PLAIN TALK: Jack Abramoff & Ariel Sharon

Last night while I was still at work, Channel 10’s Baruch Kra (who once worked for Haaretz) broke a story he’s been following for year’s that’s again captured the headlines here.

Kra reported that police have evidence that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took a $3 million bribe from Austrian businessman James Schlaff. It’s all tied to the Cyril Kern affair, violations of campaign finance limits, and Jericho Casinos... but don’t ask me precisely how it all ties together.

Everyone else in the media is now playing catch-up with Channel 10’s scoop.

As for the cops – they’re keeping shtum.

My hunch is that all things being equal (Sharon goes into the hospital tomorrow), this latest revelation will blow over and have minimal impact on Sharon’s anticipated margin of victory.

Yossi Verter in Haaretz gave spinmesiter Arthur Finkelstein the final word: “The public prefers a corrupt man to an idiot.”

Or several different idiots.

So my attention is drawn to real news and it comes from overseas.

I’m thinking about the tragedy of the miners in West Virginia and the pain of their families; about how their loves ones had been celebrating the “miracle” of their rescue only to have their gratitude turned into anguish when it emerged only one of the 12 trapped men had survived.

That’s real news – not the manufactured nonsense that fills so many of our newspapers and media outlets.

Elsewhere, I’m drawn to the reports of an extraordinary Chillul Hashem, what we Jews call – a desecration of God’s name – committed by an Orthodox Jew named Jay Ambramof.

He’s the Washington lobbyist who pleaded guilty to three felony counts in connection with Washington influence peddling.

Yet I wonder if it is news that people who think of themselves as pious observant Jews would nevertheless conspire to commit fraud, evade taxes use power unrestrained by ethical concerns.

No. The real news today is not Sharon and not Ambramof.

It’s the pain of the families who lost their loved ones in the mines of West Virginia. That’s what is real and enduring.

God give them strength to handle their pain and loss.

PLAIN TALK: Organized Crime in Israel

Even though I’m a news junkie, I find it hard to watch or read about organized crime in Israel.

It just disgusts me.

Back in New York, all the Jews I knew – and the Italians for that matter – either had, or aspired to, bourgeois middle class values.

Living in Israel, I’ve had to adjust (with difficulty) to the fact that some Jews are violent thugs with no redeeming values.

I was thinking about my aversion to news about organized on the way to work this morning.

What drew my attention was the Monday afternoon melee in the lobby of a Herzliya luxury hotel during a gathering of some of the Jewish State’s top hoodlums. You know, people who oversee the sale of illegal drugs, enslave women into prostitution and shake-down mom and pop businesses.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that organized crime has penetrated the police and government of the country.

It’s something I don’t want to dwell on too much.

Because if I did, I’d add that to the list of why life in Israel sometimes disappoints – why it sometimes shatters illusions about “us” all being in this together.

PLAIN TALK: Palestinian elections postponed?

So, are they on, or are they off?

It’s looking like the Palestinian parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 25, will be postponed.

Palestinian Arab politicians must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Most Israelis aren’t much bothered.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been looking for a pretext to delay – what everyone expects to be – Fatah’s day of reckoning.

Abbas now says that Israel’s refusal to commit to allowing Arab residents of Jerusalem to vote by mail from Jerusalem-area post-offices is leading him to delay the elections.

Israel has been sending conflicting signals. Still, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hasn’t explicitly announced that Israel would NOT facilitate the vote-by-mail system that has been previously used.

And I wonder if this Israeli ambiguity isn’t intended “help” Abbas.

The theory is what’s good for Hamas is bad – not just for Fatah – but for Israel and the West.

The inept Abbas been under pressure to postpone the elections – from various Palestinian quarters.

His own Fatah group is bitterly divided. Even the old guard (which came here from Tunis after the Oslo Accords in 1993) itself is fragmented with old Abu Ala off sulking.

And the young guard, led by Marwan Barghouti, Mohammed Dahlan and Jabril Rajub want to shove their way to the head of the syndicate's table.

For reasons I don’t really understand, Israel seems to be facilitating Barghouti’s involvement in the campaign. He’s sitting in an Israeli prison, convicted of multiple counts of murder, yet somehow manages to exert immense day-to-day influence.

With the Territories in turmoil and not much to show for the millions of EU and US dollars that have flowed into PA coffers, the ruling Fatah “party” feels it is in no position to face the “clean government” types from the Islamist movement Hamas.

Now it looks like Abbas has reached some kind of deal with Hamas which had been claiming all along that it opposed postponing the elections.

Maybe Hamas recognizes that the almost complete breakdown of law and order throughout the PA areas could delegitimize their predicted electoral gains.

What's the point of winning – especially if you can anyway win fair and square – in the midst of a riot?

Personally, I don’t care when the Palestinians hold their elections.

Their vote won’t contribute to a tolerant polity or moderate, representative government.

At the same time, I’m not convinced that a Hamas win would be such a bad thing.

Given that the war is destined to continue, because regardless of who wins, there really is no Palestinian partner, I'd rather do business with Hamas thugs who can at least deliver on a promise than ineffectual old terrorist in suits, or their corrupt, duplicitous younger guard.

PLAIN TALK: TRUSTEESHIP FOR ‘PALESTINE’

Today’s “news” that anarchy reigns inside the PA areas, combined with a previously embargoed report (see Chronology at LEFT) that a crude Kassam rocket was launched into Israel from northern Samaria, only reinforces the reality that the Palestinian polity is not ready for statehood.

Mahmoud Abbas has ignored repeated calls from Israel to honor his road map commitments and dismantle the infrastructure of terror.

Now it becomes clear that his refusal to do so hasn't just been bad for Israel, but also for the Palestinian Arabs themselves.

Kidnappings, armed gangs, illegal roadblocks, rampant violence, and attacks against PA institutions, are now part of the daily scene.

All this just weeks before scheduled Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Isn’t now the time for the EU and the US to take up an idea first broached by Martin Indyk -- that what is needed is a “trusteeship for Palestine.”

Palestinian society plainly needs a stage between today’s state-of-nature chaos and (presumably) desired statehood.

Such a stage would allow for a level of political socialization necessary before independence could be viable.

But are the EU and the US ready to acknowledge this need?

How would it be implemented?

What would the security implications for Israel be?

Let the discussion begin....