Within a few hours, Israel responded further, and from the air, with amazing intelligence and accuracy, killed the leaders of the organization that planned the attack and sent out the terrorists. This is the organization that abducted Gilad Shalit, and apparently the attack included a plan to abduct more soldiers.

What was the response of the Palestinians and other Arab nations?
Egypt has recalled its envoy to Israel; Israeli flags were burnt in Cairo in front of the Israeli Embassy.

Hamas has begun to fire Scuds, Grads, and Kassams into Israel’s southern cities: Beer Sheba, Ashkelon, and Ashdod. Hamas declared, “There is no longer a lull vis-à-vis Israel in the face of the ongoing massacre that it commits against the Palestinian people without any justification.” 1

Palestinian Authority, “Expressing sharp criticism of the IDF response to Thursday’s terror attacks, senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath says Israel bears full responsibility for the escalation and its consequences: ‘This is a war crime’” He accused Israel of escalating tensions in the region in order to thwart the Palestinian’s bid to approach the UN for recognition of statehood in September, calling Israel’s response to the terror attack, “Israel’s madness”2

President Abbas called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to talk about “halting Israeli aggression” on the Gaza Strip. Abbas, “expressed concern that the latest escalation would undermine the prospects of peace in the region.”3

Another senior PA official “accused Israel of escalating tensions in the region to thwart the PA leadership’s plan to ask for the UN next month to recognize a Palestinian state along the pre – 1967 lines.” Mohammed Subh, PA envoy to the Arab League, blamed Israel for “preparing for war to distract attention from the Palestinian Authority’s plan for September.” And finally, Fayez Abu Aitah, Fatah’s spokesman charged that, “This is a premeditated and programmed aggression aimed at avoiding the internal crisis in Israel,” 3

In the UN security council Lebanon has thwarted a condemnation of the terror offensive.

Does this make any sense to you?
Hamas enters Israel from the Sinai Peninsula, attacks two civilian buses and a few cars with a hail of bullets, suicide bombers, and an anti-tank rocket, and Israel is the aggressor for defending itself and going after the organization that sent them? Hamas begins to fire a barrage of rockets at Israel’s southern cities, killing civilians and damaging buildings, and Israel, attacking its attackers, is the one who is committing “a massacre…of the Palestinian people without any justification”? Is hitting the leaders of the organization that perpetrated the attack and the rocket squads a massacre? (Was the US’s assassination of Bin Laden and some of those on his compound a massacre?)

The Palestinians attack Israel and then accuse Israel of “escalating tensions in the region,” and, of “premeditated aggression”!

Such usage of language against its victim, Israel, shows clearly that the Palestinian Authority has no moral compass nor true sense of right and wrong. It clearly shows that they cannot be trusted nor believed in their effort to convince the world that giving them half of Israel is in the best interest of everyone. This is a moment of clarity.

More proof of their direction and intentions
Read and watch this clip from Palestinian television, showing their thinking about the Jews, Jerusalem, and a Jewish presence at the Western wall: click here to watch.

How can you pray and stand before the Lord?
When issues are confused and we don’t have moral clarity, we cease praying with conviction, and our praying ceases to be based on the Word of God. Our praying, if we pray at all, can become a vain effort to bring our own sense of balance into what we think we see, and we end up, unwittingly, trying to manipulate God into seeing things from our point of view.

This is especially true about Israel’s restoration and the current situation. If the enemy can bring Christians to believe Israel is in the wrong, and its existence illegitimate, he can effectively shut down their prayers, and he has essentially achieved his goal.

What are we to do?
We must continue to stand upon the Word of God, and before God for its fulfillment.

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. 1 John 5:14-15

I will make one obvious and simple statement: Israel’s restoration to the Land in the Last Days is a central point in the Word of God. It is God’s will to restore the Jewish people back to the Land, and to restore the Jews to Himself through the Messiah, Yeshua.

The restoration of Israel plays a central part in God’s unfolding plan to bless the earth and its inhabitants. God will rule the earth; He will not leave it to His enemy.

God’s will and plan is good. Man’s plans only seem good. But if allowed to come to fruition, they will be catastrophic, and are essentially evil. Humanism and man’s wisdom oppose all that He is and wants.

There is only one place we can stand as believers: before Him, to beseech Him for His will to be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven. Let this fire burn in your heart and become the fuel for your prayers.

It would also be entirely in heart and will of God to fervently pray for the revelation of Yeshua to the Jewish people and to the millions of moslems who live in the Arab neighboring countries. It is His will that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess the Yeshua is the Lord!

