Only in Israel: 'Commitment to peace' claimed to trump taking $600,000 in bribes
Only in Israel would a disgraced former Prime Minister have the gall to call as a character witness the former Prime Minister of a foreign country to urge a reduced sentence for taking $600,000 in bribes because of his 'commitment to peace.' The disgraced former Prime Minister is Ehud K. Olmert (pictured above being greeted in jail by convicted rapist and former President Moshe Katzav). The former Prime Minister of a foreign country is Britain's Tony Blair.
Blair's letter, which highlighted Olmert's commitment to "ensuring that
Israel was protected," but noted his appreciation that "peace was an
indispensable part of such protection," was issued to the court as
Olmert's defense team attempted to roll back the scrutiny assailing
Olmert's reputation and pleaded for the former Labor leader not to serve
any jail time.
...
The Defense emphasized Olmert's personal relationship with other major
figures during his tenure, with Blair's letter suggesting that the two
leader's report going "beyond that between heads of Government", being
"based on friendship and trust with a clear understanding of the needs
and sensitivities of the other side."
A second letter was issued on Olmert's behalf by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, a man who has probably done more than any other Israeli to ensure that Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state.
Just how corrupt is Olmert? From the original link above:
[I]n March, the court assessed the new [Olmert's former secretary Shula] Zaken recordings, her journal and
much of her testimony, changing their conclusion from acquittal into
convicting Olmert after finding that the evidence proved beyond a
reasonable doubt that at least $153,950 out of the over $600,000 Olmert
was accused of using for illegal personal use was in fact used
illegally.
Damningly, the court found that a recording of Olmert
telling Zaken she could take funds from a secret safe for her illegal
use contradicted his narrative that he was unaware of any such funds
or that he thought they were being used for permitted political
purposes.
Yes, Israelis, our government is often as corrupt as we think it is.
Justice Department lawyer in Z Street case a potential witness
The Wall Street Journal reports that the lawyer who until recently was representing the Justice Department in the Z Street lawsuit is a potential witness due to his tenure in the IRS working under Lois Lerner.
From
August 2008 until August 2010, Mr. Strelka was a presidential
management fellow assigned to the IRS Exempt Organizations division.
That's the same period that Z Street says it was told by an IRS agent
that its application had been singled out for special scrutiny to see if
it comported with Administration policies. Mr. Strelka was thus both
Justice's lawyer on the case and potentially a witness.
We say "was" because recently Mr.
Strelka was withdrawn as the Justice Department's counsel of record on
the Z Street case. A review of court dockets showed that he has also
withdrawn from two other cases involving tax-exempt groups, including
Judicial Watch's suit against the IRS.
Mr.
Strelka confirmed to us that he was off the Z Street case but said he
couldn't discuss pending litigation. A Justice Department spokesman said
"it is not unusual for attorney assignments to change during the course
of litigation" but declined further comment.
Cleta Mitchell,
who represents conservative groups who saw their applications for
tax-exempt status slow-tracked, says she talked to Mr. Strelka when he
was at the IRS starting in June and July of 2010 about a client whose
tax-exempt application was delayed. After applying for 501(c)(4) status
in October 2009, the client heard nothing until June 2010, when Mr.
Strelka asked to see ads the group had run that were critical of
Administration health-care policy.
This
means Mr. Strelka was directly engaged in the policies at the Exempt
Organizations Unit that led to the lawsuits charging the agency with
viewpoint discrimination. Under the Rules of Professional Conduct,
barring special exceptions, "A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a
trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness."
Z
Street founder
Lori Lowenthal Marcus
says the group intends to depose Mr. Strelka during discovery—if
it ever happens. The IRS recently filed an appeal of a judge's denial of
the agency's motion to dismiss the Z Street case, indefinitely delaying
discovery and running out the clock on this Administration.
If
Mr. Strelka had personal knowledge of the processing of tax-exempt
applications for groups like Z Street while he was assigned to the IRS,
he should have recused himself from handling the case at Justice.
Judicial
Watch President
Tom Fitton
says there is "nothing usual about the way Justice handled this
and if the goal [of Mr. Strelka's recent withdrawal] was to inspire
confidence in the process, it is likely to have the opposite effect." We
look forward to learning what Mr. Strelka knows.
It's a pity that so much of this administration's corruption is likely to remain repressed until long after Hussein Obama retires to become a full-time golfer.
And you thought no one was more arrogant than President Hussein Obama.... Meet Ehud K. Olmert.
Tel Aviv District Court Judge David Rozen on Sunday rejected former
prime minister Ehud Olmert's request to leave the country on business
for four days on the grounds that he has been convicted and sentenced to jail time for bribery.
Olmert requested to travel from June 9-13 in order to facilitate various business deals including foreign investment in Israel.
Olmert's former chief-architect in Jerusalem, Uri Shitrit, made a similar request which was denied in the same opinion.
The
court said that the only exception for leaving the country was special
medical needs, which did not apply to either of the convicted men.
Olmert
was sentenced to six years in prison for his conviction on two counts
of bribery in the Holyland real estate affair last month.
The judge delayed the arrest and imprisonment of all of the Holyland defendants until September 1.
In Israel, there is something known as a tzav ikuv yetzia min ha'aretz (an order to stop you from leaving the country). In most cases, you don't get one because of a criminal conviction. You get them because you owe money. Until a couple of years ago, it was difficult to find out whether you had one against you without going to the airport and trying to leave the country. Now, there's a number you can call during business hours....
