So the latest is that the Netanyahu couple are going to be investigated by the State Comptroller for taking airline flights and staying at hotels at the expense of organizations, like Israel Bonds or the Likud that invited Bibi to speak at their fundraisers abroad. Those who broke this “scandal” are indignant that a public servant should accept first-class travel and downtown hotel suites from those who invite him to promote their causes
???
Netanyahu is one of the most well-known and popular Israelis. It’s no surprise that his face sells bonds. He’s also head of the Likud party. Raising money for Likud campaigns is part of his job description. An organization that invites a blockbuster like Bibi to its event makes what his flight and hotel cost many times over. There’s no impropriety in his conduct. If he has to spend all that time on the move in order to do his job, there’s no justification to inflicting Spartan conditions on him while he does.
It’s also the fact that Everybody Does It. To his credit, the State Comptroller, at the urging of the Likud, said he would investigate the travel behavior of other ministers and prime ministers, past and present. Just recently several members of the opposition Kadima party flew to J Street’s annual conference. What are the odds that they flew tourist and stayed at airport hotels?
I find it extremely curious that this alleged scandal broke just as the Knesset approved the “Sheshinski Law,” which changed the rate at which Israel’s considerable gas reserves are taxed. I’ve been observing Israeli politics too long to believe in coincidence. The law was a great blow to several Israeli tycoons, who will no longer be near the top of Forbes 500 list—they will have to content themselves with becoming ordinary common or garden billionaires. They lobbied and threatened Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz with lawsuits—perhaps worse. The two elected officials did their job and saw the legislation through the Knesset.
If this “scandal” did indeed break in retaliation for Netanyahu’s devotion to the public interest and public purse regarding gas royalties, the Knesset should consider voting him and his family lifetime free tickets on El Al as an act of gratitude. The rate of commission will be considerably less than 0.1%.
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Everyone’s talking about Richard Goldstone’s recantation, so a few words about that (He’s only worth a few words). Goldstone’s original report pilloried Israel that’s what he was paid to do. He’s been a UN investigating judge for years. He investigated Serbia before turning to Israel. That’s the source of his money and his ongoing international prestige. He was hired to trash Israel and he knew that if he didn’t deliver the goods he’d never be employed by the UN again. So he delivered the goods he’d been paid for.
Since then the money has been spent and the prestige turned out to be less than advertised, since the entire Jewish world now ostracizes him. Goldstone recanted because the moral indignation aroused by his collusion with Israel’s delegitimizers made him miserable. It’s not like he learned anything new that he didn’t know when he wrote his blood libel. His attitude, then and now, is purely mercenary—and cowardly to boot.
