On-line gambling casino 888.com founder Avi Shaked has been causing quite a stir in more ways - and circles - than one. Which may be why the normally media-shy multi-millionaire is making an exception and breaking his custom of keeping his cards close to his chest.
Avi Shaked.
Photo: Courtesy
He does, however, make it clear that he doesn't want to discuss any details that have been emerging about a possible takeover of the company he has turned into a virtual gold mine over the past 11 years. This is a deal I can live with, since it is not the state of his business that has prompted the following hour-long interview, but rather the business of state he is proposing: a $1 billion private equity fund for the Palestinian Authority, on condition that it reach and sign a peace agreement with the Israeli government.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all...
But the 53-year-old self-proclaimed "socialist through and through" is hopeful, in spite of the odds. "Nobody has tried to sit with the Palestinians and talk about all of the problems and how to solve them," he claims cheerfully, choosing his words carefully and expressing them articulately.
Nor is he deterred by past attempts to do precisely that - including his own. A long-standing member of the Labor Party (who even ran in the last Knesset elections), Shaked joined Yossi Beilin in the Geneva Initiative, following the collapse of the Camp David talks.
Shaked became friendly with Beilin in the 1970s, when they were both members of Labor's Young Guard. Shaked was then working as an Israel Aircraft Industries engineer. When he left IAI for the private sector (he spent the following 15 years as the Israel director of MCI), he turned his attention away from politics and focused solely on business.
Now merging the two - which he previously concluded "don't mix" - the married father-of-three, who resides in Savyon and has a summer house in Nahalal, says he decided to extrapolate what he has learned from the business world and apply it to the diplomatic arena.
When and how did you come up with the idea to propose a billion-dollar money-for-peace deal with the Palestinians?
Six months ago, when Warren Buffet purchased Iscar. That deal created a kind of euphoria throughout the country, making us forget the rest of our problems for a moment. So I said to myself: "Wait a minute. This might be just what the Palestinians need - a major financial deal which gives them the opportunity to extricate themselves from their dead-end situation."
But, because other such ideas had been attempted in the past, I had to come up with something different. I had to treat the proposal as I would a business proposition - to forge a deal by delineating milestones.
I told the Palestinians that in order for them to receive money from the private equity fund, they have to reach a peace agreement with Israel. At the first stage, when they sit down at the negotiating table, they will receive 10 percent of the fund - $100,000,000. This money will be invested in Palestinian industry. Entrepreneurs will have to submit requests and proposals, as is done with any fund. At the final stage, when they actually sign a peace agreement, the rest of the money - $900,000,000 - will be invested.
Whom did you contact in the Palestinian Authority to propose this deal?
I phoned Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and spoke to his office manager. We spoke for about an hour. He said that my proposal was very interesting. I said that I'd let him mull over it for six months.
When the six months were up last week, he discussed my proposal in an interview he gave to Palestinian TV. Channel 2's Yoram Binur asked for my response. That's when I realized the offer had been made public.
Simultaneously, however, Haniyeh was in Iran and declared that Hamas would never recognize Israel.
As in business, so in politics: Deals are usually made between competitors, each of whom keeps his cards close to his chest and remains steadfast in his positions prior to the closing of a deal. I hope that declarations such as Haniyeh's are meaningless and that logic will eventually prevail. Without sitting down to talk, there can be no solution. I don't know what the solution will ultimately be. I'm not getting into that, because it is neither my prerogative, nor my desire to influence the outcome. It's anybody's guess what the outcome will be. What is clear is that in order for us to know whether an agreement is possible or not, the two leaders have to try to bridge the gaps between them. If they don't try, they're certain not to succeed.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that he is willing to negotiate with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, but not with Haniyeh. Why did you phone the latter, rather than the former?
I view the PA as I do a company. Just as there is a CEO at the head of a company, there is a prime minister at the head of a country. And, just as business deals have to be negotiated between CEOs, political negotiations have to be conducted by heads of state.
Using your logic of two heads of state negotiating a deal, wouldn't you have to enlist Olmert for your endeavor, as well - or at least make him privy to - or approve of the proposal you made to Haniyeh?
Because I'm an Israeli, I'm convinced that all Israelis genuinely want peace. Yet each of us has a different approach as to how to achieve it. My prime minister, too, has a path. It's called the road map. In contrast, the Palestinian prime minister hasn't yet proposed any path, or even first step, that indicates what his view of how to achieve an agreement is. My prime minister has already said that he would negotiate under the conditions he set forth. The problem is that the Palestinian prime minister so far has no vision even to set forth conditions. All he does is negate the whole thing. I thought it appropriate, therefore, to move him in that direction, by giving him an incentive that would make the lives of the Palestinian people better - i.e. investment in industry - so that there would be no more Kassams, so that there would be no more casualties, so that we would no longer fire on them and they would no longer fire on us, to put an end to this terrible decades-long conflict.
