1. The question. The question, your honor, is how come the supposed giver of the alleged bribe is under arrest, the supposed go-between in the alleged bribe is under arrest, but the supposed receiver of the alleged bribe is not under arrest? That is what the judge was asked two days ago. That is what we also asked yesterday, and still ask. Is someone still afraid of the supposed receiver of the alleged bribe?
2. The mystery. Mystery and suspense. Who is the "senior figure", "a most senior public figure", "a former very senior officeholder", and also "a senior figure currently overseas", who, according to the suspicions of the police and the prosecutor, lined his pockets so richly? Who is this person who was in the right place at the right time, in Jerusalem at the end of the 1990s, when several problematic real estate deals took place, and were expanded, deals that were carried out, or not carried out, or have not been carried out yet, the outstanding ones being the anti-Jerusalem Holyland project, and the attempt to take over land in Ayalon Park (formerly Hiriya) for a residential project by Hazera? Surely a case for Sherlock Holmes.
3. The gagging order. What are all these gagging orders that have fallen on us lately? Whom are you kidding? What child in Israel doesn't know who is being talked about? Does the "figure" not know that he is the "former very senior officeholder"? Has no carrier pigeon been sent across the ocean to tell the "public figure" what has been revealed here? Does this ban serve some purpose for the investigation, or is it just another dubious headline-catching device by the law enforcement agencies?
4. The friends.How are Avigdor Kelner and Shmuel Dechner these balmy days? The former, of Polar Investments (which has holdings in Hazera, the Holyland project, and Manara Cliff), and the strong man in the company during the period in question, whose name has been connected in the past to real estate corruption affairs, is an old friend of Ehud Olmert, as well as of other senior politicians. The latter, once a senior manager at Clal, afterwards a businessman who got into trouble, left, and returned, has, in the past decade, served as a consultant to Hazera on the plan to build in Ayalon Park, and also as a special consultant to the Holyland project.
5. Fear. From minute to minute there are revelations about well-oiled and well-used bribery mechanisms. This is not about money in envelopes passing from hand to hand. This is big money transferred in an orderly and practiced fashion from a person in the public eye to couriers in respectable professions, via well-known go-betweens, until it reaches the high-placed target: "public figures" in important posts. Among us move several "public servants" from their youth whose official income is known and is not out of this world, who nevertheless have become puzzlingly rich. And who does not know of several more strange real estate projects that logic says could not have been built without a generous bribe being paid?
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 8, 2010
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