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Goodfellas - A glimpse at the underworld By Doron Rosenblum Tags: Defense budget, crime This week, with the cabinet approval of the State Budget, a sigh of relief was heard not only at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv but also on the administration floor of the headquarters of Organized Crime in Israel. Because a broad cut in the Defense Ministry meant not only a weakening of the deterrent power of the fighting families, but an increase in unemployment among the many people in the field and freelancers connected to the system, some of them with battered families. "You don't want our people to be thrown into the street only due to a lack of equipment," says Asher ("the Decapitator") Fearsome, businessman, entrepreneur and amateur surgeon, who according to the police heads the crime family that terrorizes both the neighborhoods of garages in greater Tel Aviv and the Tuileries Gardens in Paris (a claim that has not been proven). "I don't understand where the social responsibility of this government is," says Fearsome Sr., as we sit over a cup of coffee prepared by his younger brother, Eliphelet, the boss who holds the family portfolio. We are sitting on the office floor of Punch-in-the-Nose House, an asbestos building fortified with tin and barbed wire, which is concealed on the roof of a car-wash. Advertisement It's true, there is a direct connection between the size of the Defense Ministry purchasing contracts and the arming of the underworld, which is carried out subject to the surpluses of equipment dumped in the marketplace by the military establishment. "In a bull market, when demand exceeds supply, our policy is to reduce the proportion of mortars in the budget and to increase that of submachine guns, pistols and hand grenades," explains Fearsome, who also serves as the chairman of the board of directors of Straw Holdings, which is shared by the Fearsome, Suspicious and Mallow families, which are usually engaged in harsh rivalry. "In the donkey market, on the other hand, when there is a surfeit of merchandise, we renew the inventories with roadside bombs, armored vehicles and box-cutters." We ask about the truth of the rumor, which is prevalent in stock-market and knife-wielding circles, that the Fearsome family is considering the purchase of Apache helicopters already in the next quarter. Fearsome is in no rush to reveal business secrets. "Gesundheit!," he blesses us with that smile of his that has launched a thousand police vans. Aren't you afraid that the weapons will be used for wars between the families? "Not as long as the 'neighborly custom' exists," replies Fearsome, sipping his coffee noisily. The results of this custom were experienced personally by quite a number of Israelis this year, who found themselves in the line of fire of the fighting families, but Fearsome vehemently denies rumors that the crime families are involved in criminal matters. He says that these are ordinary families - maybe a little hotter than the average. We believe him, especially when he smiles his smile and asks for our home address. This week Punch-in-the-Nose House experienced quite a few moments of running around, which ended with a harsh condemnation against American involvement in the region. "Let them take care of peace with the Palestinians and leave us alone" - that was the prevailing opinion in the place. ("Let them take care of the criminals and leave us alone," that was the prevailing opinion at the same time in the government compound). It's no secret that the worldwide credit crisis has affected the cash flow of the Israeli underworld, which recently has been increasingly forced to switch from income-earning real estate to business entrepreneurship: in other words, from collecting exaggerated parking fees from people who came to City Hall to pay parking fines, to snatching purses from old ladies coming to the Zamenhof Street health clinic for an osteoporosis test. Those who benefited from the worldwide crisis were the Mallow family, which for years has controlled the recycling of leftover popcorn in movie theaters in Israel and Romania, and which has recently been sending out tentacles beneath the seats in places like Detroit, and even Abu Dhabi. Anug ("the Rhinoceros") Mallow - the investor, entrepreneur and organizer of kidney donations, one of the better known scions of the family, explains the business plan: "The credit crisis has caused the Americans to become impoverished and to run more to the movies, and the film industry has come out with a long list of blockbusters this summer. The combination of the consumption of popcorn in the movie theaters and the increase in the prices of the merchandise - and particularly the price of corn, due to its use as an alternative fuel - caused a jump in our industry in Israel too." And in fact, few people know that the profits from recycling leftover popcorn that people leave in the cardboard containers or on the floor, or shed from the folds of their shirts when they exit the theater accumulate into huge sums, which are equal to the Gross National Product of Monaco. This bonanza could not have been passed over in silence by the Suspicious and Fearsome families, who considered it an indirect threat to their flourishing meat businesses (recycling the shwarma that remains in the bottom of the pita, which people nonchalantly throw into the trash). The conflict between the families was not long in coming, as the residents of Amputee Street, corner of Those Who Were Hanged Street learned: They awoke in panic in the middle of the night to the sound of the landing of a ground-to-ground ballistic missile, which Force Eliphelet Fearsome is suspected of launching at the shoemaker's shop that Anug Mallow was about to enter in order to purchase deodorant spray for shoes. The neighborhood was destroyed but Mallow emerged without a scratch, and even won a suit in the High Court of Justice for compensation from the state as a victim of terror, as well as a civil suit for damages for NIS 500,000 against the shoemaker. When Fearsome's attorney asked for his fee he was run over by a bulldozer, carefully folded and sent in an envelope to the VAT authorities. Mallow was acquitted for lack of evidence, thanks to a solid alibi (he was in Pilates class). There are a number of versions regarding the roots of the business argument, which for years has been dividing the Suspicious, Fearsome and Mallow families: Some claim that it all began with a spat about the territorial space of Menahem ("Nerves") Suspicious, the father of the family, when one of the Fearsomes accidentally touched his elbow as he was eating falafel in Tel Aviv's Bezalel Market in the 1950s. In any case, the blood feud between the families continued, until the late 1970s, on three continents (including an ambush near the grave of the Maharal in Prague). Only in recent years, when their descendants are already showing signs of age (and using hair dye to cover the signs), have a number of sulha meetings been held among the heads of the families in the exclusive atmosphere of luxury restaurants and hotels - but they ended in disagreements. Let's put it this way: Many Israeli lives could have been saved with the organs scattered randomly on the restaurant and hotel lobby sofas and rugs. In private conversation Suspicious turns out to be a charismatic businessman, a jolly good fellow, with a great sense of humor and refined taste, a lover of Debussy, Zeruya Shalev and Avi Bitter, who knows how to enjoy an occasional good Time cigarette. He encourages teamwork in the office, in the spirit of the slogan "Speak rudely and carry a big stick." When asked about his hobbies, he is willing to reveal his secret recipe for scrambled eggs: Ingredients: 2 eggs Margarine (or oil, or butter) Preparation: Take a frying pan, melt the margarine, break two eggs into it. Take a fork and try to remove the eggshell fragments and the cigarette ash that has fallen into it - and that's it, you have a business lunch. "I call that "omelet a-gogo," he says proudly, "and believe me, people lick their fingers. Mine too, of course." Bookmark to del.icio.us   World War III A top Iranian general says an attack on Tehran would ignite a 'world war'. Raising the price Hamas says won't compromise, Israel must free 1,000 prisoners for Shalit.

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