I have a friend who came to Israel for a weekend 13 years ago and still cannot leave the country because of such an order - he allegedly owes money. I had another friend - who R"L passed away two years ago - who called me from the airport at 3:00 am and asked if I could convince the border guards to let him on the 1:00 am flight to New York (which had already been held for two hours) because he had an appointment in New York at 11:00 am that day for chemotherapy. He owed property tax (arnona) on an apartment he had vacated years before. I could not get him out, and eventually - at 4:00 or 5:00 am - someone who lived closer to the airport than I do brought him the money to pay the arnona (for the second time) by which time the 1:00 am flight had left and he had to wait for the first flight of the morning and miss his appointment.
But convicted felon Ehud Olmert is allowed to leave for medical reasons and has the gall to ask permission to leave for a purported 'business trip.' And you wonder why this country is so corrupt?
Will they soon be roommates in Ramle prison? Probably not. Olmert gave up the pretension of keeping Kosher when he finished his term as Mayor of Jerusalem.
A new low: Former Prime Minister Olmert gets six years for bribery
In a country where a former President is sitting in jail for sexual assault, you might have thought we could not go much lower. Well, we just might have. As many of you probably know, former Prime Minister Ehud Korruption Olmert has been sentenced to six years in jail for accepting bribes in connection with the construction of the Holyland colossus on the southern edge of Jerusalem.
Olmert going jail barely scratches the surface of the rot and corruption among Israel's top officials. I want to show you two small points in the article linked above rather than going through the whole thing (which I am too busy to do anyway - those of us Israelis who are honest work hard for a living), in order to give you some idea why Israel's ruling classes are so corrupt.
Experts had been estimating that Olmert would likely get at least a
few years in prison, and that his being prime minister would not get him
special treatment.
Still, on a separate prior and less serious
conviction in his July 2012 Jerusalem corruption trial, Olmert received
only community service with the court noting his service to the state as
one of the reasons for leniency.
Usually, elites like Olmert get off the hook no matter what they do. It's only when the corruption hits the judges over the head that they feel they must act.
The judge added that Olmert was an extremely talented man that made a
great contribution to the state through his public service. Rozen said,
however, that his hands were tied by law to certain set punishment
guidelines without discretion.
Rozen said that Olmert was guilty
of "moral turpitude," meaning that he would not be allowed to reenter
politics for at least seven years.
Why do the judge's hands have to be tied in order for him to do the right thing?
And notice that they're already counting the years, months and days until Olmert can return to politics. For those of you who lived through the '70's in the US, can you imagine the voters ever electing Richard Nixon to another office? Spiro Agnew? In most of the western world, when you're convicted of corruption or bribery, your career in politics is over. Not in Israel. And until that changes, we Israelis will continue to be victimized by corrupt politicians like Olmert.
Finally: Ehud Korruption Olmert convicted on bribery charges
It's been a long time coming, but it's finally happened. Former Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert has been convicted of bribery in what's known as the Holyland case. The Holyland is the eyesore that overlooks the Malcha mall on the right side of the Begin expressway in southern Jerusalem. Eyesore because what was supposed to be a 25,000 square foot project became a colossal 311,000 square foot project due to bribes paid to Olmert and others.
But first, let's go to the videotape.
Completing nearly two years of what may be looked back on as the
trial of the century, the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday convicted
former prime minister Ehud Olmert on charges of bribery.
With
a thundering ruling that will shake the country, Judge David Rozen
also convicted former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, former Bank
Hapoalim Chairman Dan Dankner, Olmert's former chief-of-staff Shula
Zaken and, in total, 10 out of 13 individual defendants (3 defendants
are corporations.)
Judge David Rozen said that Olmert lied in court. The court cited
Zaken's total devotion to Olmert as proof that he had to know about all
of the bribes she was receiving from main state witness Shmuel Duchner.
Rozen said that Zaken even got convicted in the prior Jerusalem corruption trial rather than testify against Olmert.
On
the NIS 500,000 in bribes given to Yossi Olmert, Ehud's brother, the
court completely rejected Ehud's story that he did not know that Duchner
gave the money to Yossi. The court added that there was no reason for
Duchner to give Yossi money except at Ehud's request since they did not
know each other.
Rozen said that Duchner was always careful to
make sure sponsors like Olmert knew he had given bribes to secure their
help with the Holyland project.
Olmert was convicted of some of
the most serious bribery charges including large sums. Absent Rozen
being very sympathetic since Olmert is a former prime minister (and
Olmert did get this sympathy at his Jerusalem trial) he could be looking at serious jail time. Sentencing arguments in the case were scheduled to begin on April 28.
The judge completely rejected Zaken's story that money she got from Duchner was not bribes, but part of a romance between them.
Rozen
called Zaken a "central mover" in the bribery scheme, telling the
state that he is not convinced he wants to accept an easy sentence for
plea bargain. He added that in light of his conviction of Olmert
already, it is unclear that her evidence is a "revolution."
...
Though the state originally rejected Zaken's new evidence as
insufficient, at the start of last week, Zaken produced to the state a
series of cassette tapes which the state said provide a "serious
suspicion" of obstruction of justice and witness tampering against
Olmert.
By moving forward with the verdict, the plea bargain
reportedly could require Zaken to cooperate with the state in filing a
new indictment against Olmert for the obstruction of justice charges –
though the state may call it a day having gotten a conviction.
