Why the Government corruption is so high in Israel?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 28, 2007 -- The Israelis didn't need the World Bank report to tell them that their country takes the first place in corruption in the Western world. They see the corruption all around them. Complaining to the police wouldn't do much help.

What about the free press? The Israeli courts suppressed it with huge defamation awards. With the threat of defamation suits hanging over them, Israeli journalists are careful not to offend anyone.

This was especially obvious in their coverage of the landmark case, in which Google was ordered by the Israeli judge to disclose IPs of the Blogspot bloggers so they can be sued for libel. Everyone quoted the judge and told nothing else.

The real story was different. A group of American citizens living in the small town of Shaarei Tikva wanted to fight the local corruption. They complained to the police, but got no results. So they published the actual documents showing the corruption in a bulletin board in the Blogspot. They acted in good faith and cited only the facts.

They knew that the Blogspot servers were located in the US. They felt protected by the US government and their long commitment to the free speech. This commitment meant absolutely nothing to the Google lawyers. They didn't even check the content before disclosing their IPs.

Google claimed that the citizens were given a chance to tell their side of the story. This is a blatant lie. There is no equal footing in the Israeli court of law between the local official with unlimited amounts of money to spend and a citizen working on an Israeli salary, who barely makes it to the end of a month. Those citizens had no money to appear in the court. If they could get help from the Israeli legal system, they wouldn't need the Blogspot.

The freedom of speech is absolutely essential in order to maintain a healthy democracy. The high levels of corruption in most parts of the Israeli government provide a vivid example what happens in the society that ignores this basic truth.