Mossad Director Yossi Cohen has been accused of intervening in a car import business dispute in 2013, when he was deputy chief of the spy agency.
The dispute between car-import businessmen Michael Levi and Rami Ungar dates back to 2007 and 2008, when Ungar succeeded in taking South Korea car distributing giant Kia Motor Corporation’s business from Levi, according to media reports.
Levi sued Ungar for wrongful business interference in undermining his relationship with Kia.
Ungar eventually countersued, claiming Levi had employed illegal spying and hacking to invade and illegally collect secret company data.
One of the people whom Ungar said helped Levi spy and hack into Ungar’s systems, is former IDF special forces deputy chief Aviram Halevi.
On Wednesday, Halevi testified in Tel Aviv District Court that Cohen called him in 2013 and pressured him to meet with Ungar, media reports said.
Halevi eventually switched to Ungar’s side and has been providing information to Ungar and the court about spying and hacking actions he undertook against Ungar.
The question is whether Cohen used his power as deputy Mossad chief to influence Halevi regarding the business dispute, in which Cohen has a history with Ungar.
To date, Cohen has refused to testify.
However, Cohen sent a letter addressing the issue.
“I was not involved in ‘the web of pressures’ against Aviram Halevi or against anyone else,” said the letter posted online by Calcalist.
“In the first half of 2013, my friend, lawyer Dori Klogsblad, asked me if I knew Aviram Halevi. When I answered affirmatively, he asked me to make contact with Halevi. I made a telephone call to Aviram in which I said that lawyer Klogsblad was interested in speaking to him… Beyond this I have no connection to this matter,” Cohen wrote in the letter.
The current Mossad chief concluded that there is no reason to summon him as a witness and “I request you refrain from doing so.”
Cohen would not necessarily have immunity from testifying in a civil case unrelated to national security issues, but if he continues to resist testifying, he could only be compelled by a motion to the court.
The next hearing is to be held on December 12, according to Halevi’s lawyer, Roy Belcher.
An Israeli youth was stabbed to death Thursday night in the southern city of Arad in what police say is likely a terror attack.
The IDF’s Spokesperson confirmed the youth was a soldier.
Paramedics received a call around 9.30 pm about a 20 year old man who had been stabbed and severely wounded at a bus stop outside a mall with stab wounds on his upper body.
“When we arrived, we saw a young man of about 20 lying unconscious with no pulse and not breathing with stab wounds on his upper body. We gave him life-saving medical treatment and carried out advanced CPR operations,” said Magen David Adom Paramedic Ziv Shapira.
Witness to #Arad attack says #IDF soldier, “a child”, was stabbed in the neck. “This will change the city. The relationship, the solidarity we had with the #Arabs, the #Bedouins, it’s not going to continue. It’s not going to be the same” pic.twitter.com/teTuqS4nGo
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid would both win 25 seats if elections were held now, according to a Panels Research poll taken this week following media coverage of unpopular legislation promoted by Likud.
The poll predicted 17 seats for Avi Gabbay’s Zionist Union; 12 seats for Naftali Bennett’s Bayit Yehudi; 11 for Ayman Odeh’s Joint List; eight for Ya’acov Litzman’s United Torah Judaism; seven for Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu; six for Zehava Gal-On’s Meretz; five for Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu; and four for Arye Deri’s Shas.
Interestingly, the poll found that the Likud would do better under the helm of former minister Gideon Sa’ar, winning 30 seats and leaving Yesh Atid with 23 and the Zionist Union with 15. Under Transportation Minister Israel Katz, Yesh Atid would beat Likud, winning 27 seats, compared to 18 for Likud and 17 for the Zionist Union.
When asked who is most fit to be prime minister, 26% said Netanyahu; 18% Lapid; 9% Gabbay; 6% Bennett; 5% Kahlon; 4% Liberman; 21% none of the above; and 11% said they did not know.
Lapid succeeded in closing the gap from a November 9 Panels poll in which 36% said Netanyahu; 14% Gabbay; 11% Lapid; 5% each Bennett and Kahlon; 3% Liberman; 20% none of the above; and 8% did not know.
When asked who should lead the camp that faces Netanyahu’s Likud in the next election, 38% said they did not know; 34% Lapid; and 27% Gabbay. Among center-left voters, 44% said Gabbay and 28% each said Gabbay and that they did not know.
Half of the respondents said they were unsatisfied with Netanyahu’s handling of the coalition crisis over Israel Railways work on Shabbat. Thirty-three percent said they were satisfied and 17% did not know.
Asked if the bill that would prevent the police from making recommendations to the State Prosecutor’s Office was a fitting bill, 47% said no; 24% yes; and 29% did not know. Fifty-five percent said the bill was intended to help Netanyahu; 21% said it was a matter of principle; and 24% said they did not know.
The poll surveyed 553 people representing a statistical sample of the adult Israeli population. The poll, which was taken Wednesday, has a margin of error of +/-4.3%.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Unidentified armed men stormed the campus of an agriculture university in Pakistan on Friday, wounding at least five people, police said.