In
the Holyland trial, Olmert was accused of accepting over NIS 1.5
million in bribes (out of around NIS 9 million given to public officials
in total), either directly or through Zaken or his brother Yossi to
smooth over various legal and zoning obstacles. The allegations relate
to the 1993-mid 2000s period while Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and
Minister of Infrastructure, Trade and Industry.
The prosecution's closing arguments already significantly backed off of the NIS 1.5 million number to around NIS 800,000.
...
With a conviction, Olmert's career could be over and he could even face jail time.
Judge Rosen announced the acquittal of real estate men Shimon Galon
and Amnon Safran, as well as former Israel Lands Authority head Yaakov
Efrati. According to law, acquittals need to be announced at the start
of the decision.
Other defendants include former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupoliansky,
former city engineer Uri Sheetrit, and businessman Hillel Cherney. All
in all, there were 13 people and three companies on the defendants'
bench in this case.
The judge noted that the testimony of state witness Dachner was
detailed but also contradictory. He preferred Dachner's testimony to
Olmert's, however, and it was the key to the conviction. Olmert "tried
to besmirch the witness, even at the price of lying to the court," the
judge added.
"Hundreds of thousands of shekels were transferred to public
leaders,” wrote Rosen. “The dirty money was given in order to advance
the business of the people who gave the money. Every defendant has his
own corruption case. Dachner came up with the idea and carried out the
bribery deals. In the court, he answered the lawyers' questions as best
he could.”
Dachner gave hundreds of thousands of shekels in bribes to Zaken, the
judge determined. He also "bought Olmert's services," Judge Rosen
wrote. Dachner gave Olmert's brother, Yossi, 500,000 shekels, as a favor
to Ehud Olmert, the judge found. Yossi Olmert had been a successful and
famous academician before he was plunged into debt and left Israel for
the United States.
Rosen also had some devastating comments on Israel's political system.
"We're talking about corrupt and filthy practices," Judge David Rosen saidwhile reading out the verdict, his remarks playing out across all Israelimedia.
He also spoke of a "corrupt political system which has decayed over theyears... and in which hundreds of thousands of shekels were transferred toelected officials".
Rosen also said the former premier had lied to the court in a bid to"blacken the name" of the state's witness.
Olmert reportedly sat expressionless throughout the verdict.
The reading of the verdict is ongoing and has been followed live by
Israeli media since it began, with reporters flitting in and out of the
courtroom to report on the developments.
The sides are expected to file appeals to the Supreme Court.
If Olmert's career is over, the system will by definition be cleaner.
Moshe Feiglin slams the nomination of Shai Nitzan to be Israel's next attorney general.
Moshe Feiglin: The leftist who is the most radical of radicals, the man who took advantage of his public service position to promote a distinctly political agenda and illegally amassed ever-increasing power, was appointed yesterday to be Israel's next Attorney General. The selection of Shai Nitzan, the successor of Taliah Sasson in the blatantly political division of the Justice Department cryptically known as the "Department for Special Functions" has made a mockery of the very foundation upon which the justice system rests: public trust. This appointment proves once again that the justice system cannot heal itself. Instead, it has buried the most basic function of a state: its ability to judge its inhabitants. The Knesset must wake up and ensure that the selection of judges and justice system heads is transferred to the elected representatives of the public. This will be an important step in restoring public trust in Israel's legal structure. It will also save Israel's justice system, for the good of us all.
Much of the Israeli public has less trust in the state's prosecution system than it has in anything else. This nomination won't help that lack of trust. You want to know why the State chased Avigdor Liberman for 17 years? Why it arrested the most recent Ashkenazic chief rabbi yesterday on 'corruption' charges? This is why. Because we have a prosecution system that is inherently biased.
The corruption trial of Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman has ended in an acquittal, possibly paving the way for him to return to the foreign ministry.
A great deal was at stake for Liberman and the Israeli political establishment in the outcome of the legal saga.
Had
he been convicted with a finding of moral turpitude, his resignation as
foreign minister would have been made permanent, he would have been
forced to resign from the Knesset, and he would have been banned from
political life for seven years.
The prosecution’s main allegations
were as follows: First, in October 2008, Ambassador to Belarus Ze’ev
Ben-Aryeh gave Liberman a note with information about a state
investigation into money-laundering allegations against him, discussing
the case with him for three to five minutes.'
Next, the prosecution
said, Liberman destroyed the note, failed to report Ben-Aryeh and then
helped him procure promotions in the Foreign Ministry.
After that, Ben-Aryeh joined Liberman’s bureau in April 2009.
The
prosecution said that Liberman both failed to report Ben-Aryeh to the
Foreign Ministry’s appointments committee and actively campaigned in
fall 2009 for Ben-Aryeh to be appointed as Latvian ambassador.
According
to the prosecution, the campaign included Liberman giving instructions
to then-deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon saying that Ben-Aryeh was
his preferred candidate (all of this based on what Ayalon told police).
In
a 115 page opinion, Judges Hagit Mack-Kalmanovitz, Yitzhak Shimoni and
Eitan Kornhauser ruled Wednesday that Ben-Aryeh had been solely
responsible for initiating and surprising Liberman during the incident,
who had no part in initiating the exchange between them.
The court
also held that Liberman did not know, regardless of whether he and
Ben-Aryeh spoke about the note for a few minutes, that the source of the
note was an Israeli Justice Ministry investigation against him.
...
The court did find that Liberman "acted inappropriately" but added
that "the gravity of the conflict of interest" did not merit a
conviction.
The judges strongly rejected the testimony of Ayalon, stating that it was contradicted by other top Foreign Ministry officials.