Stand with us in prayer
On September 6th we will have a city-wide prayer gathering in Jerusalem. Here is the invitation that I was asked to write for it:

All City Prayer Meeting – September 6, 7:00-9:00 pm, Jerusalem

Behold, I will gather them out of all countries where I have driven them in My anger, in My fury, and in great wrath; I will bring them back to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. They shall be My people, and I will be their God; then I will give them one heart and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.
Jer. 32:37-41

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Messiah,

In the heart of God, there burns a zeal and a passion to restore His People to HImself and to His Land; and all of this, for His name sake, as part of His plan to bless the nations and the earth. Israel is in great need of being delivered from her enemies and her sins; God’s great love and power will accomplish this.

We call on the Body of Messiah in Jerusalem to come together to lay our petitions at His feet, that He may bare His arm and deliver us. It is especially important that we join in prayer before the 20th of September, the approximate date on which the UN will vote on a Palestinian state.

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Ofer Amitai

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1. “Hamas military wing: Gaza lull over”, Elior Levy, Israel News, Aug. 20, 2011
2. “Shaath: Israel’s madness will not deter us”, Elior Levy, Israel News, Aug. 19, 2011
3. “Abbas calls on UNSC to halt Israeli aggression’, Khaled Abu Tomeh, JPost, Aug. 20, 2011

 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will triumph and Israel live in safety. And this is the name the city will be called: THE Lord OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’  Jer. 33:14-16

*

Israel – in great social turmoil

Israel is being shaken from within. Thousands of people have been sleeping in tent cities erected in major thoroughfares in major cities. Thousands of mothers have marched with baby buggies to protest the high cost of brining children up in Israel. Doctors have been striking for over 100 days over ridiculously low wages (residents make 25 NIS an hour), long hours, gaping lack of manpower. 

Why are people fed up with the situation?

High cost of living has made it impossible for the middle-class to make ends meet. Cost of food, for instance, has gone up 30% in the last few years. Cost of property, both rental, and for purchase, have become so prohibitive, that students and young people can no longer afford it, period. The price of goods in Israel, is one of the highest in the world, while wages are ridiculously low. For example: Police officers make between a bit over 4,000 NIS a month, they do not get extra for overtime. Teachers get about the same, maybe a bit better. The average wage in Israel is about 8,500 NIS compared with 13,000 in the US (17,000 NIS in big US cities), 16,000 NIS in France. Yet, the cost of living in Israel is several times that of Europe and the US.  Most people are in the minus in the bank; it’s an accepted norm and the banks treat it as an automatic loan – which gets people into a deeper hole.

 Why is the situation so bad?

Although Israel’s economy has done extremely well and the country is prosperous, its citizens have not shared in the bonanza. This is so, because the wealth and benefits of Israel’s prosperity have not trickled down to the people but have been concentrated in the hands of about 20 very wealthy families. These are Israel’s tycoons. 

Ten large business groups control 30 percent of the market value of public companies, while 16 control half the money in the entire country!  (1)

“According to the central bank’s annual report, published in May, the top families control 25 percent of the listed companies and 50 percent of the total market share in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The bank warns that this represents one of the highest concentrations of business power among developed economies, posing a “systemic risk” to the financial system and threatening to drag other segments of the economy down should the tycoons falter.” (2)

Naturally, the concentration of so much power and money gives the tycoon families enormous influence on the government and the governing of Israel. 

For more background information, read entire articles  here and here

Another source for the problem is that the government owns and controls 93% of all the land in Israel. Up to now, there has been no plan in place to develop and build rental property, or build affordable housing. Thus, the little construction that is going on is aimed more at the upper classes, including wealthy Jews from abroad. 

*

 Situation similar at the time of Nehemiah

The people’s complaints to In Nehemiah were very similar in nature to the people’s complaints today.   Read passage:  Nehemiah 5:1-13

God cares about social justice

• For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy,  Now I will arise,” says the LORD; “I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.” Psalm 12:5
•  He will judge Your people with righteousness,  And Your poor with justice.” Psalm 72:2  
• He will bring justice to the poor of the people;  He will save the children of the needy,  And will break in pieces the oppressor.” Psalm 72:4

In the first message of Isaiah to Israel, God confronts Israel for its social injustice. Interestingly, God’s promise to make Israel as pure as snow and to be blessed in the Land, is tied into this issue:  Isaiah 1:16-26

In the wonderful promise of Israel restoration quoted at the beginning of this Prayer Update, we see that Yeshua executes righteousness and judgement in the Land! Its part of the plan of the restoration of Israel.

