Flap over Dinitz’s Credit Card Use May Deepen Strains in Jewish Agency

Disclosures that Jewish Agency Chairman Simcha Dinitz improperly charged private expenses to his official credit card promise to further strain the agency’s already tense Israel-Diaspora partnership.

The legal adviser to the Jewish Agency, the quasi-governmental body funded by Diaspora contributions, has ruled that there was no wrongful intent in Dinitz’s actions, for which he subsequently reimbursed the agency more than $20,000.

This view was accepted last week by Mendel Kaplan, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, at the conclusion of its quarterly meeting in Israel.

But last Friday, two Israeli Knesset members, Limor Livnat of Likud and Eliezer Zandberg of Tsomet, filed complaints with the police and government legal adviser, asking that Dinitz be investigated for tax evasion related to the affair.

This scandal comes as Dinitz is caught between the two competing forces in the Jewish Agency the Diaspora leaders who fund its budget and Israeli politicians active in the World Zionist Organization.

The two sides have been deadlocked for months over a demand by the American fundraisers of the United Jewish Appeal that the Jewish Agency, which receives the bulk of the money UJA sends to Israel, eliminate the offices of two department heads.

The Americans say that the work of the department heads duplicate that of the departments’ director-generals and are merely patronage plums that ultimately involve up to 20 subsidiary, politically linked positions.

The Israelis of the WZO have heatedly protested the American intervention. In a stalling tactic agreed upon during the Board of Governors meeting, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin promised to recommend a resolution to the crisis after Passover.

DINITZ EXPRESSES REGRET

Dinitz’s ability to resist the demands of the Americans has presumably been weakened by the scandal, which was the subject of a searing four page report in the Friday magazine section of Yediot Achronot, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper.

For one thing, his would-be ally in the struggle, Rabin, may wish to steer clear of any scandal involving improper overseas expenditures, having lost the 1977 election over such an issue.

The scandal also appears to buttress the long-running reform efforts of the Americans in the Jewish Agency by illustrating the lack of oversight applied to the chairman’s expenses.

For example, over a nearly five-year period, Dinitz reportedly charged $6,694 worth of merchandise to a Syms retail credit card he had taken out, which used the New York office of the Jewish Agency as the billing address.

According to the Jewish Agency comptroller, when the bills arrived, they were paid by the New York office, and the expenditure was ultimately charged to the budget of his office, rather than being presented to him for reimbursement.

Dinitz says he told the New York office to forward the bills to him, saying in a statement, “I regret that I relied (on) the Jewish Agency administration, which was supposed to deal with this matter, instead of relying on myself.”

At the same time, Dinitz’s troubles seem to have drawn few tears from Israeli officials of the Jewish Agency who spoke to Yediot Achronot.

They blamed Dinitz for being too accommodating to the American “big shots” in what they saw as an effort to wrest the Jewish Agency from Israeli control.

He was more concerned with travel and perks, they told the paper, than with confronting the Diaspora leaders and in particular Kaplan of the Board of Governors.

PANEL RECOMMENDS NEW MEASURES

Kaplan and Dinitz have themselves reportedly been long at odds precisely over Kaplan’s reform efforts. A South African industrial magnate, Kaplan has been living in Jerusalem for most of the year, in effect turning what had been a lay, volunteer position into a full-time job.

For the record, Kaplan is accepting the findings that there was no wrongful intent involved.

At the Board of Governors meeting, he said that given this and the fact that Dinitz has repaid the money in question, with interest, the rebuke given by the Jewish Agency comptroller sufficed to close the matter, according to participants at the meeting.

But according to Yediot, Kaplan would not comment when asked how he would treat an employee of his factories who acted as Dinitz had.

An ad hoc committee of Americans and Israelis was set up to establish procedures to prevent such incidents in the future.

In their preliminary report, they called for, among other things, monthly travel reports from the senior Jewish Agency officials and a bar on issuing credit cards to individuals until a full review can be made.