Police official resigns after investigation into '99 dealings with crime family

The New York Times
"Top Israeli Police Official Resigns Amid Charges of Dereliction"
by Steven Erlanger
February 19, 2007

The police commissioner of Israel resigned Sunday night after his actions in a 1999 case involving an Israeli crime family were severely criticized by an investigating committee. Police commissioner, Moshe Karadi's term would have ended in August said he was making his resignation immediate, "to set a personal example," and spare the police the damage a scandal would cause, while still insisting the allegations to be false. Yaakov Ganot, the current director of the prison service, will be his replacement. In addition to Karadi, the deputy police commissioner, Benny Kaniak, is also being removed from his position and being offered Ganot's former job in an effort to better the Israeli police system. While the case dates back to '99, the scandal is the latest in the country, already reeling from political scandal: President Moshe Katsav had to resign because of rape charges, PM Ehud Olmert and his suspended office director Shula Zaken are under suspicion of corruption, the director of the Tax Authority, Jackie Matza resigned Sunday night in response to an ongoing investigation, finance minister Abraham Hirshson is under investigation for embezzlement from a nonprofit organization and Olmert's predecessor, the deathbed-comatose Ariel Sharon was widely suspected of political corruption, and his son Omri has been sentenced to jail but is allowed to remain free because of his father's coma. These do not even account for all the recent political scandals in Israel. The investigations are part of an effort to change what is becoming a tradition of political corruption, but it has been badly interrupted by this past summer's war with Lebanese Hezbollah, followed by the resignation of Israel's military chief of staff.

The corruption in Israeli government has reached a level of ridiculousness and is beginning to interfere with the country's ability to govern. While the investigations do bring out a bad side of the government to the public, they seem to be necessary to correct the problems at this point. Still though, I feel that there are more pertinent issues the news media could focus on than government corruption, or at least report on in addition to these stories.