Jewish state ranked 29th out of 37 OECD countries; watchdog head: ‘corruption phenomenon in Israel strengthening;’ study published on day ex-minister pleads guilty to tax offenses
An anti-corruption watchdog on Tuesday gave Israel its worst-ever score in a global ranking of how countries tackle government graft.
Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perception of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, gave Israel a score of 59 out of 100. The highest scores are awarded to countries with the least amount of corruption.
Since the Corruption Perceptions Index began tracking Israel a decade ago, the lowest score the Jewish state ever received was 60, which it produced in 2020 along with in several other years throughout the time frame. The country’s highest score in the last decade was 64, which it received in 2016.
Israel is ranked 36th out of 180 countries in the 2021 report, after ranking 28th five years ago. Among 37 OECD countries, Israel is ranked 29th, dropping four places compared to a year earlier.
The grades, the organization says, are derived by each country’s “perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople,” based on data collected from 13 organizations, including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and Freedom House.
Transparency International did not provide any details on its reason for the grade it gave to Israel or just about any country surveyed, and it did not include it among those countries listed in its “Middle East & North Africa” division, nor in any other regional breakdown.
Nili Arad, the chairwoman of Transparency International Israel, said this year’s index “indicates that the phenomenon of corruption in Israel is strengthening.”
She said the phenomenon is particularly concerning in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, “when an extra measure of transparency is needed as protection against harming the foundations of democracy.”
“Israel’s low ranking is a warning sign against moving toward signs of a corrupt state,” she added.
In 2019, a serving Israeli prime minister was indicted for the first time, with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Benjamin Netanyahu, now opposition chairman, has denied the charges against him, and the criminal trial is expected to drag into 2022 as plea bargain negotiations fell apart earlier this week.
But corruption issues extend well beyond Netanyahu.
On the same day that Transparency International published its 2021 index, Shas party leader and former minister Aryeh Deri plead guilt to tax offenses at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors that also saw him resign from the Knesset.
Opposition MKs Yaakov Litzman, David Bitan and Haim Katz are also each facing possible indictments for various graft offenses they committed during their careers in public service.
The top-ranked countries in the world were Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, which all achieved a score of 88. Lowest on the list were Somalia and Syria, each with 13, and South Sudan with 11.
Israel is included among 27 countries — including Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Lebanon and Honduras — who also reached a historic low in their individual rankings this year.
The United States received a score of 67, while the United Arab Emirates came in at 69 and the United Kingdom at 78.
At 59, Israel is still among the highest-scoring countries in the region, compared to Jordan (49), Lebanon (24) and Egypt (33).
Overall, most countries have made little to no progress in bringing down corruption levels over the past decade, and authorities’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in many places has weighed on accountability, the closely watched study found.
In a press release explaining the report, Transparency International said “increasingly, rights and checks and balances are being undermined not only in countries with systemic corruption and weak institutions but also among established democracies.”
Among other issues over the past year, it cited the use of the Israeli NSO Group’s Pegasus software, which has been linked to snooping on human rights activists, journalists and politicians across the globe.
The report said the pandemic has “been used in many countries as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and sidestep important checks and balances.”
The United States, which slipped over recent years to hit 67 points in 2020, held that score this time but slipped a couple of places to 27th. Transparency said it dropped out of the top 25 for the first time “as it faces continuous attacks on free and fair elections and an opaque campaign finance system.”
As reported by The Times of Israel