At the time of the television it is impossible

Child in Palestine, Step Wertheimer, eighty years old, is currently one of the main industrial groups of the country and continues to promote industrialization as a vehicle for peace.

You have created five industrial parks since 1985, including one in Turkey. What is the basic concept

In the 1950s, there was no work in Upper Galilee, a region where Jews and Arabs live together. I therefore mounted a small tools Corporation metals to Nahariya. Today, Iscar (Israeli Carbite) employs 5,000 people and exports 99 of its production. Then, I created a company of propellers, and then in 1985 the Tefen industrial park. In total, Iscar and our four parks "weigh" $ 2 billion. The basic idea is that education, training in the industry, is the only way to make peace. Other solutions, ceasefire or even territorial agreement, are only temporary. We help people move from an agricultural era in an industrial era, of a historical conception of the world to a creative attitude. Our goal is that Jews and Arabs have something to lose if they are the war.

The history is therefore a charge

If only you could forget the three religions... It is a charge for us all, Jews, Muslims and Christians. And yet, it would be so easy to create a new field of competition: the international market would replace religion.

You set the economic independence as the third stage of Zionism, after the creation of the State in 1948 and the army. Is the goal reached

Israel has little land, little water and no natural resources, but good results. That said, as long as our neighbours will not have a level of income similar to ours, we shall not be in peace. Israel may not remain an isolated island of prosperity. At the time of the television, it is impossible.

Today, investiriez you a shekel in an industrial park in the Palestinian territories

Non. The industry cannot live only if the environment is quiet. I have two projects of industrial park, at Akaba Jordan and Gaza Strip Rafah, frozen since the beginning of the Intifada. This is not only a question of money. How do you want to set up industries and technological schools while people fight We will need a Schuman plan, as well as between the France and the Germany in 1951. In recent years, the only thing I have to do is to maintain courses combining Jewish and Arab students. Particularly, this led to the creation of a joint company, which exports of olive oil to the Japan.

You proposed to the Americans to launch a Marshall for the Middle East. International assistance to the Palestinian world record per capita is not appropriate

This assistance is indispensable, but it meets needs of first necessity. It gives them a fish and not the hook to teach how them to fish. In addition, there is not a Middle East, but two. One who has the oil the Persian Gulf countries, with an annuity so that he did not need to be productive. The other to the Mediterranean for the former ottoman Empire which has no black gold and can survive only in industrializing. This is the case of the Jordan, the Turkey, the Palestinian territories and Israel. I have proposed to Congress a Marshall plan for these countries there, but it was a month before the start of the war in Iraq...

Why have created an industrial park in Turkey

The Turkey, who wants to integrate the European Union, is with Israel the only other country of the Middle East without oil, which is moving forward. It is therefore our natural partner. Our two countries can lead to the Jordan and the Palestinian territories, ignored by investors in the oil countries. My greatest hope is that this new ottoman Empire is Europe in twenty years. But the preliminary condition is that our be all industrialized countries.