Only Remaining Untainted Candidate For Police Chief A Turnip

The turnip, right, shown with an acquaintance already convicted of corruption.

Jerusalem, October 1 – Police officials announced today that the vast majority of potential successors to the police commissioner have been eliminated from contention, ruling out everyone but a turnip in the Machane Yehuda market.

Corruption scandals and incompetence have plagued the Israel Police for years, but the scale of the phenomenon has reached a crisis point, as potential successor after potential successor to the current commissioner have retired rather than seek the appointment, lest their pasts receive unwelcome scrutiny in the process. Commissioner Yochanan Danino leaves office in May of next year, after his term was extended by a year amid concerns over the availability of a suitable replacement.

Those concerns proved prescient to an unnerving degree this week after several superintendents, previously considered worthy candidates, submitted their resignations from the force. In the wake of those announcements a slew of lower-ranking officials either followed suit or vehemently refused to accept any potential promotion to the rank of commissioner. The preemptive moves carried steadily through the ranks of the police force and into wider society, to the point that yesterday the selection committee reported it was unable to find a single candidate who did not immediately decline the privilege, except the turnip.

The root vegetable has so far remained silent on its intentions, fueling speculation that the Ministry for Internal Security, which runs the police, may have to sweeten any offer it makes to the turnip. Such a move might run into legal obstacles, says lawyer Kubbeh Hamusta.

“The office of Commissioner has pretty clear and solid restrictions on remuneration and benefits,” notes Hamusta. “Any augmentation of those terms would run afoul of various regulations and laws.” She suggested the alternative of explicitly offering not to use the turnip in a soup, but conceded that such an offer would not differ substantially from the implicit contract terms of any previous holder of the position, and might not serve as sufficient inducement to accept the post.

The turnip currently resides at Cohen’s produce market on Etz Chaim Street, but observers have noted that it is likely to change residences in the next hour, when Mrs. Fortuna Atias, 73,  shops for ingredients to go in her pre-Yom-Kippur stew.