just about pay. What is
important is that we have people for whom Israel is of the utmost
importance. I don't call that commitment to the country, but Zionism."