Governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, is credited with assisting Israel through the 2008 global financial crisis; he is criticized for funding Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Recently, Mr. Fischer formally announced his candidacy to lead the International Monetary Fund. While the selection process is a political one, Mr. Fischer has received support from Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who said:
“Were it purely professional it would be hard-pressed to find a better person than Fischer.â€
Salam Fayyad disputed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister supported Mr. Fischer, saying the Israeli would make a â€great managing director†for the IMF and is:
“A superb human being…He is supremely qualified for the job. Indeed, it’s difficult to see how one can be more qualified…”
On a side note, Hamas has refused to recognize Fayyad, a political independent, as Prime Minister. Fayyad received his PhD in economics from the University of Texas, as well as working for the IMF in the 1980s; so he is a good man to ask.
As mentioned, the recently announced “reconciliation†between the government in the West Bank, led by Fatah and the terrorist group Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip is threatening Fayyad’s political status.
But Monday night Fischer was notified that his candidacy was disqualified because of his age, 67. IMF rules state the Managing Director must be under 65 when taking office for the five-year position. Fischer was hoping the IMF board would waive the restriction, saying it is “not relevant today.”
Fischer is in the second year of his second five-year term as the chariman of Israel’s bank. He was hoping to take over at the IMF for Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France, who resigned on May 14 after his arrest on charges of attempted rape of a maid in a New York hotel.
Fischer had this to say:
“I will proudly and happily continue in my role as Governor of the Bank of Israel, to deal with the challenges facing the Bank of Israel and the Israeli economy. I would like to thank the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for their unconditional support when I decided to submit my candidacy, and for their expressed hope that I will continue to serve as the Governor of the Bank of Israel – as I shall happily do…”
The finance minister of France, Christine Lagarde, is considered to be the front-runner in the IMF race. The final decision will be made toward the end of the month.
Fischer was the thesis adviser to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, when he was pursuing his doctorate in economics from MIT and is a former deputy managing director of the IMF.
Although it goes humbly un-boasted – perhaps due to antisemitism and worldwide Zionist bashing – Israel has managed to thrive during the recent global economic crisis. Actually Israel’s economy “has the highest concentration of innovation and entrepreneurial ism in the world today”. 
The most famous suicide report in the last year was that of 
But at the same time, however, the government is now formulating plans to increase the VAT on other items even further – to 17.5% – to make up for the 1.3 billion Shekel revenue short-fall that is expected to occur due to not imposing what is now known as the produce tax. Prior to the P.M.’s decision, many people were calling for Finance Minister Steinitz to resign. Those close to him say he is furious with the decision concerning the produce tax, and will not resign; even though opposition Kadima party members are calling this act “a sign of weakness” on the part of the present Likud party led government. 
The Israelite king, Benjamin I, was deeply troubled. Following his economic decrees from the Royal Court in Jerusalem, his loyal subjects were on the verge of rioting – even to the point of marching on the Royal Palace with buckets of tar and sacks of feathers. 
In the aftermath of the just completed 
Security is a very important issue, and will always be so in a country still largely surrounded by hostile enemies. But as important as this issue may be, there are many others that need the most urgent attention. And two of these issues are the country’s dire water problem and the economic recession that the country’s population is now “officially” immersed in. Both of issues are none-the-less serious than the security one, and may even be eventually more difficult to deal with. 
The other major problem deals with the state of the economy, in which thousands of people, many of them engaged in technology based industries, are now unemployed and having to look for any kind of work just to put food on the table for their families. Although the world economic crises, which began in the U.S.A. several months ago, is not of Israel’s making the result has created a recession which is most likely to worsen before it gets better. The weaker elements of society, especially the old, the disabled, and the poorer sectors of the population, are suffering the most as they had virtually no reserves to fall back on even before the stock markets began to crash. Lowering prime interest rates to all time levels (now at 1%) doesn’t help much if one has no money to spend anyway. And Israel’s dependence on exporting goods and services to certain economically stressed markets, like the U.S.A., has resulted in a sharp reduction of cash flow to most companies, not to mention small businesses. 
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