They
also wrote that Ayalon had not sufficiently explained how he swiftly
went from defending Liberman's innocence in an interview with Channel 1
while still working for Liberman, to suddenly proclaiming his guilt
shortly after Liberman booted him out of Yisrael Beytenu.
Two things not mentioned here. First, the possibility of this verdict leading to the breakup of Likud Beiteinu. Liberman may not need Netanyahu politically, is opposed to the 'peace process' and is unlikely to want to be in a coalition with Tzipi Livni. He's certainly not going to go along with the idea of Livni being in charge of 'negotiations' with the 'Palestinians' while he is foreign minister in title only.
And second, this may be the end of Danny Ayalon's career. Would you want to join a political party with a high functionary who "swiftly
went from defending Liberman's innocence in an interview with Channel 1
while still working for Liberman, to suddenly proclaiming his guilt
shortly after Liberman booted him out of Yisrael Beytenu"?
Oh yes, one other thing. Why is it that we have once again been treated to the spectacle of a lengthy and expensive trial of a politician of the Right ending in an acquittal? The real corruption here is the Left's dominance of the state's attorney's office.
Two things happened on Monday, June 24, that proved, finally, that Z STREET – and others similarly situated – was correct.
First, the IRS released its 83 page document, “Charting a Path Forward at the IRS,”
in response to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General who found
that the IRS had engaged in inappropriate targeting of certain groups
which had sought tax exempt status from the IRS.
...
The second revelation was one made by Bloomberg News.
That media agency obtained IRS documents revealing that, in addition to
the terms Tea Party and 9/12, other terms were used in flagging
organizations seeking tax exempt status for additional scrutiny. While
the headline of the article, and what was the object of most media
attention, was that terms that suggested not just conservative groups,
but also liberal or progressive groups were given the IRS evil eye –
words such as “occupy” and “progressive” were allegedly triggers, as was
the word “Israel.”
But far down in a long article the Bloomberg reporter explains that, “Disputed Territories” was considered problematic. To wit:
‘Disputed Territories”
The November, 2010 [BOLO - Be On the Look Out] list also has terms
that could be related to Israel, looking for applications that ‘deal
with disputed territories in the Middle East’ and ‘may be inflammatory.’
Well, golly! What kind of a group calls a particular area of land
“disputed territories,” which the vast majority of people, either for
ideological or simply conformity refer to as the “West Bank?” Yes, that
would be strong Zionist groups such as Z STREET.
I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for them to admit that they targeted Americans in Israel because we overwhelmingly support Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria and because we didn't vote for Obama. Maybe that's why so many of us were audited.
The IRS is sickeningly corrupt - no better than the 'tax authorities' of a banana republic. It's time to clean house at the IRS - but to do that, you'd have to start at the White House.
Two and a half years too late, Harpaz to be indicted
Two and a half years too late, JPost reports that Boaz Harpaz is to be indicted for forging a document that prevented Yoav Galant (pictured above) from being appointed IDF Chief of Staff by then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak. What's more interesting is that Gabi Ashkenazi, who was the outgoing chief of staff at the time, may also be indicted.
Boaz Harpaz forged the Harpaz Document and will be indicted,
according to Ran Nizri, a top aide to Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein,
in statements made to the Knesset Control Committee on Tuesday.
Nizri
said the indictment was mostly prepared already and that the only
reasons for the delay in indicting him two-and-a-half years after the
affair exploded onto the public agenda was to allow the continuing
investigations to be completed and to add all additional leads to the
indictment.
Magistrate Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Danny Efroni reported to the
Committee that he could not give an exact timeline for a decision on
whether he would indict former IDF chief-of-staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi
Ashkenazi and his former top aid Col. (res.) Ezer Viner.
Pressed
by Committee Chairman (Shas) MK Amnon Cohen on whether a decision would
be made within two to four months, Efroni demurred, but said that
investigators would work as hard as they could to come to a decision as
soon as possible.
Ashkenazi and Viner are under investigation for the military law violation of conduct unbecoming during their IDF service.
Benny Gantz was eventually appointed chief of staff.
Caroline Glick reports how former Mossad director Meir Dagan and former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi may be weakening Israel's defenses against Iran.
Since
the beginning of his first term as prime minister 15 years ago,
Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently warned that the greatest dangers
Israel faces stem from the forces of global jihad generally and the
Iranian regime and its nuclear program specifically. After taking office
for the second time in 2009, Netanyahu made blocking Iran’s rise to
nuclear power his top priority. He ordered the heads of the Mossad and
the IDF to prepare plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
Last
Friday, Haaretz reported that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former
IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi refused to obey his
order. Rather than prepare strike plans, Dagan and Ashkenazi warned that
such a strike would foment a regional war. That is, rather than do
their jobs, they made excuses for failing to fulfill their duty to obey
Israel’s elected leadership.
Not wanting to take them on
directly, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to wait them
out. Dagan and Ashkenazi were both set to finish their terms at the
beginning of the year, and Netanyahu and Barak figured they could
replace them with commanders who would abide by the government’s wishes.
Specifically, Barak and Netanyahu believed that by replacing Ashkenazi
with his deputy Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, they would have a military leader
willing and able to take on the central challenge of preventing Iran
from becoming a nuclear power.
Barak announced last August that
Galant would replace Ashkenazi as IDF chief in January. Galant’s
appointment was approved by the government and by the Senior
Appointments Commission. But in late January, the government was forced
to cancel it. And this week we received new indications that Galant’s
appointment fell victim to what has been likened to a palace coup. That
is, the government was denied its right to choose its military leader by
a group of senior officials who deliberately usurped that power from
the government.