Some dangers for Israel at this time of upheaval

It is already clear from what is happening on the ground, that different interest groups are trying to manipulate this movement to their own ends, especially it is true of the left wing parties who would like to use this movement to overthrow the government. 

The intention of the Palestinians to declare an independent state: We are one month away from another huge challenge to Israel and that is the unilateral declaration of a state by the Palestinians. Anything can happen at that time: A new Intifada, regional war, uprising of the Arab sector in the Land, another attempt of massive marches into Israel by people from neighboring Arab nations. 

PRAYING FOR ISRAEL DURING THIS CURRENT SITUATION

Key players are uniquely qualified to deal with the current issues

Netanyahu has a deep understanding of Israel’s economy and finances. Although he may be a little out of touch with the needs of ordinary people, he is sensible and understands the economy.

Stanley Fisher, Bank of Israel’s Governor is a good man who has been able to secure Israel’s economy despite the world wide down turn.

Please pray

• For Bibi – that this would be his finest hour, that he would rise to the occasion and be inspired to be a true statesman who will stand up for his nation at this difficult hour.
• For the government to rise up to the occasion and serve Israel’s highest and best interests
• For Bib – that he would be protected by the Lord from the pressure of the tycoon families, and will stand up to them where necessary.
• For the government to honestly deal with the underlaying problems in our system, and to have courage to make the fundamental changes, instead of “throwing the populace a bone.”
• For the Lord to keep the tycoon families from paralyzing the process.
• For a just solution in all the areas needed so that ordinary Israelis will be able to live here and make it here in the land and that immigrants will be able  prosper here as well. [Did you know that Israel has negative Aliya (immigration)? The number of Israelis emigrating from Israel is larger than the immigration to the land - by 5000 people.] 

May the Passion and Zeal of the Living God consume your thoughts and heart to burn in intercession before Him. And may He mightily lead you to pray for His Kingdom to come and will to be done ON THE EARTH as it is done in Heaven. Israel’s restoration is but a key that unlocks untold blessing to the entire earth, and its peoples!!!!

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:  “The Deliverer will come out of Zion,  And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them,  When I take away their sins.”

Romans 11:26-27

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Citations:

1. “Is Israel Inc. Too Powerful?” Tova Cohen Ari Rabinovitch, Jerusalem Post, Aug.1^st 2011

2. “The Controversy Over Israel’s Busines Elite”, David Wainer and Calev Ben-David, Bloomberg, business week, July 29, 2011

bloomberg, business week     GLOBAL ECONOMICS October 7, 2010, 11:00AM EST

With a few business owners controlling a huge part of the economy, cries for reform are getting louder

By David Wainer and Calev Ben-David

Israel’s economy is widely seen as a high-tech success story. Yet to many Israelis the real players in their economy are not programmers or venture capitalists. Rather, they are the 20 or so Israeli families who control banks, supermarkets, telecoms, real estate, gas stations, and utilities—businesses that underpin much of daily life.

Too much, says Stanley Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel, who has sounded the alarm over the power concentrated in the hands of these families. Fischer, a world-renowned economist who mentored Ben Bernanke and who has run Israel’s central bank for five years, says the influence these companies wield may undermine Israel’s growth by undercutting competition. According to the central bank’s annual report, published in May, the top families control 25 percent of the listed companies and 50 percent of the total market share in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The bank warns that this represents one of the highest concentrations of business power among developed economies, posing a “systemic risk” to the financial system and threatening to drag other segments of the economy down should the tycoons falter.

The business elite developed when a few entrepreneurs ended up owning companies privatized by the government in the 1980s, and it has become a hot-button issue in Israeli politics. The government is warning that it will take action. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Bloomberg Businessweek:”The Israeli economy has come a long way, but we have a long way still to go. We need to reduce the concentration of power in many key sectors of our economy and promote greater competition.”

The same names crop up in many sectors of the economy. Nochi Dankner is probably the most prominent of the tycoons. Although he owns about 3 percent of Credit Suisse (CS) and prized foreign properties from Las Vegas to Manhattan, his real power comes from Israel. Dankner split off from an already influential clan that made its fortune in the salt industry: He now runs a web of companies through his IDB Holdings. All Israelis are touched by Dankner’s businesses, whether they use mobile phones provided by Cellcom, the country’s top cellular operator, shop at the No. 1 supermarket chain Shufersal, or invest in mutual funds offered by Clal Finance, Israel’s largest financial institution outside the banks.

