Iscar Ltd. founder Stef Wertheimer, which he and his family recently sold to Warren Buffett, told "Forward", "High tech is marginal,” and “dangerous". He made the remark during an interview following last week's inauguration of the Jewish-Arab industrial zone in Nazareth. He then corrected himself by changing this to “complicated”, but accompanied it with a dismissive shrug.
Wertheimer says that high tech has the worrying effect of causing Israelis to leave the country, a trend he views very seriously.
Wertheimer told "Forward" that a thriving economy is not enough if it was not producing goods. “Industry is important, but everyone thinks money is important,” he complained. Without the appropriate balance, “it’s only back to the old system of thinking as a survivor and an underdog.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of economic peace isn’t the same, because he “speaks only about money.” A peace economy, Wertheimer said, requires productive skills.
Wertheimer, who arrived in British-ruled Palestine in 1937 as a refugee from Nazi Germany, sees Israel as a country of refugees that struggles to find common denominators. It is a “nation but not a people,” he said, and needs a new goal to bind the population, one that will unite the Jewish populations from various backgrounds, and in which Arab citizens can be full partners.
It can only be industry,” he said. “We don’t have another goal. You want more lawyers? It’s not going to help you; you don’t have enough thieves."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 25, 2013
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