New Corruption Investigations Mar Israel’s Political Landscape

Against the backdrop of being a nation whose former president and former prime minister are serving time in prison, targets of new corruption investigations that were announced on Wednesday include a cabinet minister and head of a right-wing ultra-religious party who already served a jail term for corruption [causing citizens to question his fitness for his present appointment by Prime Minister Netanyahu]; and no less than the head of the opposition, a lawyer by profession who is suspected of violating laws during the primary election cycle. The Justice Ministry is not being specific about its suspicions about Interior Minister Arye Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party and alumnus of the Israel prison system. Isaac Herzog, head of the Labor Party and opposition head is said to have accepted illegal foreign funding. He has dismissed the probe as being the result of political slander.