Shari Arison, who became a target of local talk show gibes for claiming to have prophetic powers, owns No. 2 lender Bank Hapoalim and real estate developer Shikun & Binui. Arison, whose brother Mickey owns the Miami Heat and operates Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) for the family, inherited the investments from her late father, Ted. She’s Israel’s richest woman. Isaac Tshuva’s Delek Group holds two financial companies, Phoenix Holdings and Excellence Nessuah, and has businesses ranging from a gas explorer to an automobile importer. The Ofer family counts among its holdings Israel Chemicals, which makes fertilizer from Dead Sea minerals, and a 20 percent stake in Israel’s fourth-largest bank, Mizrahi-Tefahot.

Through their representatives, Tshuva, Arison, Dankner, and the Ofer family declined to be interviewed for this article. A spokesman for IDB, Dankner’s holding company, e-mailed Bloomberg Businessweek to say: “There isn’t any problem of concentration within the Israeli market. This is a populist agenda which arose as a result of the financial crisis.” Pinhas Rubin, a prominent lawyer who represents Arison, the Ofers, and Tshuva, says the families have not done wrong: “Big groups in a small country don’t necessarily translate into less competition. The Israeli media, as it often does, is twisting and exaggerating the reality.”

Advocates of reform cite several examples of the tycoons’ behavior as evidence they must be curbed. When Israeli importers wanted to buy cement from Turkey to compete with Nochi Dankner’s Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises, then-Trade Minister Ehud Olmert levied duties of almost $6 a ton on the imports, claiming that otherwise the cement would be dumped at rock-bottom prices. That decision ensured that Nesher would keep its 90 percent control of the industry. The government says it reached an agreement with Turkey to drop the duty on those producers who agreed not to dump.

According to a July report from the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, a think tank, units of the Ofers’ Israel Corp. get a major chunk of the government grants and tax breaks earmarked for manufacturers and exporters—which in turn makes Israel Corp., and by extension the Ofer family, even more powerful. The report recommends that the government abolish the grants, since its authors say the grants bestow unfair advantages on the largest holding groups. A spokesman for Israel Corp. says the company has acted in accordance with the law.

What also endangers the economy, say critics, is the families’ control of many financial institutions. “Influential businessmen such as Nochi Dankner, through Clal Insurance, or Shari Arison, through Bank Hapoalim, can gain clout in other industries by the sheer influence they exercise with their large holdings in the relatively small financial industry,” says Miki Rosenthal, a documentary maker whose film on the Ofer family’s influence on the government was screened on television only after a legal battle with the family.

On the flip side, an oligarch’s woes can turn into Israel’s woes. Lev Leviev, a wealthy diamond merchant and developer, borrowed about $2 billion from financial institutions in Israel to acquire property from Russia to Manhattan, including the old New York Times building. Last year he dragged the entire Tel Aviv Stock Exchange down 2.3 percent when he told investors he couldn’t pay off the debt on time. Investors feared a default by his Africa Israel Investments would damage every major institutional investor in Israel and eventually hurt the economy. Although Africa Israel restructured its debt and the market has recouped its losses, regulators are still concerned by the damage that one large group can inflict on the rest of the economy.

Now, as Israel gets back to work after its September holidays, pressure on the government to act is likely to pick up. The Finance Ministry is studying a proposal to bar groups that own financial companies from holding industrial businesses. “There is a danger to the economy and we need to make sure we counter-act,” Avi Simhon, head of Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz’s economic advisory board, said in an interview in Jerusalem. “I would guess we would reach some decisions in less than a year.”

A draft law would expand the powers of the Israel Antitrust Authority to act against groups it classifies as oligopolies stifling competition. The bill, now making its way through the parliamentary approval process, would allow the authority to go beyond setting regulations for a particular market. It would be empowered, for example, to reduce or eliminate costs for consumers switching from one cell phone or cable service to another, or to act against cross-ownership of companies that have “a chilling effect” on competition, says Ronit Kan, commissioner of the IAA. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz says the government will find a solution “gradually.” He adds that the government does not want to make things worse by acting rashly.