The attackers were exchanging fire with security forces at the Directorate of Agriculture Institute of Peshawar, said Tahir Khan, chief of police in the northwestern city.
“Police and army commandos have cordoned off the campus,” Khan said. “A blast was also just heard from the campus.”
A year ago, on the morning of Election Day, the Republican candidate Donald Trump tweeted to his followers that it would be “an amazing day, it will be called ‘Brexit plus plus plus.’” Trump was suggesting that just as five months earlier, voters in Britain had surprised the political establishment, the elites and the media, by voting in the referendum to leave the European Union, the same was about to happen in the United States’ presidential election. This week, Trump’s Twitter account mocked the British elite once more. Yet again, he proved that he would rather keep the faith with his racist fan-base than safeguard America’s oldest international alliances.
It’s not clear what damaged the “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom – the fact that Trump chose on Wednesday to retweet from his account anti-Muslim videos originally tweeted by the deputy leader of Britain’s tiny racist party, Britain First, or that when their source was pointed out to him, he refused to undo the retweets. What was clear is that the way he chose to respond to Prime Minister Theresa May’s rather guarded criticism of his choice of retweets, prove that he has no special relationship with Britain.
It should have been clear to May long ago. Trump has some obsessions with Britain – with Brexit and with anything to do with Muslims and terror attacks. He regularly tweets on the subject, especially in the bizarre one-sided vendetta he has opened up with London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan. Trump is also obsessed with making a state visit to Britain, with all the fancy trappings of a state dinner at Buckingham Palace and a drive down the Mall with Queen Elizabeth in the royal carriage. Until now, Downing Street was prepared to swallow all of Trump’s tweets and demands in silence. Talks went on for months about the state visit, until Trump, disappointed to hear that London’s police would not prevent mass protests against him, decided to postpone the trip.
Britain is scheduled to leave the EU in a year-and-a-half and is looking across the Atlantic for an enhanced trade relationship with the United States, which will help its economy prosper on the day after Brexit. In the first months of Trump’s presidency, May did everything to build a personal, special relationship with him. She rushed to meet him in the White House and even allowed him to grasp her hand as they walked through the corridor, providing a very unflattering photograph for the press back home. At first, the British deluded themselves that they had some influence over the new administration, and that due to May’s urging, Trump had toned down his criticism of NATO. But in recent months, there have been too many warnings from administration officials in Washington that Britain shouldn’t hold its breath for an early or preferential new trade agreement. Trump is only interested in agreements that can make America, not Great Britain, great again.
Trump revealed his true attitude toward Britain in his Twitter response to May on Thursday when he tweeted: “Theresa May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!” He doesn’t tweet strong leaders like Angela Merkel in such a fashion.
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There is a lesson here of course for Trump’s supporters in Israel. Just like the British, Israelis are convinced they have a deep and special relationship, almost a mystical one, with America. They believe it is a bond that is stronger than the personality of any particular president and transient political interests. Both in Jerusalem and in London, there was concern for these ties during the presidency of Barack Obama. At the start of his term, Obama removed from the Oval Office a bust of Winston Churchill, and there were claims that due to his Kenyan grandfather’s suffering under the British in the colonial period, Obama harbored a hidden antipathy to Albion. These fears were reminiscent of the claims by the Israeli right and Republicans that Obama had “thrown Israel under the bus.”
In both countries, there was hope that with Trump’s arrival at the White House, America would once again see in them their indispensable partners. In the British case, these hopes have already evaporated. The Trump administration does not seem very eager to help Britain on the day after Brexit, when it will need to rebuild its trade agreements with the world. If Theresa May still believed that Trump was willing to give Britain preferential treatment, she may have remained silent this time.
As far as Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned, you won’t hear a word of criticism of Trump. Even when the president praised the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, chanting anti-Semitic slogans, Netanyahu remained silent. From his point of view at least, anything is better than Obama. But in the highest levels of Israel’s security, intelligence and diplomatic elite, you can hear off-record grumbling that the Trump administration has no policy whatsoever in the Middle East and is giving Russia and Iran free reign to increase their influence in the region. If Trump’s latest tweet scandal proves anything, it is that he will never disavow his anti-Semitic supporters and that his words of support for Israel will not be matched by actions.
The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to disavow Israeli ties to Jerusalem as part of six anti-Israel resolutions it approved on Thursday in New York. The vote was 157 in favor and six against, with nine abstentions.
The resolution came as the Trump Administration was rumored to be actively considering relocating its embassy to Jerusalem.
The resolution stated that “any actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever.”
These words fall in line with similar resolutions approved in 2015 and 2016 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO), including the resolution’s omission of the title “Temple Mount,” using instead only the Arabic term for the site, “Haram al-Sharif.”
It called “for respect for the historic status quo at the holy places of Jerusalem, including the Haram al-Sharif, in word and practice.”
Israel’s representative at the meeting said the omission of Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, was deliberate and yet “another instance of the Palestinian refusal to recognize the proven historic connection between Judaism, Christianity and the Temple Mount.”
