The scandalized elite has done everything to blacken the name of the man who has wrested IDB from Nochi Dankner.

17 December 13 17:28, Stella Korin-Lieber

1. The judge chose Maurice Moshiashvili. The judge was not frightened by the name, by the stigma they had tried to attach to it, by the Georgian origins, by the black kipah, the childhood in poor neighborhoods of Lod, and not by the campaign of horror stories about business in another country and international tax planning (as though Moti Ben-Moshe invented that). He was not frightened by the campaign of incitement of the ruling business junta and its satellites, who did everything, not balking at contemptible racism and stoking of mass fear, to destroy the man who does not rub shoulders with it at cocktails, openings, closings, dinner parties, highly publicized birthday parties for wives, and children's weddings where the big checks fly.

Maurice-Mordechai-Moti Moshiashvili-Ben-Moshe is the man that the current elite can't stand. It doesn't know his weaknesses. It has no common past with him. It can't be sure whether it can close horse deals with him, live or dead. So it responded enthusiastically to the assassination attempts from Dankner & co., who dubbed him "a supposed businessman", "a mystery man", with unknown people behind him.

True, we don't know Ben-Moshe, but lots of people know Nochi Dankner. They know about the insider deals, the convenient valuations, the financial gambles with other people's money. They chiefly know, for certain, that he cannot pay the debts he incurred. Incidentally, nearly all the partners he brought in with whom he was supposed to continue controlling the company are unknowns. Besides, what did we get from the "well-known" controlling shareholders? And how many well-known business people declared in court that they were prepared to disclose everything required of them, as Ben-Moshe did?

2. That's it? Absolutely not. The judge gave his ruling, but Nochi Dankner and the gang of big salary takers at the expense of losses and debts will continue to do everything to continue the pleasure trip of the leaky IDB ship until all the money has been doled out to all the friends and not a shekel remains to repay the public: the bondholders, the banks, and the institutions. The creative abilities of Adv. Ram Caspi and ex-tycoon Dankner, who have done and will continue to do everything, including going to the Supreme Court, to keep control, will yet surprise us.

3. Has Dankner finally understood his personal failure? Doubtful. Yesterday, he made the following statement: "It's important to me that the public should know that the person most injured by what has happened is me." ("Globes"). If it wasn't pathetic then it was cynical. All the decisions were his, all the debts were taken on by him, all the perks, moral and less moral, were doled out around his table, all the profits were his, and all the failures. He built the great pyramid, and, in his arrogance, turned it on its head. Many billions of the public's money depended on him, on one man, a broken straw. So sure, he was the one most injured. How else? What does he want, pity?

4. Dankner didn't fall as a businessman, he fell as a person. He ceased to be his thoughtful, deliberate, skeptical, critical self, and lost his sense of self-contemplation. The success and power went to his head. Here is what he had to say when he was king of the country, four years ago, in December 2009 in "Globes": "I take care to ensure that IDB has large amounts of cash, and that we exploit business opportunities in moderation, cautiously, conservatively, and gradually. Despite the many business opportunities, we retain in our hands large cash reserves. I see them as an insurance policy. The strategy is to be prepared for changing situations that are hard to foresee."

If only he had listened to himself.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 17, 2013

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013