I reported last week on an Israeli TV news segment recounting the accident that killed 16 year-old Gal Beck in 2005. It featured two grieving parents who’d never given up hope for justice in their son’s case despite the fact that the police did an incompetent investigation and the prosecutor dropped the case within a few weeks of opening it. There remains a gag order within Israel on identifying the woman who plowed into Gal’s motor scooter after running a red light, according to several eyewitnesses. I named her as Shani Palti-Schulz.
She is a member of one of Israel’s better-connected families. Her father is Nadav Palti, one of Israel’s most successful TV producers. After I published my post, Israelis identified the suspect’s mother. She is Dganit Palti, the chief financial officer of El Al. In Israel, some of the most important decisions are made based on connections, rather than merit. While Ms. Palti may be eminently qualified for the job, it didn’t hurt that her husband, Nadav, was a business partner of Tami Mozes Borowitz (the Mozes’ are one of Israel’s 18 oligarch families, which collectively own 60% of the nation’s corporate capital). Mozes Borowitz is the vice chair of El Al and a corporate director.
The Israeli financial elite are well-protected in every way. Their economic successes are guaranteed. The wheels of commerce are greased. The fix is in. That’s why the Israeli version of the Occupy movement which took over the streets of Tel Aviv several summers ago, resonated so strongly with Israel’s 99%. Israelis know the system is fixed. They know they will just get by, but the elite will never come out a loser.
That goes for their children too. When they get themselves into hot water, the system springs into action to protect its own. No doubt, this is what happened the night Shani Palti killed Gal Beck.
Nadav Palti produces the international Emmy awards on behalf of his production company. I came up with a photo from a recent awards program which features the happy family dressed in all their finery. I wonder what Gal Beck’s parents think when they see such images of familial joy?
“In Israel, some of the most important decisions are made based on connections, rather than merit.”
Your continues attempts to portray the entire Israeli society as corrupt (and in other posts, racist) are pathetic.
Not to say that there aren’t racist and corrupt people in Israel, but when described by you, they are always the rule, not the exception.
Of course, never mind that in Israel a former president, former minister, and soon a former PM, all of which are wealthy and well connected – are in jail for wrongdoings.
Maybe I should write in my blog about cases of racism and corruption in Seattle, along with some witty remarks about how this is representative of everything that happens there?
(Oh, and no, I’m not “hasbarist”(?), never read any hasbara “textbooks” (never seen one), no one sent me or paid me to write this. I’m an Israeli with real normal life. I study (engineering if you must ask, at the Technion, where there are MANY Arab students. with grants and scholarships btw), I love photography, and my girlfriend broke up with me not long ago. Read my blog, I know you read Hebrew. “Normal” Israelis do exist and even post comments here. Not sent by the government. I’d be very surprised to find any government office is actually allocating resources to refute your posts).
You seem to believe that you live in a “normal” society. That financial-social elites get in many societies privileged treatment, even when it comes to judicial proceedings, is quite “normal” – I grant you that. That is not what makes your society abnormal. Something else is -and the fact that you don’t even seem to be aware of it signifies that “internal” hasbara has got to you. That something else is of course the fact that your society, by its continued oppression of millions of people and by its land theft, is engaged in what Amos Oz called a “crappy colonialism” when other forms of western colonialism, often of a far more humanitarian kind than yours, ended more than half a century ago. That you, a young man, apparently finds this so normal that you bristle at the suggestion that your society is abnormal is sad. It means that the moronic belief that this situation can endure is shared across the generations.
Not only is this family morally pathetic, they look pathetic too; only losers and conceited buffoons would go to the International Emmy Awards (which they manage, to boot) and not go blond all the way by doing their obviously brown roots (the father/husband, needs to do his eyebrows if he is going to dye his hair in that hideous brown (a good dye job uses more than one shade of colour, usually 3 or 4), because it’s as ugly as not doing the roots if a person goes blond artificially to not do the eyebrows if they dye their hair. Oh, and the eyebrows in the woman who killed the young man by speeding and not paying attention to driving, has brown eyebrows, really? she can’t afford to go blond all the way?
And the obvious nose job on the murderess is telling too — unless a person has a deviated septum or some other medical condition that would call for surgery of the nose, it’s always shame based to do a nose job otherwise.
A lack of dignity always shows in more than one place in a person’s life, in this case — their bodies are wearing their sham and tinsel ‘ethics’.
This family has money, power and influence, however, they don’t have eyes! She wasn’t using her eye when she was driving and consequently murdered an innocent young man, and the family (including the murderess) don’t have eyes or else they would see how phoney they look — and the failed attempt at trying to look sheik, rich and like ‘stars’.
There is no gag order and her name can be found on countless Israeli websites.
There is however the fact the media chooses to continue and refer to her as “the run-over driver” and not by name which is not OK. They will probably claim it is b/c she might be innocent and 1- years passed but that is probably BS and they are either afraid of the family or cooperate.
@Eilati:
Correction: I’ve just confirmed that your claim is correct. There is no gag. But this further reinforces the notion of self-censorship. Either the family’s lawyer has threatened all major media with lawsuits; or they expect the lawyer will & they’re doing his work for him. Either way, this is shameful. A cowed media is a feeble ineffective media.
Your claim is false. If it were true Israeli media would be using her name in their reports and they are not. Further the victim’s family refuses to allow anyone to use Palti’s name either on the memorial FB page.
may i quote bob dylan ‘money dosnt talk, it swears’ and i might add it stinks