The US opposed the resolutions. Its representative expressed disappointment that despite supposed support for reform, UN members continued to single out Israel
Hours after telling Army Radio on Thursday that Israel signed an arms contract with Myanmar in recent months, Myanmar Ambassador to Israel Maung Maung Lynn retracted and apologized for his remarks.
“Israel does not sell arms to Myanmar,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
That statement also said that after the interview, Gilad Cohen, the ministry’s deputy director-general for Asia and the Pacific, spoke with Maung Maung Lynn who, according to the statement, apologized and took back his comment.
The ministry said the ambassador was reprimanded for similar comments a few days ago.
The envoy said in the interview that a new contract was signed during the time he has been ambassador. Maung Maung Lynn took up his position in August 2016.
This is the second time in just over a month that the Foreign Ministry has issued a statement denying the sale of arms to Myanmar, a nation which human-rights groups are accusing of ethnic cleansing and human-rights violations – including arson, rape and massacres – after violence broke out in the northwestern state of Rakhine, triggering an exodus of some 400,000 Rohingya Muslims to southern Bangladesh.
In October, the ministry issued a statement saying it “vigorously denies false reports disseminated in the media regarding its alleged involvement in the tragedy in the Rakhine region of Myanmar.”
That statement followed on the heels of a Haaretz report that said “Israel sold advanced weapons to Myanmar during its anti-Rohingya ethnic cleansing campaign,” and a story on Al Jazeera’s web site titled “Israel maintains robust arms trade with rogue regimes.”
The ministry statement said the policy of “supervising Israel’s defense exports is reviewed regularly according to various criteria, including the human rights situation in the target country, as well as the policy of the UN Security Council and other international bodies.”
Eitay Mack, a human-rights attorney who has been at the forefront of efforts to end all Israeli arms sales to Myanmar, does not believe these statements are sufficient. Following the interview with Maung Maung Lynn, he asked how the Israeli public can possibly decide who is right in the dispute between the ambassador and the ministry.
“Why is the Foreign Ministry unable to issue a simple and morally correct statement saying that Israel has completely frozen all security exports – including surveillance equipment and training that can assist the crimes being committed there – as long as the American and European arms embargo is in place,” he asked.
“Apparently, the Foreign Ministry is not interested in issuing a statement that may obligate it.”
In late September, the High Court of Justice issued a gag order on a decision it handed down regarding a petition to halt Israeli arms sales to Myanmar.
Mack was one of the petitioners.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which monitors arms sales, Israel sold patrol boats to Myanmar in 2015, and this was the only weaponry Israel has sold to the country since 2007.
China is the country’s main weapons supplier, selling 70% of the arms Myanmar buys, followed by Russia, which sells the country 19%, and Belarus, which provides some 4.5%, meaning those three countries sell Myanmar 93.5% of its weapons.
The long-awaited reconciliation between Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions has hit widely expected bumps in the road requiring the Egyptian brokers to extend by ten days the agreed-upon deadline for Hamas to hand over control of the Gaza Strip to Fatah.
Formal notice of the delay was provided by the deputy secretary of Fatah Revolutionary Council, Fayez Abu Eita, after a meeting of the factions in the Gaza Strip. “In order to achieve the goal of our people to achieve the reconciliation and end the division, the two movements request [a delay in] the handing over of the government tasks in Gaza, as agreed in the Cairo agreement, until the 10th of December.” Political analyst Abdl Al-Satar Qasem sees the delay as more than a logistical postponement. Rather, he told The Media Line that “based upon the circumstances, Palestine is not ready for a reconciliation. The Palestinian political positions are so different: Fatah recognizes Israel and Hamas is fighting Israel.” He admonished the Palestinian people not to allow the “confusing situation” to kill the deal. “Palestinians must move, and shouldn’t be quiet about what we see as trivialities.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas placed a gag order on comments relating to the issue widely believed to be the undoing of the agreement: Hamas’s refusal to hand its weapons over to the national government of reconciliation.
Lest the Hamas position be unclear, one of its senior officials, Khalel Al-Haya, insisted at a Monday news conference following the latest talks in Cairo that] retaining “the resistance weapon” [read: armed fighters] is nonnegotiable” and all Palestinians should stop asking about it. Admittedly, the idea of Hamas retaining its arms and its commitment to fighting Israel is not objectionable to all Palestinians, even those who are not Hamas loyalists. One long-time Fatah official, commissioner for international relations Nabil Sha’ath, told The Media Line that the main idea is not to “kill” the “Palestinian resistance,” [read: Hamas fighting force] but to recruit it “to defend the Palestinian people’s cause and rights.” He said, “It’s not like we are going to disarm Hamas and give the weapons to Israel, the idea is to have one weapon under one Palestinian government. We refuse to use that weapon against Palestinians like what happened in 2006 [referring to the internecine warfare between Fatah and Hamas.]” According to Sha’ath, although disarming Hamas remains a difficult problem, “Palestinians shouldn’t give Israel the chance to take advantage of it.” With the international community showing support for the reconciliation and insisting that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist, Sha’ath presaged what most believe will be the operative fiction: a labored explanation that although Hamas does not recognize Israel nor relinquish its commitment to the destroy it, since “we can’t force these conditions on Hamas as a political party, we apply it to the government,” the logic being that, “If Hamas is going to be part of that government, they will have to approve these conditions like the Palestinian Liberation Organization [did under Arafat].” Sha’ath accused Israel of having a majority of political parties that “don’t recognize Palestine’s right to exist,” so “why should we force it on Hamas?” Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee who is responsible for advancing Fatah’s reconciliation with Hamas, criticized Iran of funding Hamas under the condition that it maintains the differences with Fatah.
