Seventy-two percent of the Israeli public rated the general level of corruption in the Israeli government as "high to very high," a corruption index poll taken ahead of the Israel-Sderot Conference on Social Issues revealed.

The poll, published on Tuesday, showed that only 1% of the public rated the corruption level as "low to very low," compared to 9% in 2007.

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The political parties were perceived as more corrupt than in the past two years - a 10% rise to 69% this year, compared to 59% in 2007 and 58% in 2006 was recorded.

Government offices came in second place, with 46% of the public finding them corrupt compared to 44% in 2007 and 2006.

The Knesset is the third most corrupt body according to the poll, getting 44% of the public's votes this year and in 2007 compared to 46% in 2006.

Other bodies viewed as "corrupt to very corrupt" include local authorities (37%), manpower companies (33%) media outlets (30%), the police (29%) and the Histadrut labor union federation (27%).

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Force and the defense establishment are viewed as well functioning bodies, with only 11% of the public rating them as "corrupt to very corrupt," compared to 12% last year.

The corruption rating of banks (20%) has dropped significantly compared to previous polls, (29% in 2007 and 30% in 2006) and the rate of percieved corruption in the healthcare system has also dropped to 12% from 19% last year and 15% in 2006.

The poll was carried out by the Maagar Mochot research institute in Novemeber 2008 and is based on the indexes carried out in October 2007 and October 2006 with only slight differences in the composition of the questionnaires.

The 2008 poll was based on 543 telephone interviews of a representative sample of the adult population in Israel. The interviews were carried out in Hebrew, Russian and Arabic.