If the Oslo "peace process" ever leads to the destruction of Israel, a respectable share of the blame for this will lay upon the shoulders of Gonen Segev. Without Segev and his groupie Alex Goldfarb, Oslo II would never have passed the Knesset.

Segev was elected to the Knesset in 1992 as part of the Tsomet Party slate led by Rafael Eitan ("Raful"). The raison d'etre of Tsomet was opposition to any deal with, or any concessions at all to, the PLO. After the election, Segev and Goldfarb decided to switch sides in exchange for some political bribery in what will go down into history as the greatest act of political prostitution in Israeli history. Despite the fact that all Tsomet MK's had been elected by a constituency that totally opposed Oslo unanimously and unambiguously, Segev and Goldfarb became hired guns of the Labor Party and paid Oslo supporters. The background to their split from Tsomet had to do with a personal vendetta between Segev's ego and Raful's ego.

Segev was quite literally bought off by Rabin and Peres. In exchange for his support for Oslo, he was granted the cabinet post of Minister of Energy, and Goldfarb was also given some political laurels. When Oslo II came up for vote, Rabin and Peres knew they were far behind in Knesset support. So first they brought on board the Arab Communist Party Hadash with a handful of promises and then the PLO-surrogate "Arab Democratic Party". But even then Labor was short of votes. So Segev and his groupies rescued Oslo II, which passed by One single solitary Knesset vote, a vote that had been marketed to the highest bidder. Voters for Tsomet who opposed Oslo to a man found their votes completely corrupted by the Segev team.

Now this was not some Clinton-style flip-flop nor a Dole-Kemp phenomenon ("Oh, we just can't seem to decide if we oppose affirmative action."). This was explicit betrayal of the central plank of the Tsomet political platform by cynical demagogues anxious to sell their souls for a few pieces of silver. (The metaphor with Judas Iscariot holds in other ways; Iscariot is Greek for Ish-Krayot or man of the Krayot (suburbs) and Segev is from the Krayot area north of Haifa.)

Anyway, after the 1996 elections, Segev, the man of the Krayot, and company disappeared from the political scene. But what became of them? The answer is fascinating.

Israel is crawling with wealthy politicized industrialists and corporate executive groupies of the Labor Party. They place pro- Peres ads in all the papers when asked to do so. These are businessmen with Labor-Party connections who get handouts and largesse whenever Labor is in power, paid for by the ever-suffering taxpayer, in exchange for business political support for the socialists. Corporate welfare for businesses by socialists. The wealthiest of all the Labor Party industrialist groupies is Shaul Eisenberg, a Japan-raised Jewish billionaire with an industrial empire stretching over 4 continents, and lots of operations in Japan and China. Madame Butterfly's back yard.

Long before the 1996 elections it was clear to all that Segev's colorful political career was over, but Peres needed Segev to stay loyal until the last minute. So to keep Segev in line, Segev needed to get promised some sort of ready source of income and career advancement for after the 1996 election. This was a bit tough because Israel has "cooling off" laws that prevent politicians and senior civil servants from going to work for special interests right after their stint in their governmental jobs, lest they favor special interests in exchange for receiving after-the-job retirement pensions with same lobbyists, after leaving their governmental posts.

So someone approaches Eisenberg, Peres' close buddy, and asks him to set up Segev in a cushy job OUTSIDE Israel (and so exempt from the Israeli "cooling off" laws), for right after Segev passes into the dustbin of political history with the elections of 1996. Eisenberg complies, no doubt out of Zionist zealotry, and makes Segev a senior energy executive at his Chinese operations.

Now just because Segev had been Minister of Energy, don't be getting the mistaken idea that he knows the first thing about business, economics or energy. His professional training is as a veterinarian and before entering politics he had a small farm. Working the barnyard might have prepared him for politics in Israel but certainly not multinational business. In business, he does not know his assets from a hole in the ground.

But there he sits, in his executive chair with keys to the executive washroom, in violation of Israel's "cooling off" laws, and as a favor to his Sponsor Shimon Peres. Except for one problem; the Madame Butterfly opera ain't over till the fat lady sings. There have been some nasty outcries in Israel over this "retirement" arrangement and Eisenberg, who is worried about his reputation in Israel where he owns lots of businesses (some granted to him at favorable terms by his Labor Party friends), is making noises now about sending Segev packing back to Shimon Peres's Tel Aviv offices with nothing more that a rickshaw.
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