Zionist Union unveils anti-corruption plan
‘The corrupt are fighting the fighters of corruption. Corruption is being whitewashed’
The Zionist Union vowed at a Knesset press conference on Wednesday to lead an anti-corruption campaign that will result in unseating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and replacing him with a graft-free government.
The campaign will highlight the criminal investigations of Netanyahu and other figures in the prime minister’s party and governing coalition.
“There has always been corruption, and there is corruption in countries around the world, even in Scandinavia, but it has been mostly bottom-up,” Zionist Union and Labor Party chairman Avi Gabbay said. “But now it is happening from top to bottom. The corrupt are fighting the fighters of corruption, and corruption is being whitewashed.”
The first step of the plan is to halt a series of bills advanced by the current government that the Zionist Union considers corrupt, including the “police recommendations bill,” “political patronage positions bill,” and any legislation that the party believes would harm the Supreme Court, state comptroller or police.
The second step is aimed at removing politics from positions in national and local government.
The third calls for enforcement of the anti-corruption efforts, and the fourth for creating what the party calls “a culture of transparency and responsibility.”
“Corruption is destroying us from within,” Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni said at the press conference. “I don’t agree with those who say you have to be a little corrupt to succeed. With a proper public fight, we can clean up the country and show the clean face of Israel. The people of Israel deserve a clean leader.”
The Likud responded that before he fights corruption throughout the country, Gabbay should eliminate it from his own party, noting the nongovernmental organization scandal of former Labor chairman Ehud Barak, in which future Labor leader Isaac Herzog was also implicated.
“Just when we thought Gabbay the leftist portraying himself as a rightist was the best joke, he surprised us by putting on the costume of a knight fighting for the rule of law,” the Likud said.