UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Wednesday, February 18 2015
26 Days Until The Election
Adelle Biton. May she rest in peace.
All of Israel is heartsick today.
Adelle Biton, the four year old victim of Palestinian terror who fought valiantly for her life for the last two years, died last night.
Here at israelstreet we wrote extensively about her struggle after being hit in the head by a “rock” thrown by a terrorist on March 13, 2013–about how how she was in a coma for months and gradually came out of it only to be severely neurologically impaired.
Click here for the update that appeared on April 26, 2013.
Click here for Shabbat Shalom to Adele Biton and her family posted on July 13 2013.
Adelle gamely held on to life and had even returned home from the hospital recently. Only to die last night of complications from pneumonia.
Her death is a tragedy for us all.
Adelle Biton, heroic daughter of Israel, may she rest in peace and be forever blessed in memory.
TODAY’S BLOG:
State Comptroller Joseph Shapira came out with his much awaited report yesterday on the Netanyahu’s personal expenses, and as predicted by all, it was damning.
Absurdly so.
And as much to him as to the Netanyahus.
In a blatant attempt to influence the coming election, Shapira accused the Netanyahus of “possibly engaging in criminal activity” and of “violating higher ethical norms” involving the use of public funds.
What was the possible criminal activity? Two extremely old stories.
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First was Sara Netanyahu’s supposed improper turning in of recycled bottles for 4000 shekels (about $1000). Shapira branded this as possible criminal activity despite the fact that Ms. Netanyahu made no attempt to pocket the money or put it into a secret account–it went into a completely transparent residence petty cash account used to provide money to residence workers. And despite the fact that PM Netanyahu wrote a check for the $1000 last year to avoid any semblance of impropriety.
Second was the purchase of patio furniture for the Netanyahu’s “private” home in Caesarea–a home that had been established as a place where the Netanyahus hosted foreign dignitaries. Again, there was no attempt by the Netanyahus to conceal anything, and when someone suggested last year that the use of the furniture might somehow be improper, the Netanyahus had the furniture sent to their residence in Jerusalem where they also host foreign dignitaries.
Totally and completely absurd.
But wait there was more, much more.
Shapira blasted the Netanyahu’s “lack of ethics” in occasionally “ordering take-out food” to their residences when they had an onsite cook to prepare meals. He also castigated the Netanyahus for their rare failure to pay back employees for expenses the employees incurred while providing the Netanyahus services. For example, Shapira was particularly incensed over a 41 shekel bill that an employee paid for at a Jerusalem pharmacy that the employee was not reimbursed for.
Shapira went on to excoriate the Netanyahus for their “living expenses”, focusing on cleaning services, beauty salon services, food, and other items which he deemed as unreasonable. However, Shapira did not provide a word of context–there was no attempt whatsoever to connect any of the expenses to the continual visits made to the homes by guests from the international community.
Even Shapira was forced to admit that the spending was “excessive” only because he (Shapira) thought it was–there is no spending cap placed by law on any cleaning, food, etc. used by the Prime Minister. And Shapira made no effort to compare the Netanyahus’ spending with that of any previous Prime Minister.
All in all, the Shapira report was nothing less than a well-calculated hit piece.
However, interestingly, Shapira came out with another damning report yesterday–this one involving expenses at the President’s House by former President Shimon Peres. Foremost among Shapira’s charges were the fact that Peres exceeded his budget of 40 million shekels by 20% from 2011 to 2014.
This morning, the following graph appeared online which contrasts the Netanyahus’ expenses at their residences with that of Peres at the Presidential House:
Red bars on the graph are expenditures at the President’s House by Shimon Peres, the blue bars are expenditures by the Netanyahus at their residences. The numbers on the left are millions of shekels.
As you can see, there is no comparison. Peres engaged in an orgy of spending compared to the Netanyahus (who were a family of 4).
Again, allow your humble servant to say–and I am no friend of Benjamin Netanyahu—that Shapira’s report against Netanyahu is almost “criminal” itself in its biased attempt to influence the election.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.