Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer has not said a word against the Ministry of Finance. He has not marked out the Minister of Finance for being responsible for a situation that concerns him or said that Ministry of Finance officials are responsible for leading budgetary stability. With all due respect, they are not important regarding this matter.
Fischer has been talking, writing, meeting and placing responsibility for the situation and the authority to lead it fair and square on the shoulders of the big boss. On Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister, architect of Israel's strategy "the well-known benefactor" also expected to be the next Prime Minister, who by the time he has set up a new government might "have committed" billions more shekels to deepen the deficit.
Fischer has marked out Netanyahu because it is he who next month will be conducting tough coalition talks with several greedy, persistent parties and will have to appoint a Finance Minister, Defense Minister, and economic ministers to lead a new, difficult and critical state budget and cope with risks that are already knocking on the door, while building growth engines to get us out of the crisis. The fact that the Ministry of Finance is jumping up and down and pretending to be insulted - tells us that they have a strong sense of failure.
Fischer is not running in the elections but Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz is. Fischer is telling the public the truth as it is, Steinitz, one of the fairest and hard-working finance ministers we have ever had has not reached the point of Yigal (I haven't got it) Hurvitz, the Finance Minister from 1979-1981 who fought against rampant hyper-inflation and a deepening deficit and screamed "You're crazy, come back to reality."
In defense of Steinitz it should be said that his rose colored glasses have not been put on especially for the elections. But for Steinitz, the tough statements and concerns being expressed by Fischer harms his status in the eyes of Netanyahu and may cause the next prime minister to replace him.
What is particularly bothersome is that instead of taking advantage of Fischer's words to strengthen their opposition to deepening the deficit and wasteful spending, the Ministry of Finance officials choose to attack Fischer and thus promote election propaganda on behalf of their minister.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 30, 2012
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