Following last week’s Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo that declared the Lebanon-based, Iranian-backed Islamist group Hezbollah a “terrorist organization,” Hamas quickly rose to the defense of its Lebanese allies, with deputy leader Musa Abu Marzouk objecting to the designation and reiterating Hamas’ refusal to classify Hezbollah as terrorists. The Saudis are deeply concerned about the impact of the incorporation of Hamas members into the Palestinian government and the warming of Hamas ties to Iran. Earlier this month, Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri held a high-profile meeting with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut just days after a high-ranking Hamas delegation, led by al-Arouri, visited Tehran and met with senior Iranian officials.
When reached by The Media Line, Fatah spokesperson Osama Al-Kawasmi refused to comment on what he termed, “a sensitive issue.” Hamas chief Ismail Haniyyeh confirmed last week in a speech that the organization will not disarm at any price. Haniyyeh’s statement came right after the tunnel attack last month in which the Israel Defense Forces killed ten Islamic Jihad members, including two senior military leaders, along with two Hamas fighters.
The Gaza Strip remains full of armed groups affiliated with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, including the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad, and their disarmament was not specifically addressed in the unity talks in Cairo. Instead, both Fatah and Hamas simply agreed to engage in dialogue and make joint decisions about pursuing peace or war. In response, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that Jerusalem will not engage with any Palestinian entity that includes Hamas unless the group disarms, accepts previous deals signed with Israel and recognizes the “Jewish state’s right to exist.”
To the chagrin of many, Abbas has not yet fulfilled his pledge to remove restrictions he placed on Gaza this summer, which includes reducing the salaries of Hamas government employees, halting the transfer of funds to specific ministries, and withholding the fuel needed to operate Gaza’s power plant. A former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a rival group to both Fatah and Hamas, explained to The Media Line under condition of anonymity that the Palestinian people have no faith in either of the two factions involved in the talks. “For the last 15 years we have needed a unified government to fight settlements and the occupation, to support prisoners during the strike… We needed one unified official political Palestinian entity, but they failed to put aside their differences.” He agreed, though, that the Palestinian reconciliation is a necessary step that needs to be taken.
“The bad situation in Gaza is a result of Fatah and Hamas and their respective governments, which resulted in corruption and disingenuousness.” He continued, “They need to work on regaining the trust of their people.”
A U.S. federal judge on Wednesday put on hold a $10 billion lawsuit against George Soros in which companies controlled by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz claimed his campaign of defamation cost them a lucrative iron ore deposit in Guinea.
While rejecting Soros’ request to dismiss the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge John Keenan in Manhattan said the hold should continue pending an arbitration between Steinmetz’s BSG Resources and the West African country of Guinea, which he said would likely resolve many underlying issues.
“We are pleased with the decision,” said Joseph Baio, a lawyer for Soros.
“We are pleased that the court did not dismiss the claims,” said Louis Solomon, a New York-based lawyer for BSG. “We think the arbitration will strengthen our case here, and look forward to continuing the lawsuit.”
Soros, 87, is worth $8 billion and Steinmetz, 61, is worth $1.15 billion, Forbes magazine said Wednesday.
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BSG accused Soros and groups he helps fund of propagating “untrue” corruption allegations and paying Guinean officials to strip it of mining rights, causing it to lose its rights to the Simandou deposit in April 2014.
It said the Hungarian-born Soros had been driven by a grudge dating to 1998, when he “falsely concluded” that Steinmetz cost him a big business loss in Russia, as well as hostility toward Israel. Steinmetz is Israeli.
In Wednesday’s decision, Keenan said Soros established that the “same key issues” in the April 2017 lawsuit underlay BSG’s arbitration before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Paris, which began in August 2014.
Keenan said BSG would not suffer “undue hardship” by waiting for the arbitration to take its course, and that a resolution “will likely provide significant insight into, if not actually resolve” claims in the lawsuit, including fraud and defamation.
Steinmetz’s ability to travel has been restricted since last December, when he was put under house arrest for two weeks in connection with a probe into alleged bribery of senior public officials in Guinea.
BSG and Steinmetz have denied wrongdoing, and Steinmetz was released without charge. On November 15, a court in Israel said Steinmetz could leave that country, but not travel to Africa and all but six countries in Europe.
When Harel Wizel, owner of the Fox fashion chain, launched the site TerminalX, it ran out of Uniqlo, Urban Outfitters and even Mango and Fox items in a day. Food retailers, meanwhile, say they struggle to fill the orders pouring in, which is why delivery can take a day or two.
But Haaretz has discovered that despite the reports of stampeding shoppers, most of Israel’s online ventures by grocery, drugstore and fashion chains are losing money.
