27 Kislev 5778
15 December 2017
Happy 3rd day of Chanukah!(image courtesy of rotter.net).
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
There was another launch of missiles at southern Israel late yesterday afternoon. The target this time was the area around Kissufim. Local residents reported hearing from 2 to 5 explosions, but the IDF, which is desperate to avoid retaliating, claimed that all of the alarms were false alarms.
As we have reported endlessly here on israelstreet, there are no false alarms. Undoubtedly whatever was fired yesterday will be found in the coming days.
This was the 8th straight day of missile attacks.
But the missile attacks are not stopping Chanukah celebrations in Sderot.
The amazing Chanukiah at the Hesder Yeshiva in Sderot made of missiles that have hit the city.
Lighting the “candles”:
Incoming missiles will not deter the residents of Sderot from celebrating Chanukah.
Meanwhile “rock” and Molotov attacks occurred at Psagot, Yitzhar, Binyamin, Abu Dis, Barkan, Shechem, the road between Sussiya and Carmel, Al-Fawwar, throughout the Hevron Hills, Budrus, Marda, Al Khader, throughout Gush Etzion, Yatta, Gedoun, Deir Nizam, Salfit, Deir Qadis, just outside of Ariel, Nabi Saleh, Ma’aleh Levona, Qalandiya, Hevron, Qalil, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron road, Beit Ummar, Shuafat, Beit El, Husan, Tekoa, Beitunia, Geva, Idna, Qadum, Itamar, El Aruv, Hawara, Hizma, the Qalqilya checkpoint, Halhul, Beit Anun, Elon Moreh, Tapuach Junction, Beit Furik, Yakir, Avraham Hasno Junction, and Burin to name a few locations.
In most of the above places, Israelis were attacked in multiple instances throughout the day.
As always here on israelstreet, we rely on reports from Israeli citizens which are made to Rescue Judea and Samaria, rotter, and hakolhayehudi.
Remember this picture . . .
Miss Iraq (right) posed for a selfie with Miss Israel at the most recent Miss Universe contest.
At the time, we wondered on this blog what would happen to Miss Iraq when the picture became public in Iraq.
What has happened is that she has had to move to the United States because of death threats, and yesterday her family also announced that they were moving to the U.S. because of death threats.
One photo sums up Palestinian feelings about the U.S. . . .
Hung over a Palestinian store in Akebat Jaba, just outside Jericho.
The power of Jewish prayer? . . .
King Mohammed VI at the opening of a Jewish synagogue in Morocco last year.
It has been reported that the King of Morocco went to the Jewish community last week and asked its rabbis to pray for rain to end the extended drought that has enveloped the country.
The rabbis acceded to the request.
One day later, it began to rain.
By the way, this was not the first time that the King had made such a request; he did the same thing in 2014 . . . with the same result.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Great Teva Disaster
Once a gleaming example of Israeli business, Teva is Israeli no longer.
What is really on everyone’s mind this morning in Israel is the disaster at Teva. The pharmaceutical company, which until recently was the most highly valued company in Israel, announced massive layoffs and restructuring yesterday.
Among the worldwide work force of 56,000 employees, 14000 will be losing their jobs in the next 90 days–1,775 of the employees who suddenly find themselves unemployed are here in Israel.
At the same time, most of Teva’s production facilities in Israel, particularly those in Jerusalem, are being permanently closed.
All in all, the Teva announcement is a body-slam to the Israeli economy.
Yesterday, Histadrut (the General Organization of Workers in Israel) announced a country-wide strike Sunday morning in support of the laid off Teva workers. Everything from government offices to Ben Gurion Airport will be closed from 8 am until noon. Your humble servant is scheduled to be on a flight at 9:05 am Sunday.
What Histadrut finds outrageous is that Israeli taxpayers subsidized Teva to the tune of about 11 million shekels per laid off worker in corporate tax discounts that totaled 18.3 billion shekels during the last decade. For Teva to be now essentially pulling out of Israel while firing so many Israeli workers seems to many an egregious example of corporate abandonment and greed.
What happened to Teva is a tale of massive corporate mismanagement.
Back in 2015, then CEO Erez Vigodman convinced the Teva Board of Directors to purchase Actavis Generis, the generic drug business of Allergan, at a cost of $40.5 billion dollars.
To come up with funds to make the purchase possible, Teva was forced to sell a major part of its highly profitable drug portfolio to various companies. Teva held on to its main money-maker, the MS drug Copaxone (20% of its profits); however, a ruling against Teva by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, greatly reduced the value of Copaxone and the price of generics in general.
At the same time all of this was happening, Teva continued to dole out huge salaries to its highest management.
Finally, Teva’s massive debt caught up with the company. Though still making money, Teva was only making enough money to cover its interest payments. In September of this year, Vigodman resigned and Kare Schultz, a noted Danish “corporate reorganizer” took over, and we saw the results yesterday.
In sum, with more than 90% of its publicly held stock now in the hands of foreign investors, the Israeli Teva workforce reduced significantly, Israeli production facilities pared to a bare minimum, and the new CEO a non-Israeli, the once quintessential Israeli company is no longer Israeli.
One final note. Teva should come as a warning to Israel where a mere 10 companies are responsible for more than 50% of the country’s exports. Many of these companies are now primarily held by foreign investors, and what happened to Teva could happen to any of them.
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A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.