In January, we learned that Ashkenazi’s close
associate Lt.-Col. (ret.) Boaz Harpaz had forged a document that was
transferred by Ashkenazi’s office to Channel 2. The forgery purported to
be a memo written for Galant by the public relations firm owned by Eyal
Arad – Kadima’s public relations guru. The forged memo detailed a
public relations campaign that would discredit Galant’s rivals and
Ashkenazi, and so pave the way for Galant’s appointment as chief of
General Staff. Channel 2’s broadcast of the memo seriously harmed
Galant’s public image.
The police opened an investigation, and
Harpaz admitted to forging the document. Despite revelations that Harpaz
was in intensive, continuous contact with Ashkenazi’s wife Ronit and
had a longstanding close friendship with Ashkenazi himself, the Military
Advocate- General decided not to investigate Ashkenazi or any other
officer about their ties to Harpaz and his forged document.
Well, at least they're now (apparently) investigating Ashkenazi. But read the whole thing. Should Weinstein be indicted too?
Don't gloat fellow Israelis: 50 companies admit cooperating with NSA but it's much worse here
Despite the title I gave this picture when I saved it, it's not Jerusalem. It's an Israeli camera, but it's Surat, India. And while many Israelis may be watching with some bemusement as Americans go ballistic over reports that they're being spied on, we really have nothing about which to gloat.
PJ Media is now reporting that some 50 US companies have admitted to cooperating with the National Security Agency.
Analysts at the National Security Agency can now secretly access
real-time user data provided by as many as 50 American companies,
ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers, two
government officials familiar with the arrangements said.
Several of the companies have provided records continuously since
2006, while others have given the agency sporadic access, these
officials said. These officials disclosed the number of participating
companies in order to provide context for a series of disclosures about
the NSA’s domestic collection policies. The officials, contacted
independently, repeatedly said that “domestic collection” does not mean
that the target is based in the U.S. or is a U.S. citizen; rather, it
refers only to the origin of the data.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that U.S. credit card
companies had also provided customer information. The officials would
not disclose the names of the companies because, they said, doing so
would provide U.S. enemies with a list of companies to avoid. They
declined to confirm the list of participants in an internet monitoring
program revealed by the Washington Post and the Guardian, but both
confirmed that the program existed.
“The idea is to create a mosaic. We get a tip. We vet it. Then we mine the data for intelligence,” one of the officials said.
What is especially troubling is that both companies have had
extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s
intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of
spying on the U.S.
In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining
software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international
eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level
employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The
employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a
very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to
us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the
Israelis.”
Because of his position, it was something Binney should have been alerted to, but wasn’t.
“In addition to being the technical director,” he said, “I was the
chair of the TAP, it’s the Technical Advisory Panel, the foreign
relations council. We’re supposed to know what all these foreign
countries, technically what they’re doing…. They didn’t do this that
way, it was under the table.” After discovering the secret transfer of
the technology, Binney argued that the agency simply pass it to them
officially, and in that way get something in return, such as access to
communications terminals. “So we gave it to them for switches,” he said.
“For access.”
But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the
technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the
world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as
extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic
and diplomatic information back to them. “And then five years later,
four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think
there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.”
Narus was formed in
Israel in November 1997 by six Israelis with much of its money coming
from Walden Israel, an Israeli venture capital company. Its founder and
former chairman, Ori Cohen, once told Israel’s Fortune Magazine that his partners have done technology work for Israeli intelligence. And among the five founders was Stanislav Khirman, a husky, bearded Russian who had previously worked for Elta Systems, Inc. A division of Israel Aerospace Industries, Ltd., Elta
specializes in developing advanced eavesdropping systems for Israeli
defense and intelligence organizations. At Narus, Khirman became the
chief technology officer.
A few years ago, Narus boasted that it is “known for its ability to
capture and collect data from the largest networks around the world.”
The company says its equipment is capable of “providing unparalleled
monitoring and intercept capabilities to service providers and
government organizations around the world” and that “Anything that comes
through [an Internet protocol network], we can record. We can
reconstruct all of their e-mails, along with attachments, see what Web
pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their [Voice over Internet
Protocol] calls.”
Like Narus, Verint was founded by in Israel by Israelis, including
Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, a former Israeli intelligence officer. Some 800
employees work for Verint, including 350 who are based in Israel,
primarily working in research and development and operations, according to the Jerusalem Post. Among its products is STAR-GATE, which according to the company’s sales literature,
lets “service providers … access communications on virtually any type
of network, retain communication data for as long as required, and query
and deliver content and data …” and was “[d]esigned to manage vast
numbers of targets, concurrent sessions, call data records, and
communications.”
In a rare and candid admission to Forbes,
Retired Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the highly secret
Unit 8200, Israel’s NSA, noted his former organization’s influence on
Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as other Israeli companies that
dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and surveillance market. “Take NICE,
Comverse and Check Point for example, three of the largest high-tech
companies, which were all directly influenced by 8200 technology,” said
Gefen. “Check Point was founded by Unit alumni. Comverse’s main product,
the Logger, is based on the Unit’s technology.”
According to a former chief of Unit 8200, both the veterans of the
group and much of the high-tech intelligence equipment they developed
are now employed in high-tech firms around the world. “Cautious
estimates indicate that in the past few years,” he told a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’artez
in 2000, “Unit 8200 veterans have set up some 30 to 40 high-tech
companies, including 5 to 10 that were floated on Wall Street.” Referred
to only as “Brigadier General B,” he added, “This correlation between
serving in the intelligence Unit 8200 and starting successful high-tech
companies is not coincidental: Many of the technologies in use around
the world and developed in Israel were originally military technologies
and were developed and improved by Unit veterans.”
