According to an indictment filed by the State Prosecutor's Office against 13 defendants, among them former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, offenses including the bribery of top public officials and other civil servants took place over an entire decade for the purpose of promoting different real estate projects. The Holyland project was no secret. The hilltop on which it was built looked like a woman who is nine months pregnant -- just try to hide that. Anyone with even the faintest understanding of real estate knew, heard or guessed that this was a notable exception shrouded in suspicions of bribery -- anyone, that is, except for the interior minister, prosecutors or police. Only a few brave journalists, among them Yoav Yitzhak, understood and reported on the story. This is not a unique incident. Famous real estate lawyers have become billionaires. They knew just how to work with the Israel Land Administration, a corrupt government monopoly. They knew how to transfer land allocations in a way that yielded billions of shekels. At the same time, the administration's management was squeezing discharged soldiers, who had been asked to defend the land with their lives, with price speculations that enslaved them to lifelong mortgages. The prices were set by appraisers serving the interests of banks and other institutions, who in the interests of their balance sheets sought the highest possible prices for land. Get the Israel Hayom newsletter sent to your mailbox! The cottage-cheese protest over the summer once and for all clarified that we, as consumers, have fallen victim to the tycoons. But they could not have robbed us without the support of Knesset members and government officials who created the "legal" infrastructure for them to steal almost half of most consumers' meager income. Not just with respect to real estate, but in every sector possible. The Israeli consumer is extorted primarily by wasteful politicians, who use oppressive taxes they steal from the public (under the guise of giving them "free" education and health care) to fatten up well-connected people who will ensure their re-election. The consumer is not only extorted by tycoons, but also by thousands of privileged people who collaborate with the oligarchy: lawyers; accountants; bankers and executives, whose main talents are their connections (and whose failures are cause for promotion); former government officials who worked the system and parachuted into jobs with inflated salaries; wheeler-dealers who work in licensing offices or lobby Knesset members; media people who defend theft, and others. An infrastructure of laws has been created that allows the public to be robbed. Everyone gets rich by stealing from the low-level consumer's income, the bulk of which is dedicated to consumption. Economist and Professor Shlomo Maoz was likely referring to these people when he attacked the "white tribe" (a derogatory name for the Ashkenzai elite). He identified the regime of discrimination and privilege, especially between Askenazi and Sephardi Jews. In fact, the discrimination extends even further, between what TheMarker editor Guy Rolnik dubs those who are "connected" and all the rest; between those who belong to the Israeli "elite crew," those who are well-connected and privileged, and all the rest. Efforts by some Knesset members to pass a law that would no longer require prices to be advertised -- something which creates competition -- illustrates the extraordinary nerve lobbyists have, and the extent to which they control the Knesset. Even if we accept MKs' claims that they "did not understand" or were "misled," then we can ask how such naive people landed jobs in the Knesset. How will they explain the frenzy to pass such an anti-consumerist law, especially when they know who initiated it? If they regret it, why have they not proposed legislation to limit the abandon with which lobbyists are corrupting the Knesset, thus protecting its good name? Are we in Sodom? Not yet, but we are progressing quite nicely. We have already reached Gomorrah.