The Free Processing Zone - An Obituary
by Zev Golan, IASPS Associate
Director
“An
End to the FPZ Project,” announced Globes.
“The Free Zones Council has cancelled the project tender.” The article
explains that the group of investors headed by Mr. Larry Silverstein has
withdrawn, no other investors were interested, and the government itself was
not really trying to push this project that could have created 20,000 jobs
in the Negev. Without, we might add, costing the Israeli taxpayer anything.
In
an accompanying commentary, Globes
tell its readers that “everyone is right.” In other words, no one is to
blame. But this is not “right” or correct. To find out what really
happened to these 20,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of
foreign investment in Israel, read David Yerushalmi’s account of the
scandal in the IASPS
Scorecard on the Israeli Economy: A Review of 1998,
“Resurrection.”
But
the greatest commentary on the sad story of how the government of Israel, or
actually several administrations and one bureaucracy killed the free zone is
told by the latest obituary itself. But
to appreciate this commentary, one needs to keep in mind that the killing of
the zone was indeed the product of a mob lynching in that the Knesset, the
Government, the various prime ministers and finance ministers, the many
bureaucrats in the Finance and Infrastructure Ministries, the Histadrut, the
Industrialists and the journalists of Israel all had a hand in this killing
of the Free Zone), which was in fact a killing of freedom itself in Israel
– as freedom was the meaning of the Free Zone and freedom was the reason
the above institutions and individuals decided to kill it.
But
this was more than just a spontaneous mob lynching; rather a premeditated
murder. Witness: Sever Plocker, economics editor of Yediot
Aharanot, who was quoted in Globes
on Nov. 22, 1994 saying, “We journalists will pursue the FPZ till the
end…”)
The
greatest commentary is brought by Globes
itself at the end of the “obituary.”
Here is Israel’s final word on a free zone:
“[Infrastructure
Ministry legal advisor] Ben Ari presented the finance minister, Avraham
Shohat, a draft law, according to which the State will carry out the
project, if it wishes to revive it. According to the proposal, the State and
the Free Zones Council will be responsible for the entire project, including
construction and marketing of the territory, and there will be no
involvement of a private concessionaire.”
In
Hebrew, the question is haratzachta
vegam yarashta? Which means, “have you murdered and also
claimed the inheritance?”
Indeed
they have.
