Investigation Opened on Kariv’s Involvement in Transfer of Funds to Reform Group

The B’Tzalmo organization revealed Thursday that State Attorney Amit Eisman is investigating suspicion of criminality in the conduct of MK Gilad Kariv, following the investigation published by journalist Kalman Libeskind last week in which suspicions of criminality arise in the conduct of the Diaspora Ministry, MK Kariv and the Reform movement.

Libeskind published in Maariv‘ an investigative report into the involvement of MK Kariv in the project and serious flaws that fell in the approval of the project. The establishment of the directorate and the budgeting of the project are the realization of a clause in the coalition agreement, which was signed when the Labor faction entered the government. Kariv who previously served as the chairman of the Reform movement in Israel promoted the introduction of the clause to the agreements and took an active part in its promotion and approval in the state budget for 2022. However, from the publications it appears that in the end the money went to an internal association in which Kariv served until a short time ago as a member of the executive committee, at the same time as his tenure in the Knesset and his activities to approve the budget.

As mentioned, Kariv’s connections with the association did not prevent him from dealing with the budget, nor did they prevent the chairman of the association from publicly acknowledging this with the approval of the project on the social network under the description “thanks to those without whom the project would not have happened”.

Beside the conflict of interests of Kariv, the contract with the association was conducted improperly and contrary to the regulations, while the members of the association participated in meetings with the members of the office and were partners in the professional procedure even before the decision was made to hold the joint venture. “The hand of an internal association is deeply immersed in the work of the headquarters, which ended up allocating tens of millions to itself,” the report said.

In addition to this, the association was selected through a procedure of exemption from tendering and publication of tests, while its annual budget in previous years amounted to only about 1% of the scope of the entire project, and it even undertakes to raise tens of millions of shekels from independent sources. Strangely, the association was not required to provide any proof of its ability to manage and raise funds on such a scale.