In recent years the intensifying public interest in economics has triggered extensive media coverage of the lives and business activities of Israel's multimillionaires and billionaires. These developments have in turn prompted Israel's wealthy into taking action to secure their image and their business interests. With philanthropy becoming fashionable almost overnight, they have made a point of being seen in the right places, and maintain regular contact with leading opinion makers and the media. And of course, they do not take a single step without consulting their public relations agents.
Yet despite their efforts, most billionaires are viewed with a good deal of mistrust. Against this background, the warm reception that Morris Kahn received at the "Globes" Israel Business Conference earlier this month was moving. Kahn, despite his firmly ingrained restraint, reveled in the moment. Sporting a hesitant smile, he nodded his head in thanks. "It was very nice, very moving," he said later, with his usual reserved demeanor.
Kahn (78) doesn't usually see that many people. He spends a large part of his time cruising the world on his yacht.
Globes: What sort of yacht do you have and what do you do on it all day long?
Kahn: "One that needs very little diesel. And generally speaking, I do whatever I like," he adds with a chuckle.
Kahn's environmental campaigns began at the end of the 1990s. His son, Benjamin, who was recently named by "Time" magazine as one of its "Heroes of the Environment," along with Nobel peace prize laureate, former US Vice President Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Prince Charles, returned to Israel after spending 15 years building underwater observatories along the coral reefs off the coasts of Australia and Hawaii. Sometime after his return, he went diving in Eilat, and told his father what he saw afterward. "Do you remember the wonderful reef?" he asked him. "It's almost gone."
Kahn, who some years earlier built the underwater observatory in Eilat, got on the phone to then Ministry of the Environment director general Nehama Ronen. After this conversation he decided to set up Zalul, a non-profit organization that would fight to remove pollutants from the Red Sea. Chief among the perpetrators were by the fish cages operated by Dagsuf and Ardag Red Sea Mariculture Ltd., both companies that belonging to ibbutzim in the Arava region. Later the Kahn family joined forces with the Society for the Protection of Nature, and the other environmental groups. The fish farming companies hit back with intensive political lobbying, and tried to paint Kahn as someone whose actions were driven by his real estate business interests.
The saga, as is known, came to an end recently with a ruling by the relevant government authorities and the courts that the fish cages must be cleared from the Red Sea by mid-2008. After a campaign lasting 15 years, this is a rare victory for green organizations in Israel.
The Kahn family came to Israel in 1956 from South Africa, straight to a sand dune at Bet Yanai. Kahn ran a bicycle store in South Africa, and family legend has it that he rode to work on horseback. He became a businessman in Israel and had plenty of ideas. After the Six-Day war, for example, he promoted the building of a ski resort on Mt. Hermon, but at the last moment he decided to back out because of the bureaucracy.
In the 1970s the Kahn family used to go diving in Eilat, then just a town at then end of the world, and a stopover on the way to Sinai. On one such dive, Kahn suffered a perforated eardrum and wanted to go home. His children, who only just received their diving licenses, informed him that they had no intention of going home, a stubbornness that ultimately spurred him into devising the concept for what was supposed to be the world's first underwater observatory. It wasn't until a few years later, once the observatory was already operating, that it transpired that a number of people had thought of the idea before him. This didn't stop him from building more underwater observatories in other countries throughout the world, and the family recently dedicated a giant aquarium in Palma da Majorca.
But the more substantial business, in which Kahn ultimately made most of his money was Dapey Zahav (Yellow Pages). In the mid 1960s he won a tender to produce a yellow pages directory in Israel, and on the basis of this company, in 1981 he founded Aurec Ltd. and Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX), which developed as the Dapey Zahav billing company. The Kahn family has funded other causes besides the environment since becoming wealthy, with contributions to a raft of projects such as the youth leadership project, a children's rehabilitation center, a scholarship fund for training young doctors, and research ventures. Yet despite this, Kahn is known primarily for his support for issues related to the environment.
In 2000, Kahn and Zalul were approached by former naval commandos who claimed they had contracted cancer while diving in the polluted Kishon river. He says that they approached the IDF at the start of the campaign, in the hope of securing its cooperation, but "they apparently intended to set up an internal board of inquiry that would bury the issue. Because of this, I decided to support the campaign for the appointment of a public inquiry, and eventually, we won."
What do you think about the enforcement against polluters?
"One of the things that I find most annoying, personally, is the low fines that polluters pay for the injustice they have subjected the public to and the harm they have caused to public health. I think that the government should impose stiff penalties on them."
Do you find it disappointing that after years of activity, you are virtually the sole philanthropist with an interest in environmental issues?
"Regrettably, I am indeed almost on my own. Not a single rich investor has been willing to do anything. The only help we get comes from overseas, and public donations don't add up to much. I am confident that the day will come when the Israeli electorate will assess its politicians by their attitude to the environment as well."
Will you personally support such a party?
"I will support anything that promotes green issues."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 23, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007