The case initially dubbed "Forged Document Affair" (or the "The Harpaz Affair") is turning out to be the Gabi Ashkenazi Affair -- a modern edition of the Lavon Affair. It places a heavy black shadow over the management of the IDF headquarters. In enlightened and democratic countries, the band of schemers and plotters would not be kept in civil service for a single day. Yet in Israel, the case has been dragged out for years while being handled in a careless and wayward manner by law enforcement authorities. Within the framework of the investigation the mismanagement of the attorney-general must also be examined, especially in a system in which the major cases against elected officials and civil servants die a painless death leaving behind nothing more than a tangle of loose ends. The question of whether Ashkenazi and his gang will stand trial for breach of trust or obstruction of justice is less important. The principal and essential question is how it has come to pass that we must witness so many grave scandals of perpetual corruption. The previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, spends his time in court fighting the indictments against him. Senior ministers have sat in jail for years. At the head of an ultra-Orthodox party stands a man indicted with some of the gravest crimes of corruption in the book and mayors charged with bribery and fraud have been voted into power. Ministers and Knesset members, whose entire adult lives have been as salaried employees, possess fortunes estimated in the tens of millions of shekels. Policy decisions, some of the most painful since the founding of the State of Israel, are made against a backdrop of investigations into islands in the Aegean Sea. Judges are under suspicion of unbecoming behavior and continue to sit on their throne of judgment as if nothing happened, and the list goes on. To answer the question, it is important to understand a chapter in Jewish history. For 2,000 years the Jews lived in difficult conditions of spiritual and physical destruction. To survive, they developed sophisticated mechanisms of survival and adaptation to their environment, which turned them into a nation of speedy entrepreneurs, sharp as a blade and surprisingly sophisticated. As such, in many cases those same mechanisms created distortions to moral clarity and dishonest conduct lacking in integrity. The creation of the State of Israel was meant to change the path of Jewish history and to create a new Jewish character, not dependent upon the grace of the gentiles, and which could, as free people, conduct a civil way of life that realizes the vision of the prophets of an exemplary society. The entrepreneurial and improvisational abilities of the Jewish people were a huge advantage in regards to the physical implementation of the Zionist vision. No other nation in the world could have been able to build a state that has a strong army, developed industry, high level of education and much more in such a short period of time. The country is one of the wonders of the world. Along the way, however, we have retained characteristics from our time in exile such as carrying only about one's own survival, cutting corners and operating in a morally grey area. If we add to this the sanctification of the "me," alienation in a post-modernist society and a media beholden to ratings, we get a recipe for lacking a moral compass.
The Sodom-like sense of "each man for himself" is the root of all evil. We see it daily on Israeli roads, in the supermarket, and, it seems, in the office of the chief of staff. The only way that Israel will be able to fulfill its vision is through returning the fundamental values of mutual responsibility, modesty, and through personal example in leadership. In other words, we need entrepreneurship and talent alongside common courtesy and decent manners. The Jews are occasionally quick to sin, but are also always quick to fix.