IASPS
Quarterly Report
Winter 2000
Keeping
Tabs on Israel's Internet
Comments of the President
The Director's Column
CNET
Report Relies on IASPS
Koret
Fellowship Program Brings Results
The Institute and the Internet
Back to the IASPS Homepage
Vol. 9, No.2 Winter 2000
IASPS and Etzioni:
Keeping Tabs on Israel's Internet
Seldom has the symbolism in a news photo been so clear and so on-target as when the Israeli daily Ha'aretz splashed a close-up of IASPS Koret Fellow Amir Etzioni's eyes across the entire cover of its Internet supplement on September 9, 1999.
The message: Someone is watching. Government bureaucrats and telephone company monopolists, state-backed profiteers and statist economists, note well: Someone is watching. Amir Etzioni is watching. IASPS is watching.
IASPS published Policy Studies No. 43 by Etzioni in August 1999. In it, Etzioni documented a long line of decisions by various Israeli governments to de-monopolize the local telephone industry, to allow competition in data-transmission and broadcasting, and to ease state controls on new technologies. All of these decisions shared the same fate: postponement, reconsideration, delay, death. Etzioni concluded in his study that government insistence on preserving the monopoly of the local telephone company Bezek, and government prevention of any new technology likely to compete with Bezek's outdated telephone wires, were costing Israeli consumers and industry more than $100 million a year. Israel, which has the reputation for being a high-tech dynamo, is relegating its Internet users to slow motion and stratospheric prices.
Though the main villain in Etzioni's study was the Israeli government that prevents competition, Bezek was first to respond. After Etzioni became a media star and Israeli citizens learned for the first time the reasons for, and the costs of, the poor state of their Internet infrastructure, Bezek threatened to sue IASPS and Etzioni personally. IASPS responded by inviting such a suit, promising that it would expose even more of the protectionist policies hampering Israel's technological development.
Etzioni, for his part, was courageous. Imagine a young man, just launching his career, assailed and threatened with a lawsuit by one of the most powerful institutions in Israel. Etzioni, turning to IASPS, made it clear: "I won't buckle but I need to know that IASPS backs me 100%.'' IASPS stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Etzioni. Bezek buckled. No lawsuit.
Having failed to deter IASPS, Bezek adopted a more creative tack. It announced on its website that IASPS had retracted Etzioni's study!
Standard Operating Procedure
So far, the System was following Standard Operating Procedure. Readers of the Quarterly may recall that the state-backed dairy monopolists had threatened to sue IASPS when the Institute exposed the economic harm done by their monopoly.
Similarly, the state-backed cement monopoly threatened to sue when IASPS published Amir Etzioni's assessment of its high prices and misuse of state funds, in Policy Studies No. 32. One high-level bureaucrat, however, outdid even these tactics when he openly lied to a meeting of Cabinet ministers, claiming that IASPS had apologized for and retracted Policy Studies No. 36.
When Bezek's threats and lies failed, the government got into the act. A deputy director of the Communications Ministry sent a 13-page letter and report to his minister, his ministry's director, and several members of the press. This document, responding to the Etzioni study, was based on misquotes, factual errors, and new obfuscations on the ministry's part.
Etzioni fired back with an in-depth analysis critiquing the deputy director's letter. IASPS posted Etzioni's analysis on its website and invited the public to judge. With surgical precision, Etzioni dissected each of the deputy director's claims. Etzioni demonstrated that the ministry official was unaware of stated government policy; contradicted his ministry's own policy; appeared to be unaware of most of the technological developments in cyberspace; and couldn't tell the difference between high-speed transmission and low-speed.
Several weeks later, on January 4, 2000, MK Michael Eitan, former minister of science, with whom Etzioni interned during the three years of his IASPS Koret Fellowship, organized an Internet Day at the Knesset. Knesset members and the Israeli public were invited to visit an exhibition of Internet technology and hear reports on worldwide and local developments. The central speeches were delivered by Communications Ministry Director Daniel Rosen and by IASPS Koret Fellow Amir Etzioni. The director's speech, praising the ministry for being the best of all regulators and allowing the best of all competition in this best of all possible countries, was well received.
Then Amir Etzioni responded. The same eyes that had appeared on the cover of the Ha'aretz newspaper. The same analysis that had dissected the ministry's deputy director's pitiful attack. The same courage that had not retreated when faced with legal threats by two of Israel's largest corporations. Someone is watching. Amir Etzioni is watching. You cannot get away with deception and hope that no one will notice.
Starve the Public
Etzioni credited the government with responsibility for the success of the high-tech Internet Day exhibition: The public - and the parliamentarians - are so starved for high-technology and for world-class Internet service that they flocked to the exhibition. Unfortunately, the single place in all of Israel that they could enjoy such technology was at this exhibition. Why? Because the government will not allow most of these technologies to compete with its own monopoly, Bezek. Etzioni then documented the different technologies, the poor local Internet service, the exorbitant prices, the broken promises, the lost revenue and the loss of freedom for Israeli citizens to do business or enjoy its fruits.
Today, Etzioni is considered one of Israel's leading experts in the Internet field. He was recently chosen as a board member of the Israel Internet Association. His op-eds on high technology appear in the Israeli dailies Globes and Ha'aretz. His comments on what is really happening in the local communications market appear as a special feature on the IASPS website. His opinion is sought out by industry innovators and businessmen. He testifies before Knesset investigatory committees.
Four years ago, late one afternoon, Zev Golan, director of the IASPS Koret Fellowship Program, introduced a shy Etzioni to MK Eitan on the fifth floor of the Knesset. Golan assured Eitan he was getting a young Koret Fellow with great potential. He assured Etzioni that Eitan was serious about researching information technology and that Etzioni would do well to accept the assignment. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and the birth of a dynamic policy maker in Israel.
You cannot run roughshod over the rights of Israelis. Etzioni and the Koret Fellows are watching; and, they are willing and able to inform the public about abuses of state power and intrusions on individual liberty.
Also in this issue:
Comments
of the President
Robert J. Loewenberg
on the Institute in the year 2000
The
Director's Column
Alvin Rabushka on how
the Israeli economy compares with the world
CNET
Internet Report Relies on IASPS Research
IASPS has become the
authoritative source for data on Israel's Internet
Koret
Fellowship Program Brings Results
Koret Fellows making a
difference
The
Institute and the Internet
How IASPS is reaching
the world