"I wish to announce to you and to all the people of Israel that I have finally gone back to driving a Skoda at the port," jokes Alon Hassan in an interview with "Globes" on returning to head the strong Ashdod Port workers committee. "It's actually nice, an 1800 turbo, but don't worry, I'm not going to sell my cars now," he continues.
You can hate Hassan; surprisingly enough, you can also like him, but it's hard not to acknowledge his sincerity, his recoil from hypocrisy. He won't craftily exchange his luxury car for a Nissan SUV like Yair Lapid, nor will he hide the cigars to bring them out again when there are no cameras in the vicinity. "My father was always a businessman, I grew up into it. From age 17 I have been in business myself, and everything I have I made with my own ten fingers. You can't tell me I got rich because of my connection to the port. So all those who sit in Jerusalem and criticize me, I'd like to see them reveal what they've got. I could also register my businesses in the names of friends, neighbors, and brothers-in-law. I know those tricks. But with me, everything is above board, I've never hidden anything. Ask Buji Herzog if the Herzog Fox & Neeman law firm is his or not. Ask the former Minister of Justice Yaakov Neeman if he isn't connected to the same firm. Ask Ehud Barak to explain about these companies registered in his daughters' names when he was minister of defense with a NIS 30 million apartment in the Akirov Towers. Let Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz explain how he pays for just the water at the huge farm he lives on. Let him just explain that. So I can't live in a detached house with a pool in Ashdod? I have never stolen a shekel from anyone, but I promise you one thing: the day they announce that they are resigning because of their businesses, I'll do the same."
What about appearances? Don't you understand how discordant it is when a workers' leader goes around in a luxury SUV and runs private businesses at the same time?
"I really love these fine words. 'Public appearances' What appearances? What public? What am I, a government minister? Am I minister of defense? The workers elected me, and you have to ask them. I had businesses the whole time, and everyone knew all about it. Ask how it is that in every election for years I've received 90% of the workers' votes, and last time around there was no election at all."
Then they'll tell you that the most wonderful leaders in our region won percentages of the vote like that. They'll say that people are simply afraid of you.
"Really, that's all I'm short of, that I scare people. Ask the workers if it comes from fear, or maybe from love? From the fact that I give my all for them. But there it is, they elect me, not Yisrael Katz or Shelly Yachimovich. I invite her, Ms. Yachimovich, who went so far as to call me a corrupt and a thug, to be a heroine and remove her privilege. Let's put what she said about me to the test of the law without her parliamentary privilege." (Yachimovich chose not to comment.)
The affair of Hassan's private businesses, and the initial findings indicating that some of them were apparently connected to the operation of the port, broke out a few months after another affair, starring Ashdod Port chairman Gideon Sitterman. In a pointed document submitted to the board of directors and revealed by "Globes", the port's CEO himself, Yehoshua (Shuki) Sagis, accused Sitterman of gross interference in employment and procurement tenders. Sitterman rejected most of the accusations, but admitted that he did attempt to bring into the port a Likud activist for a position that had never existed before (VIP escort), and that he had even tried to get Hassan onto his side in the matter. Hassan steadfastly refused, and there are those who claim that, since then, Sitterman has been out to settle accounts.
You claim that Sitterman has embarked on a campaign of revenge? That he has orchestrated everything that has happened since then?
"Sitterman isn't acting alone here, but yes, I can tell you that he hinted to me then, when Sagis's document was revealed, that he could reopen the subject of my private businesses. And I remind you that the matter had already been examined beforehand by the board headed by Sitterman, but that it was found that there was no conflict of interests. He basically decided that he would go to war with me, and in fact he did say at a board meeting that took place at that time that he wanted to re-examine my businesses. They all simply sat there in the room and planned how to get rid of me. Now explain to me how it is that someone who admits attempting to appoint associates stays in his post, but I become an assassination target. It's a scandal." (Sitterman's office stated in response: "The Ashdod Port board operates professionally and not according to Hassan's needs, and Hassan should understand this. The external auditor's report on the examination of Alon Hassan's business activities is due to be published in mid-October and to be brought before the board. The board will not comment beyond that, until the report is before it.")
Until the new government was formed, the State of Israel was not in fact afraid of doing business with Hassan itself. On the contrary, although Hassan was perceived as a strongman and a tough negotiator, he was also seen as someone who could deliver the goods when it came to reforms, unlike the workers committee chairman at Haifa Port, Meir Turgeman, who was seen an obstinate militant. And so, for two years, the state conducted secret negotiations with Hassan and the heads of the Histadrut, at the end of which a written agreement was formulated that included the workers committee's consent to full privatization of the Ashdod Port with 30% of the shares to be held by the workers, and consent to the construction of a private port next to it, as long as the workers would be subject to one committee (which is problematic from a legal point of view). With the formation of the new government, it was decided to abandon the agreed plan and to publish tenders for the construction of two privately held ports at Ashdod and Haifa, which went along with a stubborn refusal to conduct any talks with the workers committees, despite rulings on the matter by the Labor Court. Hassan, who had an honorary seat at those negotiations, was suddenly marked down as the enemy of competition and of the whole economy.
How do explain the fact that all of a sudden they want to get rid of the person who himself called for privatization of the port? The prime minister and the minister of transport are the same. What has changed?
"In the current government there is no prime minister. There are three spearheads: Katz, Lapid, and Bennett. The 'brothers'. Make no mistake, the country doesn't interest a single one of these people. They compete between them over who will say what, and who will say most. That's the story. The plan we drew up previously was acceptable to Netanyahu, but 'the brothers' were against. You must understand: the person who conducted the negotiations with us for two years was the commissioner of wages at the Ministry of Finance, Gal Hirshkovitz, and he received Netanyahu's full backing to close an agreement with us. We even travelled to Barcelona together to examine at close quarters a model of private quays alongside publicly owned ones. So suddenly the plan was no good?"
What does the government gain from opposing that plan?
"First of all, those in government think that that plan is in any case in their pocket, so that they can throw everything up in the air and try to get more. They reckon the worst that can happen is that they will re-adopt the plan if that move doesn't work out for them. As far as that goes, I tell you that they can dream. Secondly, they think that this is a way to break organized labor. Look at the fine words they use on television and in the court, telling stories about competition and the cost of living, but the paradox is that they then go to Facebook, and there they write the truth."
You're going to a first meeting at the Ministry of Transport after the High Court of Justice rejected the state's application for a suspension of the ruling obliging it to negotiate with you. How far will you be prepared to go in future agreements on a new reform program?
"As far as we are concerned, there can be five privately owned terminals, as long as competition is fair, such that the infrastructure conditions for the private and publicly owned quays are equal. If you only allow the privately owned port to construct a deep-water quay for giant ships, everyone will prefer that port. That way, you will get a monopoly again, only there'll be a new Alon Hassan there."
Clarification
Member of Knesset Yitzhak (Buji) Herzog wishes to make clear that neither he nor any member of his family has any stake in the law firm Herzog Fox and Neeman, contrary to what is implied by Alon Hassan in the interview. He states that since entering politics he has only served the public, and that anyone who claims otherwise is slandering him.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 6, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013