“All are losing money online, mainly on food,” avers Eyal Ravid, among the owners of the Victory supermarket chain. It’s been selling by internet since the start of the year and its site is now responsible for about 4% of the company’s total sales, according to Ravid.
The ability of Israeli retailers to make a go of their online businesses is growing more critical. Israelis are already big online shoppers, but they spend a lot of their budget on overseas websites like Amazon and Alibaba. Exemptions from value-added and customs for orders up to $74 (and from customs for up to $499).
This week reports circulated that Amazon planned to open a local logistic center, which would make it an even more formidable competitor than it is today by being able to offer a wider assortment of products and faster delivery times, although it would have to pay customs and charge VAT.
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“Ostensibly online sales are supposed to be on top of existing stores,” Ravid says. Victory collects the items for online orders from six of its 46 branches. Online business doesn’t add to its city taxes, rent or electricity bills, but it’s manpower-heavy, with a high churn rate among workers filling out the orders. “That means zero efficiency, because by the time you teach somebody the job, they leave,” Ravid says.
They also have to maintain a large customer service division: an offline physical store will have one person answering the phone but the online business takes eight. The online business’ costs on wages, cardboard boxes and deliveries are much heavier than offline, he says.
“I estimate that the most efficient chains wind up with a loss of 2% of turnover, and the less efficient lose 5%,” Ravid adds.
Each delivery costs the company almost 40 shekels (11 cents), he estimates, including three shekels per cardboard box and the cost of dry ice. “Factor in that the average online purchase is 550 shekels: we’ve lost 7% on the spot.” On top of which customers may have issues, like broken eggs.
A competitor agrees: “Nobody makes money on internet. The range is from a few that earn nothing to the majority that loses 1% to 3%. I lose money on internet.”
Fashion is first
According to the market research company TASC, 40% of Israel’s online market is Israelis buying from overseas but there are big differences by category. Online fashion sales have grown from 800 million shekels a year in 2013 to 1.7 billion shekels in 2016 and constitute 12% of total fashion sales.
The biggest online sellers to Israelis, with a 60% market share, are the multinational chains: 22% of Israeli online shoppers say they only buy from foreign sites, chiefly through Next, Alibaba and eBay.
In electric appliances and electronics, foreign sites supply 40% of the Israeli online market. In drugs, internet is responsible for 8% of total sales and the online market is shared roughly equally by local and foreign sites.
In January 2017, Super Pharm launched an online business at an investment of 10 million shekels. It’s losing money. “We built a model that isn’t supposed to lose money, and we constantly think how to improve,” says Michael Mitrani, head of digital and innovation at Super Pharm.
“For example, we stress having customers pick up from the branches. Seventy percent of orders are for collection from the branch and only 30% are for home delivery.” They’re working on logistics: finding ways to deliver heavy, large products to customers without losing money.
But even fashion loses money online. “Maybe people will make money by 2023 but right now they’re all losing. Me too,” says an executive at a major chain that’s been selling online for years. Sales on the site are constantly increasing, but as volumes increase even more, the chains should be able to economize on logistics and start to profit, he predicts.
The reason for the losses, says another executive from a major clothing chain that’s been online for years and losing money on it, is heavy investment in operations, and on generating traffic to the site. Physical shops have the advantage of shopper traffic in malls who see the store with their own eyes; online it depends on advertising on Google, Facebook and Instagram and various marketing ploys.
“It’s like building a totally new business. We invested about 10 million shekels and turnover is just 3% of the group’s sales,” says the executive, who asked not to be identified.
All the groceries charge for delivering orders made over internet, and it isn’t cheap. Super-Sol Online, Rami Levy, Mega, Tiv Taam and Victory charge 28 to 30 shekels (which can drop depending on the size of the order). Super Pharm offers home delivery for 29.90 shekels for orders up to 300 shekels; collection from the branch within three hours for 20 shekels; or collection from the branch within 24 hours for free (applicable to orders over 100 shekels).
Clothing chains charge less. Castro offers free delivery for orders of 99 shekels and up; Golbary and Renoir charge 15, or nothing for orders from 299 shekels. TerminalX Fox has free delivery within 24 hours. Orders to certain remote places may take up to three business days, or be sent to a collection point. Al Srad handles deliveries, returns and substitutions for free within 24 hours.
However, realizing that something wasn’t working, a bunch of chains teamed up and formed multi-brand sites. Al Srad offers about 100 brands on its site, including Factory 54 to Adidas to Tommy Hilfiger and others.
The company hasn’t invested in marketing the site and doesn’t expect its online activity, launched just last week, to make money for a couple of years, says one of its owners, Roni Irani, but during that time he anticipates sales of 80 to 100 million shekels a year. Once it starts selling abroad, at some point, he expects its fortunes to blossom.
Their failure is the Israeli chains’ own fault, says Dedi Schwarzberg, CEO of Adika and Golf online: “The players in Israel don’t really understand how to work in e-commerce. Castro launched a site years ago but they treat it like another shop in the physical chain, as a way to bring people to stores. They originated offline and are finding the online transition hard. Online is another speed, different prices, completely different marketing. It makes me laugh to see the fashion chains offer the same bargains online that they do in the physical shops, for instance, buy 350 shekels worth of stuff for 250. It doesn’t work that way.”
