Rami Levi told "Globes TV" that his acquisition of the controlling interest in Digal Investment and Holdings Ltd. (TASE: DIGL) from Mivtach Shamir Holdings Ltd. (TASE:MISH) and the taking over of Digal's Nof Zion project in east Jerusalem prevented a Palestinian provocation instigated by Bashar al-Masri, who tried to acquire it.
Levi said, "The project has 400 apartments, of which 100 are already built and occupied by 100 Jewish families. This Palestinian came along, wanting to buy Digal, build a neighborhood there, and populate it with Arabs. This would naturally create conflict between Jews and Arabs. Ultimately, this is a Jewish neighborhood, and naturally if someone came along and put 300 Arab families in a place where there are already 100 Jewish families, this would have been a provocation. I prevented it."
Asked if he would sell Nof Zion to al-Masri if the project failed to get off the ground, Levi said, "There is no way that I will sell this to al-Masri. I believe that we'll make money, and that everything will be all right."
Levi said that there were two main reasons for soaring real estate prices: the first is the price of land, which is "unrealistically expensive", and the second is the method of land tenders by the Israel Land Administration.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 8, 2011
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