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Lifestyles of Israel's rich and rabbinical

The revelations on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tax haven account are overshadowed by a bribe scandal involving top police officers, Rabbi Pinto and an American politician.
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Israel could easily be an outstanding exporter of scandals. Not a week goes by here without some new scandal. In the past two days alone, two new ones landed on our doorstep, one juicier than the next. True, it’s nothing like a president caught slipping out of his mistress’s apartment, wearing a black motorcycle helmet, but I think that we're getting there. Besides, let’s not forget that Moshe Katzav, the former president of Israel, is now serving out his sentence in an Israeli prison after being convicted of rape and other severe sexual offenses. When that scandal was revealed, Katzav was the serving president.

Let’s start with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Jan. 15, the newspaper Globes revealed that the prime minister had a bank account on the Isle of Jersey in the Channel Islands. Jersey is considered a reliable, safe and quiet tax haven. Netanyahu had his account there from 1999 to 2003, during which time he held no public position in Israel. According to the prime minister’s office, all activity in that account stopped in 2002, when Netanyahu returned to the political arena and was appointed a minister in [Ariel] Sharon’s cabinet. The account remained in existence for some time after that, but it just had a few pounds in it to cover bank fees and nothing else. The bottom line is that it was all legal. There was no problem with Netanyahu’s activity. What do you want from the man?

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