Knesset Investigation of Alleged Corruption on the Highest Level of the Disenagement Process Commences

The Israel Parliamentary Knesset Oversight Committee, which oversees all aspects of Israel Government Accountability, chaired by Member of Knesset Dr. Yuri Shtern, of the Israel National Union Party, has summoned the Israeli official appointed by the Prime Minister of Israel to implement the Disengagement to explain a potential conflict of interest that could bring the disengagement process to an unexpected halt.

The hearing will take place at the Knesset on Tuesday, July 26th, at 9:30 a.m.

Summons have also gone out for representatives of Israel’s State Comptroller, The Office of the Prime Minister, the Israeli Police and the Israel Ministry of Justice to also appear.

What has been widely reported in the Israeli media is that the head of the coordination and strategy team in the Prime Minister’s Office in charge of Disengagement, Eival Giladi has also been named as CEO of a massive business venture for Palestinians in Gaza, known as “The Portland Trust”.

Giladi’s highly publicized role in the Portland Trust is to raise half a billion dollars in business loans for business and housing development programs for Palestinians in Gaza, in order to facilitate the construction of 150,000 homes that would be replace the housing in 22 Jewish communities of Katif – the same communities where Giladi is set to oversee their demolition.

In other words: Giladi stands to profit from ventures that would help Palestinians who would benefit from the removal of Jews from their homes – providing Giladi a private financial incentive for him to succeed in his position.

The logical question to ask would be whether Giladi has signed any kind of standard civil service agreement with the office of the Prime Minister of Israel that would constrain Giladi from entering into any potential conflict of interest in his role public service position.

One month ago, after Israel Resource News Agency in Jerusalem first raised the possibility of a potential conflict of interest, the spokesman of the Israel Civil Service Commission told the IMRA news agency in Raanana that the commission would look into the matter.

Since then, the commission spokesman has not returned any calls in this regard.

Two weeks ago, the spokesman of the Prime Minister told Makor Rishon, a weekly newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel, that Giladi had indeed signed an agreement that would obviate any potential conflict of interest. However, the spokesman was not willing to provide the media with a copy of the agreement.

Instead, the Prime Minister’s spokesman has asked that any requests to review Giladi’s agreement be processed through the new Israel Freedom of Information Act, a procedure which usually takes several months…well after the disengagement process has been completed.

Meanwhile, the businessman who is the overall investor in the Portland Trust is Sir Ronald Cohen, the British billionaire who has recently bought a controlling interest in Bezek, the Israeli communications conglomerate which holds a monopoly over telephone land lines in Israel.

Sir Ronald Cohen is not only well connected in Israel.

Cohen is also a well known advisor and supporter of Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, the ministry of finance.

The Cohen appointment of Giladi presents yet another potential of conflict of interest, since the Portland Trust’s corporate portfolio openly states that one of the purposes of the trust is to advance the interests of both the British government and the European Union.

With the U.K. assuming the chairmanship of the EU for the next six months, this carries even greater importance.

The Knesset investigation will also have to determine is whether Giladi, an appointee of the office of the Prime Minister of Israel to implement the disengagement process, is at the one and the same time also advancing the diplomatic interests of foreign powers in that same disengagement process.

The Knesset Committee investigation of Giladi may lead to questions about another key Israeli official’s potential conflict of interests – The Prime Minister’s most important advisor, Dov Weisglass.

Weisglass did sign a standard anti-conflict of interest agreement with the legal advisor of the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel, which committed Weisglass to not engage in any Palestinian business connections, so long as he held public office, which our news agency has reviewed.

There is no stipulation that Weisglass cannot resume Palestinian business connections when he leaves public service.

Since Weisglass’s law firm holds a contract for representing casino development under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, the recommendation of the Portland Trust for further casino development inside the Palestinian Authority would be of particular interest to Weisglass, should be decide to leave his public position.

In sum, all mainstream Israeli media outlets have publicized Giladi’s parallel appointments to the run the disengagement process for the Prime Minister office and to run a corporation for Palestinian development when he will see personal financial stake in this process.

No media in Israel have called into question what seems to be a clear conflict of interest.

Until now.

All this, with the implementation of the Disengagement scheduled to commence less than three weeks after the Knesset investigation of corruption on the highest levels of the Disengagement Process will begin.