Bingo-king Irving Moscowitz has come to Israel for a brief visit, todetermine who will lead this state for the next four years.
Moskowitz has declared that he is prepared to contribute a milliondollars to Benny Begin, on the condition that Begin succeeds inuniting the extreme Right and turning it into a decisive factor inthe elections. He has also decided to begin construcing hisprovocateurs’ citadel in Ras-Al Amud –an act certain to bring aboutbloodshed even before the elections. He is dictating to us ournational agenda: The destruction of the Oslo Accords, resumption ofwar, Greater Israel, Jewish theocracy, more and more settlements,more and more dead, more and more blood and tears. As for Moscowitz,both he and his family will watch the spectacle from afar, prayingfor us.
Moscowitz is not unique. Dozens of billionaires are running our lives byremote control. Not all are gambling kings. There is also the mob, aswell as regular businessmen — individuals who have accumulated wealth, inone way or another, and who are willing to set aside a certain portionof it for the election of our next Prime Minister, and for controllingIsrael’s future. After all, these are good Jews, and this is a Jewishstate.
I do not believe that there is another state anywhere in the world with thisphenomenon. People from other countries, who do not share our fate, whodo not pay Israeli taxes, whose sons and daughters do not serve inour army, who do not bear the consequences of our government’s actions,are the ones who call the shots in our elections.
It is, of course, a state of affairs which existed in the Americancolonies at one time. When the Americans were finally fed up withthis state of affairs, their war for independence began. The vastmajority of colonists came from England, bringing with them theEnglish traditions, yet they refused to allow London to run the showin America. So, too, did the Spanish in South America, sending backhome the emissaries from Madrid, declaring themselves new andindependent states.
Yet we Israelis continue to live in a colonial reality. Israel is anoccupied territory. But unlike other occupied lands, we are notrebelling against our occupiers. The state of affairs seems perfectlynatural to us. After all, aren’t the occupiers Jews themselves? Andisn’t Israel — as it clearly states in one of our laws — “The State ofthe Jewish People?” The Jewish people in Brooklyn and in Florida.
Anyone setting his sights on the Premiership of Israel heads off toAmerica “to fundraise.” Binyamin Netanyahu devoted a few years toan intensive campaign among American Jewish millionaires, from Mister RonLauder to Rabbi Irwing Moscowitz. Those, in turn, financed hisinvasion of the State of Israel: At first the takeover of the Likud,followed by the takeover of the entire state. Ehud Barak, as well,has devoted some time “to woo the millionaires,” as a preamble to thestruggle for the Premiership. And, most recently, Roni Milo has alsodone the same. Ergo: do not even dream of running for thePremiership unless you have the solid backing of a bunch of Jewishmultimillionaires who have no intention of settling in Israelthemselves.
But money is not the sole determining factor in this game. On the eve ofelection day, planeloads of haredim arrive, some living and some dead (asrumor has it), and, having cast their ballots, fly back home. Inother words, thousands of non-Israeli residents with a fictitiousIsraeli citizenship, who can’t tell the difference between KiryatArbah and Kiryat Shmoneh, who will not suffer if Syrian gas-ladenmissilies or Iranian nuclear missiles rain on Israel some day as aresult of the policies dictated by them, are the ones who end updetermining whether we face war or peace.
The last election was determined by 29,457 votes — and one can safelyassume that an even greater number of haredim had been sent to Israel bythe Lubavitch and their ilk for a quick voting visit of a few hours.
This foreign control over our state is not limited to election day. TheMoscowitzes have played a key role in turning theharedi/messianic/nationalistic camp into a dominant forcein our country. This camp has vast financial resources at itsdisposal. They can establish broadcasting stations, settlements,newspapers, organizations and unlimited propaganda-campaigns,without any limits on their means — against the pathetic meansof the peace camp, which essentially subsists on a hand-to-mouthbasis. Only a portion of the nationalist camp monies is robbed fromstate coffers. The rest comes from the foreign tycoons. Some ofthese tycoons — narcotics and gambling czars, owners of nursinghomes in disgracefully shoddy condition, and other unsavorybusinesses — contribute money to atone for their sins and earn aticket to the hereafter. Others are content with this earthly world–contributing to the candidate who will, in time, give them a heftyallotment of the State spoils.
No party is standing up to this disgraceful state of affairs, because allparties hope to get a slice of the pie. When the law of party-funding waspassed in early 1973, the creators of the law (the two large parties)rationalized the robbery of the public coffers by claiming that this billwould put a stop to corrupt practices of party-financing by privateinterests. But the law had deliberately left a huge loophole: It didnot put any limits on contributions from abroad.
In the renowned playright Friedrich Durrenmatt’s play “The Old Lady’sVisit,” the title character comes to visit from abroad, and uses herwealth to turn the villagers into murderers. The Moscowitzes are tryingto turn all the citizens of Israel into suicides.
There is only one way to rid us of this conquest: To enact a basic lawwhich would categorically prohibit the acceptance of contributions fromforeigners, whether to finance elections or for any other politicalreason.