Likud must pay for its criminal culture

Haaretz wrote:

You have to go through the list of crimes and criminal suspicions one by one to understand. This is the Likud leadership that arose from the occupation.

It grew up under prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir and took control under current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the incitement-filled demonstrations that led to the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

President Moshe Katsav was convicted of rape and jailed for years; Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson was convicted of embezzling millions as the head of the Leumit labor federation, and now we have Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was convicted of accepting bribes as the Likud mayor of Jerusalem.

And that’s just the beginning.

'Defense' Minister Yitzhak Mordechai was convicted of sexual assault, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s son Omri, a Likud MK, was convicted of fraud relating to his father’s 1999 party leadership campaign and essentially sat in jail for his father.

Only the prime minister’s coma prevented him from standing trial for a series of alleged crimes, all committed when he was in Likud.

Justice and Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi was convicted of illegal political appointments while in Likud and was forced out of the Knesset.

He had been in and out of legal trouble from the beginning of his career, since he was convicted and given a suspended sentence for leading attacks on Arab students with bicycle chains at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a member of the Likud student organization.

Current Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who was one of Hanegbi’s student activists, was later convicted of assaulting a minor.

In the major case against him, which alleged fraud and money-laundering but was later dropped for lack of evidence, the prosecutor noted with bewilderment that one witness had disappeared and another had committed suicide with two shots to the head.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, another member of Hanegbi’s bicycle-chain gang, was kicked out of Hebrew University at the time and punished for his role in the attacks.

Moshe Feiglin was convicted of sedition.

Finance Minister Silvan Shalom was questioned about a series of alleged sex crimes in which he exploited his authority.

It could be that the statute of limitations and the fear of media humiliation on the part of the two women who came forward — but not to the police — will keep him out of the dock for now.

And above all we have Netanyahu, who orchestrated demonstrations under the slogan “In blood and fire we will expel Rabin,” following which the prime minister was murdered.

The simple truth is: This is the Likud of the occupation. Israel is being governed by a crime-infested party.