And whether or not the two companies that are
being cited did indeed work with the US government to gather
information, Israel would have been a perfect “sandbox” (virtual
practice zone) for the companies to perfect their technology
surveillance, according to attorney Jonathan Klinger.
That is because the laws regarding privacy
on the Internet and electronic communications in Israel are much more
“liberal” — for the security agencies, that is – than they are in many
other democracies, notably the US. Indeed, Israelis can only envy the
uproar among Americans over the PRISM program, says Klinger, an internet
privacy expert.
Compared to the extremely wide powers of Israeli police
and security organizations over electronic data, “the powers of the
American agencies are a joke.”
...
According to the reports, the US government’s
PRISM data-gathering program (which, according to James Clapper, US
Director of National Intelligence, is not aimed at Americans, but
against foreigners, and only to prevent terror attacks) is facilitated
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is specifically
aimed at gathering intelligence on enemy agents or terrorists who are
not US citizens. The government must show probable cause of security
concerns to the organizations from which it is requesting the
information.
That is apparently not the case in Israel, Klinger wrote in a blog post,
“giving my two cents on Prism. Over the past decade, Israel has enacted
a number of surveillance laws that allow unrestrained use of personal
information of citizens for routine investigations, not only for the
prevention of terrorism.
Among those laws is one ratified by the
Knesset in 2007 allowing police and other agencies to request – and get –
information about individuals under investigation, even without the
requirement to get a warrant from a judge. Companies are required to
supply information on individuals who may be connected — even
circumstantially — to a crime. For example, if police suspect that a
murder took place at a certain time and a specific location, they can
request location data on customers from cellphone service providers, in
order to identify those who were in the area when the crime was
committed, said Klinger.
In 2009, police filed 9,000 requests for
information from cellphone and Internet companies, including 2,000 for
offenses relating to “public order” — offenses which, Klinger said,
often had political overtones, aimed at leaders of protest groups and
movements.
In 2008, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel filed a lawsuit
against police and other security organizations, as well as against
communications companies like Bezeq, cellphone service providers Cellcom
and Pelephone, Internet service providers Netvision and Hot, and many
others, claiming that police and security agencies, in collusion with
the communications companies, had gone way beyond their authorities in
demanding information about customers.
The courts dismissed the case.
Apparently emboldened, said Klinger, the government asked the Knesset to
expand the number of agencies that could request data, to include tax
authorities, the Agriculture and Environment Ministries, and even the
Parks and Nature Authority.
As things stand today, all those agencies, and
more, can request information from communications companies without
having to present a warrant. Companies that refuse to comply may be
hauled into court to justify why they refused. In such cases, said
Klinger, the courts invariably rule for the government.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon (right) is denying a report that he testified against his former boss, Avigdor Lieberman (left). This is from the first link.
A short time
after the programs were aired, Ayalon denied in a written statement that he was
even questioned by police, and Liberman maintained his innocence on all
charges.
What gives these reports a soap-opera feel is that earlier this
month Liberman, in a complete surprise, left Ayalon off his party’s list of
candidates for the next Knesset as part of the merged Likud- Beytenu list.
According to the Channel 2 report, the Yisrael Beytenu party leader is expected
to try to defend himself by saying Ayalon was taking revenge.
Liberman is
also expected, according to Channel 2, to point to an earlier interview by
Ayalon in which he supposedly said he did not remember the events surrounding
the allegations against Liberman.
The prosecution and the police both
refused to confirm or deny whether Ayalon was recently
questioned.
According to the broadcasts, the deputy foreign minister was
questioned only recently about the affair, which until then had only involved
allegations that former ambassador Ze’ev Ben- Aryeh leaked investigative
material to Liberman, after which Liberman passively withheld information on
this from a Foreign Ministry committee that was considering Ben-Aryeh for a new
posting in Latvia.
The new allegations against Liberman, which started to
surface last week, are that he did not just passively withhold information, but
actively interfered in the appointment process on Ben-Aryeh’s behalf.
The
reports also said that 10 candidates originally had sought the Latvia position,
but most dropped out when promised other promotions – possibly by Liberman
through other Foreign Ministry officials speaking on his behalf.
Other
media reports have alleged that Liberman concealed negative reports about
Ben-Aryeh from the appointments committee. Yediot Aharonot quoted sources who
said that “the influence of Liberman” was pervasive throughout the
process.
Liberman maintains that Ben-Aryeh was an able diplomat who was
well-suited for the job.
But the State Prosecutor's office (surprise) doesn't exactly have clean hands either.
Also on Monday, the State Comptroller’s Office formally
confirmed that it had received requests to investigate Attorney-General Yehuda
Weinstein’s handling of the Liberman case.
Liberman and many other
politicians have questioned Weinstein’s decision to delay an indictment so he
could investigate the new charges after the attorney-general announced he would
file the indictment last week, and after Liberman had already resigned as
foreign minister.
A spokeswoman for the YAHBAL serious and international crimes unit, which investigated the Liberman
case, on Monday refused to explain why the case was reopened – when just last
week she had said the unit considered the matter closed.
She added that
the case was, from the unit’s point of view, complete, and as it had been handed
over to the prosecutor, it was his office that was responsible for providing
answers about the recent developments.
