What Are Friends For?

Sharon's election campaign started like the triumphal march of a Roman emperor returning from victoriousbattle. The imperator stood in his carriage accepting the roars of adulation, while the chained captives (theLabor Party leaders) shuffled behind.

But the march hit a mud pit. And with every step, it sinks more.

It started with the primary elections in the Likud party. They were conducted on a pure business basis.Since the public opinion polls promised the Likud a third of the 120 Knesset seats, it was worthwhile toinvest money. The politicians paid the vote-traders, some of them known criminals, who hired more than ahundred thousand "new members". These stuffed the 3000-men Central Committee. The newly electedCommittee members sold their votes to the highest bidders among the various candidates for the Likud Knessetlist. Pure business.

All this would have passed quietly, if the direct connection between some of the candidates and organizedcrime had not been apparent. A scandal broke out, the police was compelled to start an investigation.

In the uproar about the role of organized crime in the ruling party, a much more severe phenomenon wasignored: among the candidates about to enter the new Knesset is a former senior Security Service officer, whohas killed with his bare hands a handcuffed Palestinian captive, bashing his head in with a rock. At the time,he was quickly issued a presidential pardon. The coveted place on the Likud list was given him mainly for thisact of heroism.

The highest place on the list went to Tsakhi Hanegbi, who became famous, at the start of his politicalcareer, for organizing pogroms against Arab student on the Tel-Aviv University campus. In order to attractvotes, he published a list of 80 Likud functionaries whom he had provided with jobs in his Ecology Ministry.

The appointment of party hacks to positions in the civil service and government-owned corporations is aglaring violation of public trust. Not only do these functionaries live off the taxpayer's money, but theappointment of party apparatchiks, instead of qualified experts, does immense harm to the public interest.

(It was not by accident that Hanegbi achieved such an elevated place on the party list. Some years ago, theLikud Minister of Education asked the 3000 members of the Central Committee: "Have we come to power inorder to distribute jobs to party members?" Her rhetoric question was answered with a thunderous:"Yes!!!")

The Likud election list started to stink. But the party stalwarts could at least comfort themselves withthe thought that at the top of the list stood a knight of impeccable honor.

Until last week, when a scandal exploded around Ariel Sharon himself.

It started with the disclosure of an official document: a request by the Israeli Ministry of Justice thatthe South African government allow the interrogation of a South African millionaire concerning criminalsuspicions against Ariel Sharon. Who has leaked it? Some suspect the Foreign Office, headed now by BinyaminNetanyahu, Sharon's bitter rival and nemesis.

The story, in brief, is that during the last elections, Sharon received a huge, illegal donation from amysterious company whose owners were unknown. The State Comptroller demanded that Sharon return the money. Hewas compelled to do so, because otherwise he would have had to pay a four-fold fine. Miraculously, he receiveda huge loan from a mysterious source. He states that he got the money from the South-African millionaire. Buteverything was done in an opaque and suspicious way, the money reached him by a circuitous route throughseveral countries. The South African millionaire himself refuses to talk about it, behaving as if he hadcommitted a crime. When Sharon was asked about it by the police, he shifted the responsibility to his twosons, Omer and Gilead, answering questions with "I don't know" and "I am not sure". As ifanybody can believe that he did not ask his sons before the interrogation.

One has to know the background in order to understand the story. This is not the first time that therelationship between Sharon and Jewish millionaires in several countries has caused people in the know toraise their eyebrows, but these things were never brought up in public.

In 1973, when it became clear to Sharon that he would never be appointed Chief-of-Staff, he resigned fromthe army. Within a few months he became the owner of the biggest private farm in the country. A major-generaldoes receive a handsome salary (more than a cabinet minister), but how does one acquire a huge farm with that?In Hebrew slang, such questions are answered with "What are friends for?"

One of Sharon's best friends is the American ex-Israeli billionaire Meshulam Riklis, who made it possiblefor Sharon to acquire the farm. Riklis is also the patron of the Jewish American ex-Israeli billionaire AryehGenger, who is now acting as Sharon's unofficial emissary to the White House. Genger's legal council in Israelis Dov Weisglass, now Sharon's cabinet chief. The South-African millionaire, who is playing now a central rolein the Sharon scandal, is Richard Kern, who served in the IDF in 1948. All these millionaires know each other.

This week it was not clear at all which millionaire gave Sharon the money (some 1.5 million dollars) andwho served only as camouflage. What is the real source of the money? Is it black or white? The more Sharondenies, the more suspicious it looks.

The connection between Israeli generals and Jewish millionaires from abroad is an arresting subject byitself. It is a two-way deal: the generals receive generous support from the millionaires, the millionairesacquire dignity. Generally, these are millionaires who thirst for recognition and believe that they are notaccorded the honor due to them by the "goyish" society in their homelands. They mention at everyopportunity "my friend, the general", have their photos taken with him at state events, entertainhim at their home and are guests at his. When General Ezer Weitzman was the President of Israel, it becameknown that he had been supported by a friendly millionaire for many years. He was not the only general who washelped by an admiring millionaire.

The admiration of the millionaires for the generals is real. Some of them are ashamed of the fact that theyhad emigrated from Israel without serving in the army, facts which at the time were considered shameful.Yitzhaq Rabin once gave them a Hebrew title that can best be translated as "refuse of cowards". Theybelieve that their proximity to Israeli war heroes gives them back their lost honor.

But the proximity to generals is not only a matter of honor. When the generals become ministers in theIsraeli cabinet, they are expected to be generous to their generous benefactors. The fact the Genger isreceives at the White House as Sharon's confidant is not hurting his financial status in the United States,nor does it necessarily induce the authorities in Haifa to remove his accident-prone big chemical enterprisefrom the densely populated Haifa Bay area, where it endangers, according to some experts, the lives of manythousands. Friendship with the Prime Minister has never yet hurt a captain of industry or finance.

All this is not new. What is new is the glare of light that suddenly illuminates dark corners. Theconnection between some of the Likud leaders and organized crime is exposed more and more, and the personalscandal involving Sharon, that also brings new disclosures every day, can do what the intifada, the bloodshed,the economic crisis and the social breakdown could not do: to undermine the foundations of the Likudgovernment. The party already has gone down in the polls from 37 to 27 seats.

A satirical column has offered the Likud a new slogan: "The whole world is against us, except theunderworld."

It can all be summed up with the saying coined some 150 years ago by the British statesman, Lord Acton:"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Few know the second sentence ofLord Acton's admonition: "Great men are always bad men."