FEEDBACK PRINT THIS PAGE
|
|
|
Timeline
September 1993 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the Declaration of Principles and begin the process of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and transfer of authority over those areas to an interim Palestinian authority.
November 1995 – Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a right-wing religious extremist. Shimon Peres succeeds him as prime minister.
May 1996 – The government and media representatives sign a censorship agreement which loosens the government's control over print and broadcast media.
May 1996 – Likud party candidate Binyamin Netanyahu defeats Shimon Peres in the first and only direct election of a prime minister.
April 1997 – The attorney general announces Prime Minister Netanyahu will not face criminal charges in connection with the case of former Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, an influence-peddling scandal that also involves Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, his predecessor, Yaacov Neeman, and Netanyahu's aide, Avigdor Lieberman. Netanyahu was accused of trying to meddle in Deri's corruption trial in exchange for favors from Deri's political party.
March 1999 – After a five-year trial, Aryeh Deri is convicted of taking bribes, fraud and falsifying documents and is sentenced to four years in jail.
May 1999 – Labor party candidate Ehud Barak defeats Netanyahu to become prime minister.
May 1999 – Israel enacts a freedom of information law. The law requires all executive, legislative and judicial bodies, the state comptroller, local authorities and government-owned companies to fulfill information requests from the public, with exceptions for national security, intelligence and information pertaining to internal government management and investigations.
January 2000 – Prime Minister Ehud Barak's One Israel Party is fined 14 million shekels (US$3.2 million) and placed under criminal investigation for campaign finance illegalities during the 1999 elections. The state comptroller found similar violations by other parties, although on a much smaller scale, and opened criminal investigations of the Likud Party, the Center Party, the United Torah Judaism Party and the Yisrael Beiteinu Party.
March 2000 – Former Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu and his wife are charged with fraud, bribery, breach of trust and obstruction of justice. Charges are dropped in September for lack of evidence.
July 2000 – Newspaper publisher Ofer Nimrodi is put on trial for allegedly contracting a murder and then bribing senior police officials to influence their investigation. Nimrodi eventually pleads guilty to lesser charges and serves 17 months in jail.
December 2000 – Ehud Barak resigns as prime minister in order to force an early election. Barak runs for the seat, seeking to establish his mandate.
February 2001 – Ariel Sharon defeats Barak and is elected prime minister.
June 2002 – The government begins constructing a 440-mile-long barrier along the West Bank to protect Israel from Palestinian suicide bombers. Subsequently, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the UN declare the barrier to be a violation of international law. Israel's supreme court upholds the barrier's legality, but orders several parts of it to be rerouted.
March 2003 – An Israeli military bulldozer, clearing land while searching for weapons in Gaza, kills Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American protestor with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian organization. Eyewitnesses claim the driver saw Corrie as he proceeded forward, but a government investigation exonerates the driver.
September 2003 – The Orr Commission releases its findings regarding the government's handling of the October 2000 al-Aqsa Intifada. The report criticizes Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Minister of Internal Security Shlomo Ben-Ami, notes the historical and systemic discrimination against Arab citizens, and recommends personnel action and/or criminal investigations against several government and police officials.
June 2004 – Newly appointed Attorney General Menachem Mazuz drops charges against Prime Minister Sharon involving allegations that he and his son accepted bribes between 1997 and 2003 in return for promoting a plan to develop an island resort.
July 2004 – Prime Minister Sharon dismisses minister of infrastructure and Knesset member Josef Paritzky from his cabinet post after television station broadcasts footage of Paritzky allegedly conspiring to defame a party rival. The following January, the case against Partizky is closed for lack of evidence.
August 2004 – The Supreme Court rules the Government Press Office cannot, as a blanket policy, deny press credentials to Palestinians from the occupied territories seeking to report on official events in Israel.
September 2004 – Knesset Member Tzachi Hanegbi is suspended from his post as minister of public security pending an investigation into allegations of making inappropriate political appointments during his tenure as environment minister. He is replaced by Gideon Ezra, who in March 2005 receives a warning from the attorney general for interfering with police investigations on behalf of a political crony.
October 2004 – The attorney general directs Knesset ministers and deputies to refrain from promoting the private interests of members of their party's central body or any other Institution that helps chooses their lists of candidates.
November 2004 – Shimon Sheves is convicted of using his position in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's office to promote the financial interests of his close friends and business associates.
July 2005 – The Knesset establishes the Parliamentary Investigation Committee to Uncover Corruption in the Governing System but disbands it in December.
November 2005 – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon leaves the right-wing Likud party and forms the centrist Kadima party.
November 2005 – Omri Sharon, the prime minister's son and a member of the Knesset, pleads guilty to lying under oath and falsifying company financial records to conceal illegal campaign funds raised for his father in 1999. Ariel Sharon's attempt to return the illegal funds in October 2001 prompted the attorney general to open an investigation.
January 2006 – Ariel Sharon suffers a major stroke. Ehud Olmert takes over as prime minister.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
