(Video) A recent report drafted by the inquiry commission on the home front’s functioning ahead of and during the recent Lebanon war stated that private entrepreneur Arcadi Gaydamak was the only one who successfully tended to the needs of the northern residents.
Petah Tikva Mayor Itzhak Ohayon, Brigadier-General (Res.) Hanoch Milo, and Social Studies Researcher Dr. Shlomo Tzadok recommended that Gaydamak be awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for setting up the tent city in Nitzanim, which accommodated thousands of northern residents who fled the massive Katyusha rocket attacks on their communities.
But in a special interview with Ynetnews, Gaydamak downplayed his role and tried his best to refrain from joining the public and media onslaught against the government for its mishandling of the war.
“I don’t think it was a fiasco,” he said. “We live in a structured state, with all kinds of administrations; the only difference is that we are Jews, and in our history we never lived under the state system –we lived under the community system. So what I did in the case of the Nitzanim refugee camp is that I expressed my solidarity, it is part of our tradition.
“However, Nitzanim should have been used as a place of transition – after a few days the state should have dispersed the camp’s inhabitants to different schools – then we could have helped thousands more. Some people stayed for a week and left, others stayed for the entire duration of the war – here there was a failure,” Gaydamak added.
“But the state cannot act as a private businessman – it has calculations, a budget. It is not because they are doing something wrong – it’s against the spirit of the system.”
You were left to pay the bill for all the tent city expenses….
“It is normal that we covered the expenses for the services that were provided by different organizations, such as Magen David Adom – I never said there was anything wrong with this.
“What was not normal was that after the camp had already been erected for 10 days the internal security minister (Avi Dichter) announced on TV that the police would not collect money for the services they are providing, but later they did ask for money.”
Gaydamak criticized the media’s coverage of the tent city in Nitzanim, saying they focused on the most trivial issues.
“Yedioth Ahronoth reported that a woman in the refugee camp lost her bikini, that it was apparently stolen – maybe this is true, but the problem is the need to show that something is wrong,” he said.
Asked whether he was offended by the media’s coverage, Gaydamak said, “No, because it’s my social duty.”
With regard to the war’s failures, do you believe Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz should step down? Are they directly responsible?
“I cannot say whether or not they performed their duties well, because maybe someone else did something that had worse consequences - maybe not - but I cannot judge.
“The job of Israel’s leaders is to protect the Jewish people – it is a huge responsibility –it is not the same as being a political leader in Switzerland or Finland – the main thing they should understand is that they have first of all a huge responsibility for the destiny of the Jewish people.”
Gaydamak was recently questioned under warning by the National Serious and International Crimes Unit (NSICU) on suspicion of money laundering through a Bank Hapoalim account, but he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
“It’s always good to have someone like Gaydamak – I am being blamed by the police and the state prosecution - and everybody knows that I’m suspect no.1,” he said.
“Six months ago I said on television that Yohanan Danino (then NSICU chief) and Moshe Mizrahi (formerly head of the Police Investigations Branch) committed a crime; I will not let them escape –the criminals from the police will never escape – they are acting against Israel’s interests for personal reasons.
“It will take years before the confidence in Israel’s banking system is regained; Danino and Mizrahi expressed the anti-Jewish philosophy according to which the wealthy people from Russia are all involved in criminal activity; they committed a crime against the Jewish nation.”
Do you have proposals for the government to narrow the ever-increasing socioeconomic gaps in the country?
“Yes, I have many ideas, but unfortunately here we don’t have respect for the individual; we claim that we are an 'am ehad' (one nation), but we constantly divide society into Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Russians and Moroccans, new and old immigrants, secular and religious; even today, instead of trying to attract the wealthy members of the Jewish community in Russia – the world’s strongest economic community – instead of utilizing their economic power, Israel is doing everything to reject them.
“They are forgetting that over half of the soldiers in the combat units are of Russian origin, but Russians make up less than one percent of the entire police force, and there is no Russian above the rank of colonel in the army. Israeli society is a society of injustice; if it continues in this manner it will lose everything – we will lose Jewish society.
“Today we are rejecting members of our community because they are Russian because it is easy for criminals like Mizrahi or Danino to reject them so they can go up in the ranks – it is much more attractive to catch Gaydamak because he is of Russian origin and because he made his money quickly; we created a new strong Russia, and instead of using us in Israel for the good of our people they are doing everything to reject us.”