Congratulations to Naftali Bennett, who won by an impressive majority over his competitor for the leadership of the Jewish Home, Shimon Or (I have no idea what the exact number is, but probably over 90%).
What do you mean, you didn't know there was such a struggle there?
Bennett knew. Not just knew. He also prepared and worked hard on it. Bennett raised, according to what he reported to the State Comptroller, no less than 1.2 million shekels to defeat Or. The vast majority of the money came from donors abroad.
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I spoke to many people at the Jewish Home. There is no dispute that Bennett did not spend a visible penny on this 'battle'. Not a flyer, not a flier, not a letter, not a video, not a phone call to the functionaries.
What will he do with the money? The law states that he must spend this money only on financing the primary elections. He cannot use it for anything else. Bennett certainly knows the law, but true to his usual methods, he also knows what the law states will happen in a situation where there is a surplus.
You can use such a surplus within three years, if you have more primary elections. Alternatively, you can give it to a party, but not to finance its elections (you can also transfer it to the state treasury, but I bet they won't do that).
In short, Bennett found an amazing way to bring in another 1.2 million shekels for his elections. A donor from abroad is not allowed to donate 40,000 shekels to the Jewish Home. That is illegal. This donor is allowed to give Bennett for his fictitious fight against Shimon Or, and Bennett will transfer it to the party, which is actually Bennett. Israveloff.
The legislature agreed to allow donations from abroad to candidates in the primaries (rightly so), with the understanding that it is impossible for the public purse to finance this.
But he didn't dream of a situation where the candidates would invent semi-fictitious races (I'm not claiming that Shimon Or is Bennett's candidate, but it's clear that Bennett didn't need to raise a shekel to beat him), in order to raise money through the back door for whatever they wanted.
Now, for example, we can give strategic advisor Klughaft a bonus of 200,000 shekels for helping defeat Shimon Or. Why not?
The State Comptroller's staff were already at the "HaBayt Hayehudi" polling stations yesterday. If I'm right, they noticed this strange phenomenon and described it as "puzzling.".
Bennett is expected to receive a few questions from them soon. Will it pass the few questions?
• From Raviv Drucker's blog: http://drucker10.net
