Peres upbraided for taking $30k a month bank job

Former president Shimon Peres drew a wave of criticism from across the political spectrum on Monday amid reports that he had signed up as a mover and shaker for Bank Hapoalim on a monthly wage of $30,000 a month, although associates quickly denied that Peres would be involved in local Israeli campaigning for the bank.

A report in business daily The Marker said the move to improve Hapoalim’s image abroad may also help Israel’s largest lender prepare to battle local legislation to increase competition in the banking sector. Finance minister candidate Moshe Kahlon is expected to push such legislation in the coming Knesset.

“I knew that he loves being honored, it seems (he loves) money as well,” MK Shelly Yachimovich (Zionist Union) wrote on her Twitter account. “Unnecessary, puzzling, annoying, embarrassing. Talking about peace. And about cash.”

The leader of the left-wing Meretz party Zahava Gal-on wrote in a statement that she was surprised that Peres would apparently go against his life long principles and work for a bank that, she claimed, “exploits its clients.”

“I have enormous respect for former president Peres and his work over the years for the benefit of the public and for the things in which he believes, and that is exactly why I am amazed and embarrassed,” Gal-on said, calling on Peres to reconsider the offer. “For $30,000 a month former president Peres will work for Bank Hapoalim, and according to the predictions will help the bank fight justified reforms.”

MK Miri Regev (Likud) mused that it would be a step down for Peres to go from president to simple lobbyist at the Knesset, acting on behalf of a bank.

“It is simply unbelievable,” she said in a statement. “There are former presidents that occupy themselves with global warming, world peace, helping the weak, but our president chose to help Bank Hapoalim for a fee.”

During and after the recent election campaign, Kahlon called on Israel’s banks to divest their credit card businesses and reduce the high fees charged from customers.

Peres’s lawyer has emphasized that the contract was only for the promotion of the bank’s overseas business and said it did not include any lobbying or legislative initiatives relating to Bank Hapoalim within Israel.

Citing sources close to Peres, the Marker report said all of the former president’s profits would be donated to charities or social justice projects and that his promotion of the bank abroad would advance dialogue, peace and Israel as a “start-up nation.”

Next month, Peres is slated to attend the bank’s 40th-anniversary celebration of its US operations in New York City together with former mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The report on Peres’s dealings with Hapoalim comes amid an ongoing investigation by the US Department of Justice into whether Israel’s major banks assisted their American customers in evading US tax authorities.