One more thing about the tycoons disturbs Israelis. It’s called hon v’shilton, literally translated as capital and government, an expression Israelis use to describe the rich’s influence on government. The top families have been accused by government watchdogs of dishing out well-paid private sector jobs to government officials who eventually end up dealing with their ex-colleagues in the ministries. Nir Gilad, the former accountant general at the Finance Ministry, now works for the Ofer family as chief executive officer of Israel Corp. and as a board member of other Ofer-controlled companies. Arie Mientkavich, who in the 1990s served as chairman of the board of the Israel Securities Authority, the Israeli equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission, joined Dankner’s company Elron as chairman in January 2007. Yoram Turbowicz, chief of staff to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, works for Isaac Tshuva as chairman of Delek Energy Systems. “These tycoons hold more power than the government,” Shelly Yacimovich, a member of the Labor party known for her populist outbursts, said at a conference in Tel Aviv in July. “We urgently need to act.”

The bottom line: The Israeli government is worried about excessive concentration of economic power in the hands of a few families.

By Moti Bassok and Eran Azran

She said it loud and clear. “Economic concentration is out of control,” stated MK Einat Wilf (Atzmaut ). “A small number of groups and families control an entire economy without proper supervision or balance of their actions.”

Wilf, who left Labor to join the party’s former chairman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in his new party, made the claim in a position paper she submitted to the interministerial panel appointed to examine economic concentration and competition in Israel. “Most of these groups use the nation’s wealth to serve their private interests, while the private capital of the group members is protected,” Wilf wrote.

Economic concentration, Wilf claimed, has ramifications for a great many areas: It accelerates inflation, reduces private retirement savings and heightens systemic risk – the likelihood that the entire economy will collapse. The high prices charged by monopolies aggravates poverty, as does the artificial suppression of the minimum wage, she continued. Overall, competition is depressed.

The issue also spills into politics and the public debate, Wilf argued: Media outlets are owned by powerful people who do not hesitate to wield that power as they see fit.

On May 12 members of the committee met with Wilf and with representatives from Shari Arison’s business group, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel and the Israel Consumer Council.

Nili Even-Hen, an attorney from the Movement for Quality Government, said that the big business pyramids – chains of companies with a holding company at the top that owns controlling interests in other companies that own controlling interests in yet other companies – work against the greater public good. According to her, the individuals and organizations who are charged with protecting the public, from the regulators to elected officials to the credit rating agencies, have fallen down on the job.

As majority shareholders the tycoons control more than a trillion shekels of public money, Even-Hen said, noting that Israeli law has no remedy for the problems resulting from the structural flaws in the economy.

There is no choice but to dismantle the pyramids, to prohibit an individual or a group from owning both industrial concerns and financial institutions, Even-Hen concluded. It’s one or the other.

Ambitious goal: Make Israel Better 

The economic concentration committee was created in October by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz. It is headed by the Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Eyal Gabbai, and the Director General of the Finance Ministry, Haim Shani. Among its members are the head of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, and the supervisor of banks, David Zaken.

The panel’s goals are ambitious. The main ones are to better protect the public’s financial assets and the money placed by investors in publicly traded companies as well as insuring the stability of the banking and financial systems, while increasing competition and efficiency in the economy.

Among the many issues on the committee’s agenda is cross-holdings, that is, companies that own shares in other companies. Of particular concern is the implication of cross-holdings by companies in different areas, such as when a large manufacturing conglomerate and a big financial institution own stakes in each other.

Last year Wilf submitted to the Knesset a private member’s bill aimed at curbing economic concentration. Among the reforms she recommended in her position paper were severing ties between finance companies and other types of companies, devolving control over banks and insurance companies to the public, instituting effective supervisory guidelines for financial institutions, abolishing tax breaks for pyramid companies and gradually dismantling them.

Wilf, who has a doctorate in political science from Cambridge University, as well as an M.B.A., believes that sector-based regulators (such as the supervisor of banks ) should not have veto powers, that controlling shareholders should not hold such large chunks of publicly traded companies (in other words, that the public float should increase ) and that the interdependence between media groups and big business should be reduced, as should ties between big business and regulators.

She used the IDB group as a model to demonstrate her arguments.

IDB in the crosshairs

IDB is one of the groups that accrued power by unkosher means, Wilf claimed. As the English-language website of group member Elron states, “IDB group’s business interests encompass a broad cross-section of Israel’s economy, including insurance and the capital markets, communications, technology, industry, real estate development, retail, trade and tourism.” In short, a pyramid business.

Wilf’s position paper describes how the group’s main controlling shareholder, Nochi Dankner, controls dozens of publicly tradedcompanies worth NIS 140 billion. The group has high leverage levels, which means it borrows heavily. It has numerous cross- holdings between its financial institutions and its other companies, and has a host of former regulators and government officials on its payroll.

