Israel's 'Mr. Business' loses the global business press
FT, WSJ, NYT, and The Economist pan Bibi's judicial bulldozer.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for many years has taken (some) justifiable credit for saving Israel’s economy and helping it become a global tech power, should probably not read the foreign news pages with his coffee this morning.
His government’s hell-for-leather assault on the country’s independent judiciary, and its chilling effect on Israel’s economic engine room —the technology sector—got panned by all the major global business media.
Netanyahu, a consummate communicator, acutely sensitive to media and PR, usually shrugs off negative foreign coverage of Israel, mostly relating to the conflict with the Palestinians, as reflexive anti-Israel (and anti-Semitic) bias in the world’s media.
However, when it comes to the top business and financial media, or business and financial stories about Israel in the general media, it’s harder for “Mr. Business” to shrug off well-informed business coverage.
For the top global business media, Israel’s tech industry, which makes up some 15% of GDP, over 50% of exports, and attracts billions of dollars annually in inflows, is really the only ‘other’ story apart from the conflict. There’s some interest in Israel’s natural gas story, some interest in the defense sector, and a little bit on Teva. Apart from tech, there’s nothing else here really for international investors.
And 85% of all the money that goes into the scene here of 6,000 active startups and 400 corporate multinationals R&D centers, comes from foreign investors and corporates, who are avid readers of the global business and financial media.
This article from The Financial Times probably hurt the most: “The reforms are mainly a power grab. Benjamin Netanyahu must think again before he does irreparable damage.”
Martin Wolf is the FT’s Walter Cronkite, trusted, sober, piercing. Netanyahu even briefed Wolf on a call. It didn’t help.
The Economist: “Mr Netanyahu…is jeopardising his country’s democracy, prosperity and unity.”
The Wall Street Journal. Tech Rebellion.
Whilst The New York Times is not a business paper, it is still The New York Times.
Ditto The Washington Post
