To: the President.
From: the National Security Advisor.
Top Secret.
I hereby submit to you, Mr. President, the report of the secret task force for reformingIsrael, parallel to the task force working on the reform of the Palestinian Authority.
The faults of the Israeli system are known to all: an autocratic one-man rule by a leadersurrounded by cronies and yes-men, a leader who is a chronic liar whose every word isuntrustworthy, corruption that penetrates every echelon of government, democraticinstitutions which serve only as window-dressing, the lack of a constitution, the absence ofa real opposition, a multi-party system that is just a pretense, media that are fullymobilized in the service of the government.
This system is unable to move towards peace. Since you, Mr. President, have determined thatpeace is in the basic national interest of the United States, we must use our power in order tobring about a thorough reform.
Following are some of the findings of the task force:
One-man rule: In theory, Israel is governed by a democratic leadership with decentralizedauthorities and a system of checks and balances. In fact, the situation is quite different.
By a sophisticated labyrinth of make-belief institutions – government, cabinet, innercabinet, “kitchen” “kitchenette” – a situation has been created that allows Mr. Sharon todecide and execute anything he wants.
In practice, Mr. Sharon acts through a small group of family members and cronies who have beendevoted to him for decades, but who have never been elected. (Conspicuous among them is his sonOmri and Messrs. Weisglas and Genger.) Members of the official cabinet have no influencewhatsoever. Messrs. Peres and Ben-Eliezer, for example, serve only as rubber-stamps.
Corruption: The existing Israeli system is based on general, systematic andinstitutionalized corruption.
Large chunks of the national budget are transferred – both openly and secretly – as bribes toreligious and other parties who keep him in power, and parts of these go into the pockets oftheir functionaries. These huge sums are stolen from the general public at a time of growingunemployment and lack of funds for the infrastructure, when there is even no money to assure adecent living to invalids, the elderly, the unemployed and to handicapped children, decenthospitalization for the sick, not to mention decent living conditions for prisoners, who arekept in barbarous conditions.
Election campaigns are tainted by general corruption. Leading candidates receive secretlyand illegally huge amounts of money from local and foreign interest groups, which expect, ofcourse, to be repaid many times over once their candidate comes to power. Every campaign isfollowed by a long train of criminal indictments, which are but the tip of the iceberg.
The Prime Minister himself, who is the owner of the biggest private farm in Israel, is involvedin directing agricultural policy, including the price of water and the regulation ofagricultural imports,
Much as in the Palestinian Authority, almost all the leading positions in the government andprivate services and corporations are handed out to cronies of the Prime Minister and membersof the central committee (numbering thousands) of the governing party, most of them withoutelementary qualifications and talent. All the previous governments did the same. Everyministry is, of course, staffed and stuffed with cronies of the minister, and so are localauthorities etc. In this way, a huge parasitical apparatus has been created at the expense ofordinary taxpayers.
In addition, taxpayers have to carry the burden of a large sector of people called “Haredim”(God-fearing) who do not work or pay taxes (nor do they serve in the army, thereby increasingthe compulsory service and reserve duties of all the others.) Many settlers are alsoflourishing at the expense of the general public.
The gap between rich and poor in Israel is bigger than in any Western country, a fact that turnsIsrael into a Third World country.
Mendacity: Mr. Sharon is a certified liar. Already at the beginning of Mr. Sharon’s career,the then Prime Minister, Mr. Ben-Gurion, defined him as a habitual liar. On January 29, 1960,Mr. Ben-Gurion wrote about him in his diary: “If he would wean himself from the habit of notspeaking the truth…he would be an exemplary military leader.” Two years earlier, when Mr.Sharon was promoted to the rank of Colonel, Mr. Ben-Gurion asked him: “Have you stopped sayingthe untruth?”
The mendacity is not a personal trait of Mr. Sharon only, but a method deeply imbedded in theIsraeli leadership. A predecessor of Mr. Sharon, former Prime Minister Shamir, has publiclydeclared that lying for the state is a virtue.
One could cite innumerable instances of this official trait. Mr. Sharon’s immediatepredecessor, Mr. Barak, for example, has spread a mendacious account of the Camp Davis summitconference (Summer 2000), in order to put the blame for the failure on Mr. Arafat. Since then,all the Israeli media repeat this legend daily, in spite of the fact that most leadingcommentators know the truth.
The same goes for the Oslo agreements. The Israeli leadership, with the help of the media,hides the fact that most of the violations have come from the Israeli side (they did notimplement the third troops’ deployment, did not open the four agreed “safe passages” betweenGaza and the West Bank, they have embezzled the tax and customs money collected for thePalestinian Authority, refused to negotiate in good faith about Jerusalem, settlements andrefugees, as stipulated in the agreements, etc.)
It will be remembered that even Mr. Rabin announced that “there are no sacred dates”, therebyrelieving himself of the duty to fulfil any obligation at the agreed time.
It should be mentioned that at the time when the Israeli government has pretended to stopsettlement activity, this activity is in fact continuing at a frantic pace, as discovered byour satellites.
This, Mr. President, is a summary of the report. The task force proposes suspending oureconomic and military aid to Israel until a thorough reform has been undertaken, and toappoint a team of monitors to oversee the results. Israel, like the Palestinians, should alsobe forced to adopt a Constitution.
Yours respectfully,
The Advisor.