David Pryce-Jones considers the murky consequences of a Syrian gambler's taste for the high life ("Apparently it is not unusual for him to tip a waitress $10,000 for bringing him a cup of tea.") Over at Contentions, meanwhile, Hillel Halkin has posted a frank piece about corruption in Israel:
There are countries in which corruption hardly exists and no one would dream of trying to solve his problems by r
esorting to it. There are countries in which it is omnipresent and everyone understands that it is the only way to get things done. And there are countries, like Israel, in which the rules are simply not clear, and you never know if a bribe will pay off, be dismissed by whoever it is offered to with an indignant glare or weary smile but no worse, or land you in jail. Most people would never run the risk, but most people have also heard rumours or stories of others who have run it successfully...
If Israel is not going to end up in corruption category 1, it is going to have to change its ways of doing things and learn to go by the rules—everywhere. In some ways this will be too bad. Just last week my wife phoned the cable TV company and got it to lower the rates it charges us by threatening to move to a rival. An Israel you can no longer do this in will be a less simpatico place. But it will also be a cleaner one.
Indeed, if one wants to be optimistic, this is what is happening in Israel right now. Case after case that might have gone unprosecuted before is now ending up in the courts, the cases of ranking politicians not excepted.
He thinks that bargaining over a price and threatening to move your custom is corrupt. Jesus, if that's the mot juste, what a tit.
Posted by: dearieme | Tuesday, April 03, 2007 at 02:32 PM
"Just last week my wife phoned the cable TV company and got it to lower the rates it charges us by threatening to move to a rival"
You can do this in the UK - it's hardly corruption/bribery.
Posted by: Mike | Tuesday, April 03, 2007 at 09:24 PM