Milestones in Israeli malfeasance, 2009

Oded Tal, formerly head of the Israel Lands Administration's central district, was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for taking bribes and breach of trust in three cases. One involved a company called Migdal Hazohar, owned in part by builder David Appel, which won significant breaks from the ILA for its projects. Judge Dan Mor termed this affair "the epitome of corruption in all its ugliness."

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss revealed that a five-day Defense Ministry delegation to the Paris air show, headed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, cost the taxpayer NIS 1 million. Barak stayed at the royal suite of the InterContinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which cost 2,500 euros a night. Barak took responsibility, adding that only people who never do anything don't make mistakes.

Later that month, Channel 2 News reported that Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik chose to stay at La Bristol hotel rather than the room at the Hyatt that had been booked for her. The state had to pay for both rooms. Her four-night stay in the City of Lights cost NIS 75,000, out of which the in-suite mini-bar bill alone was ?120.

Charges were filed against former prime minister Ehud Olmert in three cases: He allegedly double-billed for plane tickets, accepted cash-filled envelopes and assisted cronies. The day before his trial began, Olmert told the BBC he was absolutely confident of being vindicated and laughed off any possibility of jail time. "I don't have to prove anything," he told the British reporter. "Somebody else has to prove that I committed a crime, and I don't think they'll be able to."

Also in August, the Peruvians detained former judge Dan Cohen, who fled Israel in 2005. Israel requested, and later won, his extradition on charges of committing fraud and forgery and taking bribes amounting to tens of millions of shekels in three affairs, including during his stint on the Israel Electric Corporation's board of directors. The German company Siemens reportedly paid huge sums, including to Cohen, to get a contract to supply turbines.

Well, August wasn't a great month for Israel as a light unto the nations: The national fraud squad also recommended charging Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with corruption, money-laundering, obstructing justice and witness tampering. Lieberman is suspected of setting up a series of fake companies and fictitious bank accounts that, police believe, ultimately made him about NIS 10 million. Lieberman firmly denies everything.

Former finance minister Abraham Hirchson was sentenced to five years and five months' hard time for fraud and for embezzling NIS 1.8 million from the National Workers Organization. He was also fined NIS 450,000. Judge Bracha Ophir-Tom wondered how a man described by others as "good" and "munificent" had fallen so low. Did he become drunk with power? Or was it unbridled greed colliding with a general atmosphere of lawlessness?

She didn't answer her own question, but later that very same summer day, the Supreme Court sent another former government minister, Shlomo Benizri, to prison for four years on corruption charges. As labor and social affairs minister, the court found, Benizri had whispered inside information to manpower contractor Moshe Sela. In exchange, he received money and gifts.

Shaul Okish, the outgoing chairman of the Israel Railways trade union, and his deputy, Micha Hayoun, were charged with accepting NIS 80,000 in bribes to fix a tender for a contractor. They were not charged with other suspicions police had investigated, such as demanding "entry fees" from small contractors and fixing other tenders. But police are still recommending that Hayoun be charged with theft.