A Chain of Interpersonal Trust: The Histadrut as the National Corruption Pipeline

You know that your balcony cannot be expanded with regular permits and you need an exceptional permit from the mayor. Or perhaps you are competing for a tender to operate a municipal kindergarten and want to ensure your victory. Or maybe a tax assessor has imposed an unjustified fine on you.

You are at a loss, pulling your hair out. In a moment of weakness, you decide to become a criminal and offer a bribe. How will you do it? After all, you cannot enter the office of the mayor, the head of the tender committee, or the tax assessor and throw a pile of bills on his desk; he will call the police. You cannot even hint at a bribe because the other side will suspect that you are an agent provocateur. It may also be that the other side is not corrupt at all.

So how, then, are tenders rigged, tax assessments cancelled, and criminal charges avoided? Well, you need access to the country's corruption infrastructure, similar to the national road network or the power grid — the national corruption pipeline ensures that corruption is pumped from the place where it is produced to the place where it is required.

The Histadrut Chain

To benefit from corruption, the giving side and the receiving side need trust. A person cannot enter the mayor's office with cash, but if he is a cousin of a member of the municipal workers' committee who is close to the chairman, then the family trust, together with the internal trust in the municipality, allows for a chain of trust that enables the bribe.

In the absence of a culture of bribery like in Russia, or institutionalized bribery like in Germany, a specialized corruption infrastructure has developed in Israel, built on a chain of interpersonal trust. The ends of the chain may not know each other, but the chain remains strong. This chain is called the Histadrut.

Five years ago, former Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini and the chairman of the Manufacturers Association tried to go public on the stock exchange together with a gas distribution company with a valuation of about 150 million shekels. Apparently, these two are rivals — one is a representative of employers, the other is a militant Histadrut chairman. In practice, both are part of the national pipeline. In a presentation sent to investors, they explained from the outset that they are "very connected to the strong workers' committees in the economy" and "have business connections." They asked investors to support them not because the company is high-quality, but because they are part of the corruption infrastructure. The fundraising failed, partly because it was discovered that the company was suffering huge losses and the valuation was inflated; early investors lost their money, and in 2024 the company collapsed. Brosh was convicted of personal tax offenses related to his ownership of the company, his sentence was reduced several times until he received a pardon from the president. And you? You heard nothing about it.

The current Histadrut chairman was arrested in 2025 along with dozens of other people in the "Hand Washes Hand" affair, was released, and returned to the Histadrut. According to the suspicion, billions of shekels of public funds, yielding hundreds of millions in commissions, passed from hand to hand like water in the national corruption pipeline. Indictments will not be filed, and if they are — after years they will surely turn into ridiculous punishments and pardons.

Two days ago, it was published on Channel 14 that Yaya Fink, a senior employee at the Histadrut, transferred millions of shekels to non-profit organizations whose heads helped him in the primaries for the "Democrats" party. No investigation will be opened, the national pipeline will continue to flow.