Most of the companies making up the tangle of interlocking firms of IDB borrow heavily from the public (through bonds ) and from the banks.

In fact, it’s the public’s money that finances IDB’s operations. When a bank extends a loan, it’s lending out money deposited in the bank by the public. When provident funds or pension funds or insurance companies lend money to the groups, they too are tapping into money that the public deposited with them.

The great business pyramids soak up an enormous proportion of the credit available in Israel. The Bank of Israel found that in 2009, just six business groups were using 40% of total nonbank credit (bonds ) and 25% of all bank credit.

IDB’s leverage ratios (debt-to-equity ratio ) are 60% to 70%, says credit rating agency S&P Maalot. The Israel Corporation, another business pyramid, featured a much lower leverage ratio of 35% at the end of the third quarter of 2010.

According to IDB’s own financial statements, it owes NIS 17 billion to banks and an addition NIS 31.5 billion to other financial institutions another.

The Bank of Israel gives the total amount of credit at the end of 2010 at NIS 765 billion. IDB, therefore, has soaked up 6.2% of all credit extended in Israel.

Empire worth NIS 140 billion 

Dankner has been buying control over companies using borrowed money from day one, said Wilf: That’s his modus operandi. In 1999 he sold his holding in Dankner Investments and created Ganden Holdings, a private company. Ganden borrowed heavily to buy into real estate companies, bloating its balance sheet to $300 million.

Despite Ganden’s already high leverage, in 2003 Dankner decided to buy the controlling interest in IDB Holding Corporation – the company at the top of the pyramid. To do so, he took out three more loans through Ganden: from the Mivtachim pension fund, Azorim Properties and businessman Ilan Ben-Dov, today the controlling shareholder of Partner Communications

Dankner has partners in IDB: the Livnat and Manor families, who jointly own 27% of the group; and his sister Shelly Dankner, who owns 4%. But Dankner is the key figure and the man who manages the assets. 

Dankner is believed to have invested from NIS 75 million to NIS 150 million of his own money, Wilf noted, pointing out that Mivtachim lent him money through Ganden when no other financial institution was willing to do so. The Mivtachim board of directors was expanded in preparation for the loan’s approval, Wilf explained: MK Amir Peretz, who at the time was chairman of the Histadrut labor federation, appointed additional board members.

Mivtachim’s then-chairman, Shmuel Avital, was later named chairman of the Maxima Fund, an IDB subsidiary. The group’s pyramidal structure gives Dankner control of more than 40 big companies with a relatively small investment of capital, Wilf wrote.

As of year-end 2010, the consolidated balance sheet of the IDB group exceeded NIS 140 billion. In addition, Clal Finance manages NIS 27 billion in assets. Neither figure includes the assets managed abroad by the Titanium investment firm.

What all this means is that Dankner achieved control over a vast swath of the economy while risking the equivalent of about 1% of that consolidated balance sheet (NIS 75 million to NIS 150 million ) of his own money.

Wilf backed up her claim about IDB’s propensity for hiring former regulators and other government officials with examples: Arie Mientkavich, former Israel Securities Authority chairman (IDB Holding vice-chairman ); Eyal Solganik, former ISA chief auditor (IDB chief financial officer ) ; Shy Talmon, former Finance Ministry accountant general (CEO of Clal Insurance ); Yoni Kaplan, former tax commissioner (Clal Biotechnology board member ); Yitzhak Klein, former manager of national insurance company Inbal (high position at Clal Insurance ); and Gabi Picker, director and a personal friend of Netanyahu.

Former cabinet ministers Danny Naveh and Roni Milo, and former chief of staff Dan Halutz, are also on Dankner’s payroll.

This story is by:

Moti Bassok

Dr. Gauthier is a Canadian Lawyer who just received his PhD after twenty years of research on the legal status of Jerusalem and the writing of a dissertation of some 1300 pages with 3000 footnotes. He had to present his thesis to a panel of two leading international lawyers and one world famous Jewish historian. The reason for so many footnotes was to enable him to defend his thesis from intense attack by one of the lawyers who happened to be Jewish anti-Zionist and who had represented the PA on numerous occasions. Gauthier is not Jewish.

Pictorial impressions of s recent Prayer Journey. Israel Prayer Center in Jerusalem organizes Prayer Journeys in Israel. Our main focus is to pray and intercede for the restoration of Israel to God and to the Land in fulfillment of God’s passion to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.