Media reports indicated that there
may have been disagreements between the prosecution and the police about
reopening the case for more questioning, but it is Weinstein who ultimately will
make the final decision.
On Sunday, the state explained its decision to
reopen the case for further questioning based on a Channel 10 news report from
last week indicating that the fraud allegations against Liberman could be
amended to include active fraud instead of mere passive fraud.
One
ministry source said that while it was not unusual for foreign ministers to
indicate their preferences for ministerial posts, what made this case different
was the allegation that Liberman received something from Ben-Aryeh beforehand.
Furthermore, the source said, Ben-Aryeh did not distinguish himself as a
diplomat worthy of such a posting after having just recently returned from
Belarus.
The level of corruption in this country is worthy of a third world banana republic despite the fact that we supposedly have so many safeguards in place. It's blatant, open and shameless (see "Olmert, Ehud"). And it's all an outgrowth of the days when the state was the party and the party was the state and all the animals were equal except for the ones who were more equal. Will we ever root out this country's socialist past? Don't bet on it.
Obama's green slush went to the politically connected
Internal emails leaked from the Department of Energy to
CompleteColorado.com conflict with the President's claim to Kyle Clark
of KUSA on October 26th that decisions on failed green energy loans were
insulated from politics and the influence of the White House.
The secretary of former Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert was sentenced to four months of community service on Wednesday, after being convicted in one of the biggest public service scandals in Israel's history. Shula Zaken was convicted of using her position as Olmert's secretary to influence appointments at the Income Tax Authority for the benefit of her brother, Yoram Karshi by brokering bribes. But pending appeals on both sides, she won't be spending a single day in jail. She can just volunteer for four months of community service.
In May, the court found Zaken guilty of abusing her position as bureau chief in the office of then-finance minister Ehud Olmert between October 2005 and March 2006 by brokering bribes to advance the personal interests of her brother, Yoram Karshi.
Judge Haim Li-Ran wrote that, while Zaken had breached the public trust, she was, at the end of the day, a secretary.
What the.... She may have been a secretary but she sure knew which buttons to press and how to press them.
State prosecutors had sought jail time for Zaken because she betrayed the public that put its confidence in her.
Zaken was convicted of fraud and breach of trust offenses in February in regard to the Tax Authority affair, one of the most serious cases of public-sector corruption in the state’s history.
Her trial was held separately from that of the other defendants in the affair. Three have already been sentenced to prison terms by the Central District Court in Petah Tikva.
In convicting Zaken earlier this year, Judge Haim Li-Ran said her testimony before the court and statements to police had been “packed with inaccuracies” and that her version of events did “not hold water.”
Zaken faces charges in two other corruption cases. She is currently standing trial alongside Olmert in the Jerusalem District Court where she has been indicted in connection with the Rishon Tours and Talansky affairs. That trial is in its closing arguments phase.
Rishon Tours is a claim that Olmert double and triple billed trips abroad and pocketed the extra cash. Talansky involves a claim by Olmert's laundryman, Morris Talansky, that he gave massive amounts of cash to Olmert in return for services rendered. Talansky, who lives in the US, has not been charged.
Zaken was also indicted in connection with the Holyland real estate corruption scandal.
The related trial opened this February in the Tel Aviv District Court.
The 'justice system' in this country is simply beyond absurd....
Some of you from outside Israel might be wondering how with the Likud in charge, we have a Prime Minister who is falling all over himself to obey the unelected, self-perpetuating 'Supreme Court' by giving away land that is our birthright. Adina Kutnicki tries to explain.
Briefly, according to Dr. Martin Sherman (an eminent Israeli political scientist and the founder of The Israeli Institute for Strategic Studies) in "Who really runs Israel?" (Ynet, 4/21/2010), "[a]lthough the right wing consistently wins elections, it never really gets into power. It is a phenomenon that can only be explained by the existence of some influence extraneous to the political system that imposes policy outcomes that diverge radically from those that should be expected from regular operation of political routine."
Furthermore, few understand the "unholy alliance" among Israel's civil society (funded and fueled by foreign NGOs), AKA its ruling elites, and their pernicious affect upon Israel's policy outcomes. They operate with impunity inside media, legal, diplomatic, and cultural institutions, mainly schooled by post-/anti-Zionist academics headquartered within social sciences/humanities departments. The above unelected functionaries act as cheerleaders/disseminators for rulings imposed (or about to be) by a predisposed leftist, pro-Arab court system. In turn, pressure is exerted upon the political leadership to execute their dictates. Indeed, Israel's court system has supplanted its legislature.
The toxic mixture of civil society elites servicing unelected Supreme Court justices (they choose their own replacements) led to the following recent -- out of volumes of others -- pro-Arab ruling.
According to Moshe Dann (a Ph.D. historian) in his op-ed "Who makes the law?" at the Jerusalem Post (March 28, 2012):
Once again former chief justice Dorit Beinisch and a few of her colleagues have usurped the role and powers of the legislature and sought to create new law. The same tactic of appealing directly to the Supreme Court which does not examine evidence has used in legal disputes over contested areas such as Migron. But in Lessans' case (a dispute over the ownership of dunams in Kedumim, located in the Shomron) the court went beyond deciding on a specific place and issued a discriminatory edict. The justices did not rule on who owns the land since the Arab claimants clearly do not. They ruled on who did not own the land, namely Michael Lessans, because, according to the court, the right to acquire land by chazaka does not apply to Jews. (Holy smokes) This ruling should send shivers down the spine of everyone who respects the rule of law.