No choice
Israeli retailers agree however that they have to keep at it, for the sake of the future, even if not many expect profit in the foreseeable future. A survey recently conducted for Haaretz by the consultancy Czamanski Ben Shahar among 1,500 Israelis found that 15% of their monthly outlay on clothing is online, up from 13% in 2015.
In the first half of 2016, online food sales constituted 4% of total retail food sales, according to the TASC survey, a figure expected to double by 2020.
“We know that our children’s generation will shop online and we want to be ready,” explains Victory’s Ravid. For the nonce, they’re subsidizing the activity. But even though the investment is for the long-term, he warns – the food retailers will have to jack up online prices, at some stage. “You can’t provide service without charging for it,” he says simply. “When prices rise, the operations will earn money.” A competing retail executive who declined to be named agreed with every word.
Shufersal is placing its hopes on automated and semi-automated warehouses that collate the online orders, collecting hundreds of items each hour, compared with human workers who collect dozens of items in that time. Shufersal’s online sales constitute 11% of turnover, says the company’s CEO, Itzik Abercohen – and he adds that it is profitable.
Could efficiency make the companies profitable sooner? “We’re going to turn profitable within less than a year,” claims one fashion executive. “We used to pour out money on packaging, assembling the boxes ourselves, and they’d sit in piles in the warehouse, creating a logistical logjam. We outsourced the packaging. They can pack 1,000 deliveries an hour, while it would have taken us five days. It also saves me a lot of money. Before I only worked with one delivery company, to the home. Now I enable delivery to lockers and collection points.”
Why maintain one’s own fleet, anyway, with drivers and mechanics? Outsourcing delivery is one answer, and a way to focus one’s attention on the company’s core business and how to make it profitable.
Two and a half months ago, the treasury and the Israel Tax Authority announced they would be lifting import duties on baby products, contact lenses and eyeglass frames. It was supposed to be part of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s “Net Family” program to help reduce living costs for young families.
The last obstacle to canceling the duties was a public hearing on October 26, Kahlon office said. Yet more than a month later, the orders putting them into effect have yet to be signed — and no one can fully explain why.
The Finance Ministry hints that the cause is a dispute with the Economy and Industry Ministry’s Foreign Trade Administration. But the Economy Ministry says it gave its approval for the duty cuts back in June. Its only proviso was that they remain in force for two years, which in any case isn’t a problem because they were being put into effect as an emergency order that would automatically expire after 18 months. Israel is negotiating free-trade area agreements with a group of Asian countries, from which Israel imports lenses and frames, and permanently canceling the duties would weak its bargaining position.
The Finance Ministry spokesman declined to comment. At the Israel Tax Authority, a spokesman said that after hearings and consultations with the Foreign Trade Administration, it forwarded its recommendations to Kahlon early this week.
The treasury plan calls for removing duties on eyeglass lenses and frames, as well as on baby bottles, pacifiers, swings, walkers and high chairs, all of which are subject to duties of 12%. It will also include baby carriages, which carry a 6% duty. All told, it would amount to 44 million shekels ($12.6 million) in tariff reductions that would presumably reach consumers.
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Those savings were hailed as the final element of the Net Family (as in net income) program Kahlon unveiled in April, but other parts of the scheme have also stumbled on their way to implementation. Duties on shoes were eliminated, as was the purchase tax on cellphones.
But duties on baby clothing were not, after encountering resistance from local manufacturers, who didn’t welcome lower-priced competition, and from the tax authority, which said it would be too complicated for customs officials to have to go through shipments of imported clothing in order to separate out the baby togs.
The delays weren’t the first for Kahlon, who has made bringing down the cost of living one of the hallmarks of his term as finance minister. Four months ago, he and Economy Minister Eli Cohen vowed to put infant formula under price supervision as part of Net Family, but a month ago they backtracked without ever making a public statement to that effect.
Retailers aren’t happy about the delays and backtracking.
“It’s a pity that the people of Israel think the government has decided to lower the tax on eyeglasses and contact lenses and in the end doesn’t,” said Yaacov Halperin of the Optica Halperin chain of eyewear stores.
“I had already started lowering prices because customers were coming in to complain that prices hadn’t changed and we found ourselves apologetic and defensive about it,” Halperin said. “The Finance Ministry never announced it wasn’t happening so the public expects lower prices.”
Halperin said there was no logic to the duties in any event, because there was no local optical industry to protect.
Eyewear is a medical device that isn’t an option for people with poor eyesight and shouldn’t be subject to a 12% duty, which he called a “fine.”
The Kraft Family Israel Football League had two very close games this past weekend. On Thursday night, the Petah Tikva Troopers overcame an early hole in a game that they were completely dominated (other than on the scoreboard), and beat the Haifa ‘Nemo’s’ Underdogs 12-9. On Saturday night, the Judean Rebels cruised to a 32-8 halftime lead over the Be’er Sheva Black Swarm and barely held on to win 32-28.
