Thus, for example, Azoulay confirmed in her testimony that she used to handle citizens' inquiries to the minister's office, even though these inquiries were not related to the same ministry to which Ben-Eliezer was entrusted at that relevant period, such as requests from citizens who did not accept their children to a particular kindergarten. Azoulay even confirmed that she ran a computer program in which she tracked and handled these inquiries, all with the intention of providing good service to citizens.
- After the characters of Ben-Zaken and Azoulay have been outlined, and it has been clarified that they are two active, dominant, entrepreneurial and capable figures, and in order to understand the nature of the relationship that has been created between the two, I will detail the evidence presented in relation to the common background they shared, and the close friendship relations that have been maintained between them over the years.
As a starting point, we can refer to the indictment in which the prosecution noted that in the 1990s, Jacky Ben-Zaken was Ben-Eliezer's activist in the Labor Party, and after he became a businessman, the connections became self-interested."While Ben-Zaken made sure to maintain ties with Azoulay, whom he knew at the time as a political activist" (Section 3 of the indictment).
Azoulay described the relationship as follows: "Defendant 5 (Ben-Zaken – B.S.) I have known him for over 20 years, he was a central activist in Ashdod. If I'm not mistaken, an assistant to the Minister of Public Security, too. When he left the public service, we continued to be in a friendly relationship, he is a very good friend" (Prov. p. 1131, s. 23).
In his testimony, Ben-Zaken described how the friendship lasted for more than 20 years, how much he valued Azoulay professionally, so much so that he waited for her to retire from public service in order to hire her ("I greatly appreciated her and waited for this day for her to no longer be in politics so that I could attract her to me" – Prov. p. 939, para. 29).