Poll: 88% of Israelis say political parties are corrupt

Knesset is ranked second-most corrupt institution; Israelis think government efforts to fight corruption are not helpful.

Knesset winter session 311 (photo credit: Associated Press)
Knesset winter session 311
(photo credit: Associated Press)
Eighty-eight percent of Israelis think the country’s leadership is riddled with corruption, according to a report released on Thursday.
The Shvil-Transparency Israel report polled 1,000 Israelis in June, and is part of Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2010.

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The survey also found that 76% of Israelis believe there has been a rise in corruption in the country over the past three years, and 82% expressed a lack of confidence in the government’s ability to battle corruption. The latter figure is the highest for any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Israelis ranked the political parties as the most corrupt groups in the country, with a score of 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 being the most corrupt).
The oft-maligned Israel Police scored a 3.5 and the justice system 2.8. The army was voted the least corrupt public institution, at 2.6.
University of Haifa professor and Shvil-Transparency Israel researcher Dr. Doron Navot said, “The continued assertion by the public that the government is corrupt must be seen as an expression of no-confidence, disappointment, anger, and even desperation in regard to the country’s institutions and elected decisionmakers.”
Navot added, “The leadership isn’t corrupt in the narrow sense of elected officials receiving bribes and behaving in a criminal manner. Rather, it is corrupt in the broader sense, in that it doesn’t take into consideration the greater good.”