The game on Thursday night in Petah Tikva was strange, as Haifa thoroughly dominated the hosts. However, a few big plays by the Troopers and missed opportunities by the Underdogs gave the home team the victory.
In the first quarter, the Troopers’ Matis Goldmeier picked off a Ron Dafni pass, but a personal foul against the Troopers on the run-back pushed them near their own goal line. After a bad snap, QB Avrami Farkas was sacked in the end-zone for a safety, 2-0 Haifa. Farkas made up for it toward the end of the second quarter, hitting Jonathan Curran for 42 yards up the sideline. On the very next play, he found Jesse Hartman for a TD, 6-2 at the break.
Haifa went on another long drive to start the second half, and this one ended with a TD pass from Ron Dafni to Matan Fourier, 9-6. Farkas connected with Hartman for another TD with eight minutes left in the game, 12-9. Haifa drove the field with a 12-play, 6:31-long drive, including a 4th-and-1, 27-yard fake-punt run by Rudy Rattner, but a huge holding penalty pushed Haifa away from the goal-line and they came up empty. Petah Tikva’s Chris Daves was able to pick up a first down and run out the clock.
The game had a surprise guest, as former Miami Dolphins quarterback Jay Fiedler, possibly the best Jewish quarterback ever to play in the NFL, showed up during the third quarter for an Israeli helping of Thanksgiving football.
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Farkas completed 7/15 passes for 111 yards, two scores and two picks. Hartman caught 3-40-2. Ahmed Abu Gaber had tackles for the Troopers’ defense.
Dafni completed 14/26 passes for 79 yards, a score and a pick, adding 28 yards on the ground. Hillel Meran continued his strong start to the season with 24 carries for 119 yards. Fourier caught 4-44-1. Rattner had five tackles and 1.5 sacks.
Beating back swarm
The Judean Rebels’ strong start was just enough to escape a Be’er Sheva rally, that commenced after the Rebels lost their starting quarterback.
The Rebels went up 16-0 as QB Chaim Aaron took in a keeper in the middle of the first quarter and then threw a touchdown pass to Daniel Yerushalmi. Be’er Sheva’s Ronnie Hayes took the ensuing kickoff 73 yards to the house, making it a 16-8 game, but Ikey Bodner ran in a 19-yard score on 3rd-and-2 to start the second quarter, putting the Rebels up 24-8.
After a successful onside kick, the Rebels drove the field but were stopped short on the 2-yard line as Nadav Eliyahu and Sandro Kalandadze stuffed Omree Gottlieb. The Rebels defense made up for it as Uria Loberbom tackled D’oge in the end-zone for a safety, 26-8. Aaron got hurt and left the game on the Rebels’ next drive and they punted the ball away. Katz then threw another interception, this one to Zev Hoffman, and Gottlieb pounded in a score, making it 32-8 just before halftime.
The loss of Aaron showed as the Rebels failed to score in the second half as its offense looked lost and the host Swarm reeled off three consecutive touchdowns. Katz threw a touchdown pass to Ronen Knobel and another two to Hayes, the latter making it 32-28 with six minutes to play. However, the Rebels were able to milk most of the remaining time and its defense held to avert defeat.
Aaron completed 9/17 passes for 99 yards and a score, adding 46 yards and a score on the ground before leaving the game in the second quarter. Gottlieb had 74 yards and a score on 21 carries and Yerushalmi caught 4-40-1. Hess led the defense with three tackles, two break-ups and a pick.
Katz completed 9/23 passes for 152 yards, three scores and three picks, leading the team with 34 yards rushing. Hayes caught four balls for 81 yards and two scores. The defense was busy as seven players recorded four tackles or more, including nine by Sandro Kalandadze.
Yair Thaler won the men’s division and Dana Lerner the woman’s division of the 2017 Israel Golf Open.
Gaash Golf Club hosted the event, which featured visiting players from Slovakia, Hungry and Russia.
Yair played his three rounds all under par on the par-70 course with rounds of 67, 66 and a final round of 66, giving him a total of 199, 11 under par. In second place was Dor Hacham with the net prize going to Oliver Nemeth from Hungary.
Lerner won the ladies open with scores of 73, 70 and 69, giving her a total of 210, two over par. Second place went to Ekaterina Malakhova from Russia with the net prize going to Elana Maria Tarabova from Slovakia.
The 50+ and 65+ categories are to be completed on Friday, after which the club will hold the awards ceremony. Playing in the 50+ section on Thursday, Amos Burstein scored a hole-in-one on the par-3 fourth hole, playing from a distance of 119 meters.
From left to right: Hollo Zsomber from Hungry winner of the boys’ juniors section, Lev Grinberg from Ukraine and Dana Lerner winner of the girls’ junior sectionShmulik Futeran
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An Israeli security guard reportedly shot a Palestinian, who was part of a group of rioters who were attacking schoolchildren on a field trip in the West Bank.
According to United Hatzalah, IDF forces are now on the scene securing the children and granting care to the wounded Palestinian.
Unconfirmed Palestinian sources said the man who was shot was 48-year-old farmer Mahmoud Udah, who was declared dead following the shooting.
