 Shimon Peres |
JERUSALEM – Top Kadima official and longtime statesman Shimon Peres this week was appointed deputy prime minister of the new Israeli government as well as minister of regional development for the Negev desert, a position reportedly created for Peres at his urging.
Peres’ appointment comes in spite of a possible indictment resulting from an investigation in which he is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly illegal campaign contributions from billionaires with strong ties to Israel’s economy and Negev development projects.
Officials yesterday told the media Peres’ new role reflects Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, the biblical Jewish lands now known as the West Bank, while building up the Negev desert and Galilee regions.
WND first reported in March Olmert’s administration has devised a plan to relocate to the Negev many of the tens of thousands of Jewish residents displaced during any Judea and Samaria withdrawal.
“Peres will be the government’s elder statesman, to be sent on special missions to the Arab world and European nations,” a Kadima official told news agencies yesterday. “His role with be crucial in helping to bolster and build the Negev.”
Olmert announced he will seek to withdrawal from most of Judea and Samaria, where about 200,000 Jews live and which is commonly referred to here as the “Israeli Bible belt.”
A separation barrier, still under construction in certain areas, cordons off nearly 95 percent of Judea and Samaria from Israel’s pre-1967 borders. More than half of the territory’s Jewish residents reside on the side of the fence closest to Israel. About 80,000 more Jews live on the other side of the barrier. Olmert officials have stated the past few weeks the new prime minister plans to enforce a withdrawal from all 68 Jewish towns that fall outside the barrier.
The question of what to do with the Jewish residents who would be displaced as a result of any large-scale withdrawal has yet to be publicly addressed, although some officials have stated they will try to bolster the few Judea and Samaria Jewish communities that may remain after any disengagement.
Seven months after Israel’s evacuation of 8,500 residents from Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip, many of the former Gaza residents still are living in temporary housing, including hotels and dormitories, and have not received full compensation payments promised by the government. A report by Israel’s state comptroller recently blasted the Israeli government for being “inexcusably unprepared” in dealing with the Gaza evacuees’ relocation programs.
A top Kadima official told WND Olmert’s plan is to push for any displaced Jewish residents to either move to other Judea communities that will remain intact or to settle in the Israeli Negev desert.
“We are talking about a very large population that would be removed from the West Bank,” the Kadima member told WND, speaking on condition his name be withheld since he said a draft plan has not yet been completed. “The plan is to push for them to settle in the Negev, which is able to accommodate the big numbers and which is already prepared to accept a large influx of new residents.”
“The Negev is seen as a very good alternative for those expected to be displaced,” the Kadima official said. “The climate is warm and Israel has been searching for years for ways to bring in a large influx of people to the Negev.”
The Negev stretches from Eilat at the south of the country through Ber Sheva in the north. It encompasses about 66 percent of the land of Israel, but only houses about 10 percent of its population. Unlike Judea and Samaria, considered religious strongholds, most Negev residents are secular.
Together with Jewish organizations, particularly the American-based Jewish National Fund, Israel has led teams in developing the Negev into fertile land and preparing new communities in the area. Several American real estate companies and private U.S. citizens have invested large sums in Negev construction efforts.
The Jewish National Fund’s website outlines its plans to bring large numbers of people to the Negev:
“Grasp the economic, demographic and geographic realities of Israel, and you will understand the immediate need to develop the Negev. Over the next five years, our goal is to bring 250,000 new residents to the Negev,” the Fund’s website states.
Some of the private citizens with large investments in Negev construction were recently named in an Israeli comptroller’s investigation of Peres that officials here described to the Israeli media as “serious.” If charged, Peres would be forced to resign his post.
The state comptroller announced he has been investigating Peres regarding three donations totaling $320,000 he accepted while running in last January’s Israeli Labor Party primaries, which Peres lost. Election laws here limit to about $8,000 the amount of money a candidate for party leadership can receive from a single donor.
The contributions in question include $100,000 each from American billionaire Haim Saban and Swiss billionaire Bruce Rappaport and $120,000 from American billionaire S. Daniel Abraham.
All three have invested large sums in Israeli projects, including Negev construction efforts.
Saban was mentioned in a recent Forbes article as running one of 12 business groups the magazine stated control more than 60 percent of Israel’s economy, making it among the most concentrated in the world. Rappaport and Abraham have reportedly invested in companies owned by some of the groups.
Forbes maintained the 12 groups have a disproportionately large amount of control over Israel’s economy and the country’s media through ownership of many of Israel’s top banks and holding organizations that own media, utility and other companies.
The magazine listed the groups, which include private citizens – Sami Ofer, Nochi Dankner, Shari Arison, the Cerberus-Gabriel consortium, Charles Bronfman, Yitzchak Tshuva, the Saban group, Lev Leviev, Matthew Bronfman, Tzadik Bino, the Borovich family and Eliezer Fishman.
Forbes contends the groups constructed their empires, which own about 60 percent of the aggregate market value of all Israeli public companies, using organizational methods that were abolished in the Western world in the 1930s.
The groups reportedly achieved tight economic ownership by structuring their companies in pyramid-style, putting top holding companies in charge of smaller companies that all are beholden ultimately to the 12 groups. The U.S. largely eliminated this style of privatized influence nearly 80 years ago through a series of restrictions on ownership and the implementation of double taxation of dividends paid by a company to its parent organization.
Each of the 12 groups have given campaign contributions to Olmert in his bid for prime minister in March, according to a list obtained by WND. They also provided donations to the Peres Center for Peace, a think tank chaired by Peres.
Longtime Likud Knesset Member Michael Eitan, who has led government anti-corruption campaigns here, last week slammed Peres for accepting the contributions.
Speaking on Israeli radio, Eitan described previous instances of what he called inappropriate conduct involving Peres and some of the donors involved in the current investigation:
“Bruce Rappaport, who is mentioned in [the] accusations as being one of the contributors to Peres, was involved in a giant [American oil pipeline project to be built between Aqaba and Iraq]. The builders wanted a promise that Israel wouldn’t bomb it – and Rappaport said he could get the guarantee in two days. He went to Peres’ home at night, and Peres – who was prime minister at the time – wrote him some kind of Israeli commitment that the line wouldn’t be bombed. The U.S. couldn’t believe that this was how things worked in Israel.”
Rappaport stated at the time a portion of his own expected pipeline profits, which he listed at $700 million, would be donated to the Labor Party under Peres, according to Eitan.
Eitan also raised questions about Saban:
“Haim Saban owes some explaining to the public as to why he keeps violating the campaign funding law time after time, contributing tremendous sums to politicians from all sorts of places – and he has just purchased 30 percent of Bezeq [Israel’s phone company].”
Saban endowed the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. The center, to which S. Daniel Abraham also contributed large sums, supported Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer.
According to a close associate of both billionaires, Saban and Abraham have expressed “very enthusiastic” support for Olmert’s plan to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, which is within rocket firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel’s international airport.
“They are [supportive of] the withdrawal plan 100 percent,” the associate told WND. “There is so much money being moved and business going on I suppose you do have to question whether it’s just their politics, or are they gaining financially from what happens in Israel?”
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Previous stories:
Peres’ ties to groups ‘controlling economy’ in question
Israeli PM a tool of oligarchs?
12 groups ‘control 60 percent of Israel
Peres: West Bank withdrawal ‘to keep country Jewish’
Peres joins Sharon’s new party
