The following are some of the findings of the task force:
One-man rule: In theory, Israel is governed by a democratic leadership with decentralized authorities and a system of checks and balances. In fact, the situation is quite different.
By a sophisticated labyrinth of make-belief institutions-government, cabinet, inner cabinet, "kitchen," "kitchenette"-a situation has been created that allows Mr Sharon to decide and execute anything he wants.
In practice, Mr Sharon acts through a small group of family members and cronies who have been devoted to him for decades, but who have never been elected. (Conspicuous among them are his son Omri and Messrs Weisglas and Genger.) Members of the official cabinet have no influence whatsoever. Messrs Peres and Ben-Eliezer, for example, serve only as rubber-stamps.
Corruption: The existing Israeli system is based on general, systematic, and institutionalized corruption.
Large chunks of the national budget are transferred-both openly and secretly-as bribes to religious and other parties who keep Mr Sharon in power, and parts of these go into the pockets of their functionaries. These huge sums are stolen from the general public at a time of growing unemployment and lack of funds for the infrastructure, when there is not even money to assure a decent living to invalids, the elderly, the unemployed, and handicapped children, or decent hospitalization for the sick, not to mention decent living conditions for prisoners, who are kept in barbarous conditions.
Election campaigns are tainted by general corruption. Leading candidates secretly and illegally receive huge amounts of money from local and foreign interest groups, which expect, of course, to be repaid many times over once their candidate comes to power. Every campaign is followed by a long train of criminal indictments that are but the tip of the iceberg.
The Prime Minister himself, who is the owner of the biggest private farm in Israel, is involved in directing agricultural policy, including the price of water and the regulation of agricultural imports,
Much as in the Palestinian Authority, almost all the leading positions in the government and private services and corporations are handed out to cronies of the Prime Minister and members of the central committee (numbering thousands) of the governing party, most of them without elementary qualifications or talent. All the previous governments did the same. Every ministry is, of course, staffed and stuffed with cronies of the minister, and so are local authorities and other