This is a developing story. More details to follow.
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to answer questions on Thursday during a closed congressional hearing about whether President Donald Trump ever instructed him to hinder the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to Democratic lawmakers who attended.
Sessions testified behind closed doors for several hours before the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.
Representative Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, told reporters he was troubled by Sessions’ refusal to answer what he believes are essential questions.
“I asked the attorney general whether he was ever instructed by the president to take any action that he believed would hinder the Russia investigation and he declined to answer the question,” Schiff told reporters after the hearing.
“There is no privileged basis to decline to answer a question like that. If the president did not instruct him to take an action that would hinder the investigation, he should say so. If the president did instruct him to hinder the investigation in any way, in my view that would be a potential criminal act,” Schiff said.
Representative Mike Quigley, another Democratic committee member, said on MSNBC that Sessions “is one of the most forgetful persons who works out of Washington, D.C., or he’s being less than candid with the American public.” Sessions declined to comment to reporters as he left the secure hearing room.
The panel is among several congressional committees, along with the Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating allegations that Russia sought to influence the US election and potential collusion by Trump’s campaign.
Moscow has denied any meddling and Trump has said there was no collusion.
Another source familiar with his testimony said that Sessions said he could not remember the answers to many important questions, and the answers he did provide concerning meetings with Russians tracked statements he had previously made in other congressional hearings.
NOTHING IMPROPER
A spokeswoman for Sessions said he has consistently declined to discuss his communications with Trump in the past, and that he has also previously said he was never instructed to do anything illegal or improper.
When he was a Republican US senator, Sessions was an early supporter and close adviser to Trump during his run for the White House.
Democrats have accused Sessions of repeatedly changing his sworn testimony throughout several prior congressional hearings about meetings and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Schiff said committee members asked Sessions questions during the closed hearing about his prior testimony and about “interactions the campaign had with Russia.” The intelligence committee also met for more than three hours on Thursday with Erik Prince, who founded the private military contractor Blackwater and was a supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign.
One focus of Thursday’s interview was expected to be a meeting Prince had in the Seychelles Islands in January, which some news reports later described as an effort to connect the incoming Trump administration with Moscow.
Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s Secretary of Education, and he has said the Seychelles meeting had nothing to do with Trump.
Schiff told reporters there were some “unresolved issues” after Prince’s testimony. Prince complained that the hearing had wasted time and taxpayer dollars on a “meaningless fishing expedition.” A spokesman for Prince later issued a statement saying Prince had volunteered to answer questions. “As we have said throughout, Mr. Prince has never acted on behalf of President Trump, the transition team or his administration regarding Russia.” The Republican-led committee is planning to publicly release the transcript of Prince’s closed hearing, described as “public in a closed setting” within about three days.
There is no plan to release a transcript from Sessions’ testimony.
US President Donald Trump plans to nominate Jelena McWilliams, Fifth Third Bancorp’s top attorney, to serve as the next head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the White House said on Thursday.
McWilliams has worked as the bank’s chief legal officer since January, and if confirmed by the Senate, would take the helm of a key financial regulator that is still being run by an appointee of former President Barack Obama.
The White House said in a statement Trump will nominate her to serve as an FDIC board member for the remainder of a six-year term expiring July 15, 2019, and as chairperson for five years.
Martin Gruenberg, the current FDIC chairman who plans to serve in that role until his term expires this month, has resisted efforts from the Trump administration to significantly roll back rules on the financial sector. Trump has made trimming rules on Wall Street a top priority, arguing it is needed to boost economic growth.
Gruenberg, who has not said whether he will continue to serve as a board member until the end of his six-year term in December 2018, may continue to serve as chair until a successor is appointed.
The FDIC plays a key role in regulating banks nationwide, and also has a prominent voice in interagency matters like the “Volcker Rule,” which bars proprietary trading by banks.
The Trump administration had to scramble to find an FDIC chief after its prior nominee, James Clinger, withdrew his name from consideration in July, citing family issues.
McWilliams also has a history in Congress, having served as a Senate staffer going back to 2010. She most recently served in the Senate as senior counsel to Republican Senator Richard Shelby, who at the time was the chairman of the Banking Committee.
McWilliams also spent three years as an attorney for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
WASHINGTON – Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law and senior adviser, will speak publicly this weekend for the first time about the Trump administration’s attempts to facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Kushner, who has been working on this issue ever since January, will speak on Sunday at the Saban Forum in Washington, D.C., an annual conference on U.S. policy in the Middle East, organized by the Brookings Institution.
Kushner will talk about the administration’s peace efforts together with Haim Saban, the Israeli-born business mogul who funds the annual event.
Businessman Haim Saban arrives before the start of the third U.S. presidential debate at the Thomas Mack Center on October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP
Also on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the forum via satellite from his office in Jerusalem. Other Israeli speakers at the event this year include former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the new leader of the Labor Party, Avi Gabbay.
On the conference’s opening night on Friday, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) will participate in a discussion about the Iran deal. Cotton was mentioned on Thursday in a number of press reports as a candidate to become the next head of the CIA.
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