At a press conference ahead of Bank Hapoalim's (TASE: POLI; LSE:80OA) board meeting, controlling shareholder Shari Arison launched a naked assault on Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer. She gave full backing to the conduct of chairman Dan Dankner.
Arison said, "This isn't control. This is a raid. It is creeping nationalization, and rapid creep. I won't lie to myself, and I won't do something that I don’t believe in just to placate a demand that I consider utterly unjustifiable. I feel very hurt. An arrow was fired and the target was drawn around it. There's a feeling of McCarthyism - no law, no justice. This is simply a frame-up just because someone doesn’t like somebody else."
Arison concluded, "The State of Israel has become inured to corruption, and we must not consent to such a policy. I cannot consent to the demand to oust Dan Dankner. The Bank of Israel made the dramatic demand without seriously explaining it to me, to explain the demand seriously to me, or present me with sensational facts. To my surprise, this didn’t happen."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 7, 2009
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