Arkady Gaydamak became a household name in Israel just two or
three years ago. Ever since then, the Ukrainian-born
billionaire has had the political establishment worried,
proving that with money one can accomplish a lot, including
positive things.
Gaydamak has a long-range plan. Israel has plenty of business
tycoons, some of them perhaps even richer than he. But
Gaydamak is doing things nobody else is doing — and not
just because he is a tremendous baal chessed and they
are not.
Gaydamak started making his way into the Israeli public
consciousness by purchasing well-known basketball and soccer
teams, apparently as part of a bid to win the hearts of the
amcha and the many die-hard sports fans in its
ranks.
He then began donating large sums of money to provide for the
lower classes, handling activities the government normally
takes charge of in most Western countries. He also donated to
a considerable number of organizations through a special
foundation he set up.
Then came the war in Lebanon. Gaydamak firmly established
himself as a do-gooder by building an enormous tent city in
Nitzanim for thousands of displaced northern residents.
Recently Gaydamak again made headlines when he opened up his
purse strings to pay for a week long vacation in Eilat for
hundreds of Sderot residents at nerve's end after long months
of Kassam rocket attacks. But this time his philanthropy came
after remarks suggesting he has his sights on the Knesset
— and maybe even the Prime Minister's Office.
The reactions among top politicians were a fascinating sight
to see. Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz slammed Gaydamak, saying
by whisking hundreds of local residents out of Sderot he was
serving the interests of the terrorist organizations.
Gaydamak's opponents say he is simply buying his way into
power and represents a threat to democracy. Some claim he is
the most dangerous man around today, saying his aim is to buy
a country by winning the hearts of the simple folk since at
the polls there is no difference between a vote cast by a
professor and a vote cast by a dishwasher at a restaurant.
The way the Eilat vacation was handled offers proof that
Gaydamak's detractors could be right. In Sderot hundreds of
teenagers were left waiting for hours for the buses to
transport them to their southern getaway. Gaydamak's people
told them the plan had been cancelled because of Olmert's
criticism. Upon hearing that their vacation was being taken
away from them and the reason why, they of course started
shouting out invectives against Olmert with various
television cameras on hand to capture the scene. Then lo and
behold, once the performance was over the buses suddenly
rolled in and the vacation went ahead as scheduled.
This was clearly a political maneuver showing Gaydamak
already seems to have learned the rules of the game in
Israeli politics.
A recent survey by Mina Tzemach found that if the Knesset
elections were held today and Gaydamak ran as head of an
independent party he would rake in at least 13 mandates. Just
shy of Labor and Kadima and more than Shas or Lieberman's
Yisrael Beitenu.
This is truly astonishing. Nobody knows who would be on his
party list or what he thinks on security, economics,
terrorism, peace, religion and state, social affairs, youth
affairs, environmental issues or education — yet he
could win 350,000 votes.
Gaydamak's supporters — who are few in number in the
political ranks, with the exception of those who hope to one
day join his party — believe the current government is
no less attached to big money and that corruption is seeping
out. They also believe Gaydamak truly is a rare baal
chessed and this does not negate his right to enter
politics. The lashing out against the business mogul, they
hold, stems from envy due to other politicians' inability to
carry out the same kinds of endeavors. For when all is said
and done the government and the political establishment were
really the ones who should have provided for all of the needy
people living from hand-to-mouth.
