MK Miri Regev (Likud) Wednesday convened the Knesset committee she chairs to discuss a complaint by a political ally, racist Upper Nazareth Mayor Shimon Gapso, against the municipal legal adviser whose revelations helped lead to Gapso’s recent indictment for bribery. The move infuriated both coalition and opposition MKs, who accused Regev of abusing the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee to settle her crony’s political accounts. Despite his indictment, Regev actively supported Gapso’s latest campaign, which culminated in his reelection last week. She went to Upper Nazareth twice to attend campaign rallies, and also stumped for him in media interviews and on Facebook.
Gapso’s racist banner in Upper Nazareth (Photo: Al Ittihad)
Based on the invitation she sent out, MKs were expecting a “discussion in principleon working relations between elected officials and senior bureaucrats in the local authorities.” Instead, they found themselves at a hearing devoted entirely to the abysmal relationship between Gapso and his municipal legal advisor, Att. Olga Gordon. The result was a stormy session in which Regev threw out three MKs in succession − Hadash chairman, Mohammed Barakeh, Miki Rosenthal (Labor) and Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) − who accused her of political exploitation of the committee and of allowing Gapso to continue abusing Upper Nazareth’s municipal gatekeepers.”
Regev also invited Gapso and 15 municipal employees, including several low-level such as a painter and an office clerk, whose relevance to the discussion wasn’t clear. But three senior officials who were clearly relevant − Gordon, municipal treasurer Ofer Levy and municipal comptroller Eran Bar-Rabi − were not initially invited; they received invitations only after hearing about the meeting from other sources and asking to attend. All three have fought bitterly with Gapso and were involved in exposing corruption in the municipality; the state comptroller has given Levy protection as a whistleblower and announced plans to do the same for Gordon. MK Barakeh said it was inconceivable for the Knesset to grant legitimacy to a man who has been indicted for taking bribes.
