Storm Erupts After Comptroller Accuses Labor of ‘buying Power’

A new storm of controversy is sweeping Israel’s political establishment, following the publication Monday of a report by the state comptroller that accuses the Labor Party of “buying power with money.”

Specifically, the report relates to cash-for-votes deals that Labor allegedly struck from 1989 to 1990 with the rigorously Orthodox Shas party and with then-Knesset member Charlie Biton.

But the storm of criticism, spearheaded by the opposition Likud and Tsomet parties, seeks to link those past peccadilloes to the June 1992 election and the creation of the present government, in which Labor and Shas are coalition partners, along with the left-wing Meretz bloc.

Likud and Tsomet have introduced no-confidence motions in the Knesset, and these are sure to trigger vociferous debate.

In connection with the 1989-90 incidents, the comptroller, Miriam Ben-Porat, imposed fines of 3 million shekels ($1.4 million) on Shas and 70,000 shekels ($34,000) on Biton, a member of the formerly Communist Hadash party.

But Ben-Porat’s report adopts a milder tone in regard to the 1992 elections. She provides detailed information about contributions to party campaigns from wealthy supporters at home and abroad.

Ben-Porat, a former Supreme Court justice, says many contributors made donations to more than one party, among them a number of leading Israeli businessmen who contributed to both Labor and Likud. She speaks out in the report against the system of private contributions to parties’ war chests and recommends that they be banned by legislation.

She says that contributions to two of the parties, though not illegal, may have been motivated by considerations that were “not solely or at all ideological.”

The ceiling for contributions to each party, set by law, was 54,000 shekels ($26,000).

SHAS COFFERS REPORTED EMPTY

The report charges that Labor provided Shas, in various forms of benefits, with some 1.5 million shekels, in return for the Sephardic Orthodox party’s support in the Histadrut labor federation elections of 1989.

In addition, Labor paid Biton 50,000 shekels in return for his pledge of parliamentary support in the spring of 1990 when Labor and Shas brought down the national unity government and attempted, unsuccessfully, to form an alternative, Labor-led coalition.

The report says Shas’ coffers are presently empty. It recommends, therefore, that the fine be taken from the monthly state-funded stipends that all Knesset factions receive to finance their political activities.

The chairman of Shas’ Knesset faction, Shlomo Benzeri, said this fine could paralyze the party. He said Shas would challenge the findings in a petition to the High Court of Justice.

Biton, who failed to gain re-election to the present Knesset, running on an independent ticket, said he did not propose to pay his fine and believed Labor should pay it for him.

Inside Labor, the sense of consternation and embarrassment led many of the party’s leaders to duck reporters and refuse comment.

Knesset member Haggai Merom, a key Labor party figure who was involved in the deals excoriated by the comptroller, said frankly, “We did wrong. I am pleased this report has come out a year into our term, and not a year before its end.

“We must learn the lessons and come to the voters, next time around, with clean hands.”

Binyamin Netanyahu, front-runner in the Likud leadership stakes, said Labor would have lost had the report been published before the election last June.

Another Likud Knesset member, Ya’acov Shamai, filed a complaint with the police Tuesday, citing evidence of offenses committed by Labor.