There's another key cog in the wheel of pushing the State to the Left and that is the State prosecution system. While we have more than our share of corrupt politicians (that's what happens when politicians are beholden to the party and not to the people - a point Kutnicki raises), we also have a State's Attorney's office that is probably the most politicized prosecutorial arm in the Western World. Many an Israeli politician has obeyed the Left's desires when threatened with prosecution that could end his career. See: Sharon, Ariel.
Surprise: Countries that don't recognize Israel are mostly corrupt
There are 36 countries in the world whose governments refuse to have relations with Israel, and I'm sure you'll all be shocked to learn that on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being most corrupt and 10 being cleanest, those 36 countries have an average Corruption Perceptions Index of 3.16.
As it happens, the countries that refuse to have diplomatic relations with Israel are, by and large, among the most corrupt in the world, some having a cleanliness score of no more than 1 or 1.5 out of ten. The average rating for these refusal countries is 3.16. (The US has a score of 7.1, Israel 5.8).
The government decided it has enough economic problems on its hands and waived its right to increased taxes on the Electric Company's increased fees. As a result, our electric bills will 'only' be going up by 12.5% (retroactive to January 1) rather than the 19.5% or 23.5% which we had been warned about earlier.
Electricity prices are set to rise 12.5% next week, instead of 19.5% requested by the Israel Electric Company. The 7% “discount” came as a result of the Treasury deciding not to impose additional taxes on diesel fuel. Final permission for the increase was given by a joint Finance and Environment Ministry committee.
The increase is due to the rise in the price of oil on world markets, which has again struck the $100 a barrel level.
One of the things that takes getting used to in this country is something I refer to as the 'ta'iti' or 'ta'inu' syndrome. (I made a mistake/We made a mistake). In the civilized country of my birth, if a government agency, utility, or even department store, made a mistake in figuring out your bill, they would never come back and ask to be repaid. Once you paid your bill, you were done. Here in the Jewish state, that's not the case. Everyone is entitled to make a mistake except you.
For example, about two years ago, the National Insurance Institute sent us a letter saying that they had accidentally overpaid our benefits for the birth of our youngest child, who was five years old at the time. We had one week to pay them back, or face the prospect of paying interest and linkage (to the cost-of-living) fees on top of what we 'owed.' We called our accountant, and he said that we really have no choice - they are the only ones who have the numbers. This happened three times within the space of about six months, for a total payment of about NIS 30,000 (around $8,000 at today's exchange rate). For those of you who are wondering how one comes up with that kind of money within a week, it's quite simple: You pay it in multiple payments on your credit card. God willing, we will be done in three months. Until then, we are doing without a car because ours died two months ago....
The next surprise with which we are going to be hit is already on the horizon. I have been getting panicky emails from Mrs. Carl (who is working out of the house today) and with good reason. It seems that the Electric Company made a mistake in its rates (hindsight is always 20/20 or 6/6 if you are metric), and has received approval to raise its rates by 19%. To add insult to injury, the rate hike is effective retroactive to January. And on top of that, only two members of the five-member rate commission did not show up to the public hearing on the rate increase and, you guessed it, they are the two members who are supposed to represent the public.
The Authority held an emergency session on Thursday to discuss the warnings from Israeli credit rating agencies of lowering the rating of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) bonds following its announcement that it needs immediate financing of NIS 3.5 billion in order to purchase fuel due to disruptions in the flow of gas from Egypt.
The price rise is expected to take effect at the end of the public hearing, in about two weeks. The electricity tariffs will be retroactive from the beginning of 2011.
Two of the five members of the Public Utility Authority (Electricity) plenum did not participate in the session because of the short notice given and as a result of time constraints. The two are Ministry of National Infrastructures representatives Aharon Doron and public representative from the Ministry of National Infrastructure Ophir Buchnick. Consultation by telephone was held with one of the representatives that did not attend the session.
Yes, of course, we all have to pitch in and pay thousands of extra Shekels to make sure the Electric Company (whose employees get unlimited, free electricity) doesn't have a drop in its credit rating.
Mrs. Carl also sent me a link to this site (which looks worthwhile for Anglos here), which urges us all to write letters of protest, as if we have representatives in the Knesset (we don't - they represent their parties and not us) and as if any of them might do something about it. Just how corrupt is the union-run Israel Electric Company?
The Israel Electric Corporation is in need of cash, at least in part due to the disruptions to the supply of Egyptian natural gas. Of course, many also cite the inefficiencies and high salaries at the Electric Corporation as a huge drain on their coffers. For instance, did you know that the average employee at the Electric Corporation makes 16,273 NIS per month? That is 2.3 times the average wage in Israel! The current average salary was reached after a recent 11.2% raise (averaging 1,645 NIS) in September 2010.
And that doesn't include the free benefit of all that electricity....
But no, the sample letter is not directed to the Knesset, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Infrastructures or the Minister of Finance. It's directed at some poor bureaucrat at the public utilities commission named Osnat Marom. I suspect she will be taking vacation between now and the July 25 deadline for sending letters.
The letter is in Hebrew. All you have to do is cut and paste it and sign your name. This is Israel. They won't read it anyway. They'll just count. Besides, if you have a better letter than anyone else in the socialist paradise (the Electric Company along with several other government companies is a vestige of the bad old days when the socialists controlled everything), someone might try to charge you more or something. And it won't matter in the end anyway. There's no election coming anytime soon.
And you wondered why Jews aren't breaking down the door to move here from Western countries....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
