Once upon a time in Israeli politics, there were taboos. When politicians broke those taboos, they paid a political price. For some, it meant their political careers ended, for others, even prison terms were in the cards. That’s not to say that our politics were for only the pure of heart and good intentions. No one is that naive. And then there was’ acceptable’ which was supposedly for national interests. For example, imported rugs were heavily taxed. Why specifically imported carpets? Mk Avraham Shapira was a very influential and powerful member of Knesset, and he was also the founder and owner of Carmel carpets. Through this tax law, Carmel carpets was a virtual monopoly. Similar high taxes were placed on imported lamb. Imported lamb and other meats were heavily taxed in Israel to protect local farmers from cheap foreign competition and support domestic agricultural production. It just so happened that Arik Sharon had the largest lamb farm in Israel. This style of collective corruption was, in their view, protecting local industry even though it was actually encouraging monopolies owned by politicians or senior military personnel. Despite the politically approved corruption for the “national good”, exposed personal corruption was not accepted, not by the collective political bodies and not by the public. Many politicians took responsibility or were forced to take responsibility by their peers. For example, Yitzhak Rabin in his first term as prime minister resigned after taking responsibility for his wife maintaining a bank account in the US after his time as Israel’s ambassador to the US. At the........

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