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parties, including both fi nancial and sexual misdeeds. The scandal surrounding Aryeh Deri
implicated many politicians. Deri, the founder of Shas, was convicted in 1999 while serving as
an MK. The charges were bribe taking, fraud, and breach of trust. While director-general of
the Interior Ministry and later interior minister in the late 1980s, he accepted bribes from three
associates in return for funneling public funds to a yeshiva. Released from jail on parole in
2002 after serving two years of his three-year sentence, Deri was prohibited from participating
in politics until September 2003, the end of his original jail term. He was subsequently barred,
under Israeli law, from serving as a cabinet minister for a period of ten years.
Haim Ramon, then minister of justice and an MK for the Kadima Party, was convicted in
2006, one day after the start of the Second Lebanon War, on the charge of forcibly kissing a
female soldier. Ramon admitted to the kiss in court but claimed that it was consensual. The
three-judge panel agreed unanimously to convict Ramon, who was sentenced to community
service. He resigned from the Knesset after his conviction, to return in July 2007 and join
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government. In June 2009 he resigned once again, this time to
become chair of the Kadima Council, the party's most important body.
MKs are not the only members of the political elite who get caught up in scandals. Dan
Halutz, for one — the chief of staff who oversaw the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and
the Second Lebanon War —was strongly criticized following revelations that after Hizballah
kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, an act that triggered the Second Lebanon War, he quickly liqui-
dated his entire investment portfolio. Many across the political spectrum demanded his resig-
nation because he had not given priority to his duties and took advantage of inside information.
Halutz fi nally resigned in January 2007 amid criticism over the IDF's performance in the war.
Outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert speaks at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, March 2009. (Getty
Images / Image Bank.)
