Talk:Israel Democracy Institute

Merge

This page is the correct title of the Institute, so the content of Israeli Democracy Institute should be moved here. Mark Hurd (talk) 15:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

This obviously has been done... פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 10:25, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

controversy

I hereby bring up the issues with the IDI listed in an article on the Israeli 'News1' website from 2006[1]. If any wikiped author has the time and can find good sources for this please edit the main article and add these:

General issues:

• Exaggerated impact and non-scrutinized excessive acceptance by the government, media and public, as a non-biased organization
• Funded mostly by the single founder Bernard Marcus (as attested to by repeated failed attempts to raise money locally in Israel)
• Problematic board position of Marcus with ChoicePoint, formerly the largest US company that dealt with gathering and selling intelligence information. Marcus was a director of OBT which merged with ChoicePoint and was a director of ChoicePoint since May 2000[2]
• Ties of Marcus with American politician George Schultz
• Problematic declaration of founder calling for "political reform in Israel"
• Large scale hiring of renown experts, mostly legal advisers, and funding reporters in the media
• Very high salaries, on the Israeli scale, for personnel and hired experts
• Expensive location in the capital, Jerusalem
• 'IDI Friends' organization established after a discussion with George Schultz who showed concern for the IDI's image as a privately funded organization.
• Marcus dictates administrative and strategic decisions of the organization (examples given)

Support for former prime minister Ehud Olmert and combating financial allegations against him

• Funding the professors that signed a petition against the Israeli comptroller's investigation
• Ties to Olmert of members of the board:
  • Prof. Yaffa Zilberschatz - Dean of the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University. She is a personal friend of Amnon Rubinstein, and member of the immigration committee under him. Rubinstein was Olmert's promised candidate for presidency at the time, and was president of the Israel Interdisciplinary Center, privately founded by Professor Uriel Reichman who later joined Olmert's Kadima party.
  • Prof. Shlomo Avineri - renown leftist from the Hebrew University's Political Science department, joined Kadima. Lectures at the Israel Interdisciplinary Center, and is a member of Amon Rubinstein's immigration committee.
  • Prof. Yoav Dotan - Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was against the investigation of the 2006 Lebanon war in which allegations of Olmert's failed conduct were brought up. And was a member of the IDI's main project: "Constitution by Consensus".
  • Dr. Arik Karmon the president of IDI. According to a different article on News1[3], Karmon falsely represented himself as Professor. Following the article, references to Karmon in all IDI publications were changed to 'Dr'.
  • Yoram Turbowitz - attorney and chief of Olmert's staff, was on the board of directors of IDI until 2005, and is listed as a member.
  • Prof. Aliza Shenhar - former Israeli ambassador to Russia and currently dean of the Jezreel Valley College, is a board member, and wrote the Jewish studies section of the Ministry of Education plan, for adoption of the IDI "Constitution by Consensus" program.

Problematic ties with Israeli military:

• All ties are on a personal basis with no formal agreement between the two bodies
• Involvement in strategic decisions
• Involvement in the army's financial decisions, in the army's legal decisions and in the army's ethical decisions.
• Unofficial and informal ties with senior officers, including the chief of staff and his deputy.

Financial policy involvement:

• Promoting monopolies and fighting anti-trust efforts in the media and government
• Promoting the privatization of the government school system:
  • IDI position paper by Ronit Tirosh, former CEO of the Education Ministry, and later member of the Kadima party, and Professor Victor Lavi.
  • The Dovrat education reform committee decisions, chaired by businessman Shlomo Dovrat, who is the son of IDI board member Aharon Dovrat, were based mainly on the IDI position paper.
  • IDI position paper on financial policy for then head of the government finances committee at the Israeli parliament, later as a Kadima party member to become the minister of finances, and then to sit in jail for theft and money laundering.

Downplaying corruption:

• IDI position paper under the direction of Professor Mordechai Kremnizer, who received one of the top salaries at IDI, claimed that corruption is only perceived as rising, perhaps due to changes in media coverage, and that corruption can exist with little harm as long as it is contained and not widespread.
• Choice Point dealings with gathering information from and about citizens, companies and organizations.

Choice Point and IDI Involvement in US and world politics

• Choice Point spies on individuals and organisations in various countries including Israel and the US
• Choice Point assisted Bush's Campaign headquarters and supplied them with a list of primarily democrats who could not vote because of their criminal record.
• Following the elections, the Bush administration ordered a $67 million report from Choice Point on illegal immigrants.
• George Schultz, a personal friend of Marcus, is the honorary chairman of IDI.
• Shcultz, former secretary of state and foreign minister, was later president of Bechtel Corporation which received large projects in postwar Iraq.

IDI and the Israeli political system reform

• Turbowitz was hired in 1999 by then prime minister Ehud Barak and his assistant Yossi Kutzick, to lead the government reform committee, who then took the IDI as its leading research body.

Under the Barak administration:

• Prof. Asher Arian of the IDI prepared a "first 100 day plan" for the Barak administration, and a research paper on the elections.
• Prof. David Nahmias of the IDI worked on the "Public service reform" with the prime minister's office.
• Prof. Yedidia Stern chaired the coalition sponsored committee for completion of the basic laws of Israel (for the lack of a constitution)

The IDI promotes its flagship project "Constitution by Consensus":

• Distributing funds to the Israeli parliament (Knesset) committee for constitution law and justice.
• Teaching their constitution proposal as part of the Israeli 'regents' test for high-school students, as decided by the Shenhar-Kremnitzer staff, appointed by Amnon Rubinstein when he was minister of education under the Barak administration.

IDI media involvement

• The IDI Caesarea Economic Policy Planning Forum (In Hebrew it is called the forum for delineation of economy and politics) brings politicians and media together
• The Seventh Eye - a leftist magazine, with prominent writers from the media, is owned by the IDI
• The IDI pays israeli internet news outlets YNet and Walla for publications
• Presenting the annual Emblem of Democracy to various people of 'merit' according to the IDI's decisions. George Schultz was the first to receive this medal, and Edward Shevardnadze (who passed away less than 3 months ago) second. Even at the time, years before his 2003 downfall, Shevardnadze was known to be a problematic choice for a medal on democracy.

פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 10:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)