10/5/99

Good herring makes good neighbors

    To most Israelis, Egypt is a write-off. The cold peace. Glowering Mubarak. Azzam in prison. The viciously anti-Israel press. The chewing-gum hysteria.
    Egyptians fear Israel: the atomic bomb, economic domination.
    Muky Meltzer cuts through it all. He firmly believes the two countries can, should and must learn to understand each other -- and get rich together.
    He's a high-level tradesman who has harbored remarkably successful business ties with Egypt, because he understands, respects, even loves them.
    "They're very proud, very nice people. They appreciate the [Egyptian] Jews, who were very strong until Nasser; they ran most of the Egyptian economy.
    "In his last speech to Israeli television, Mubarak said to Netanyahu -- nobody noticed this -- that 'we never signed contracts with Jews, we shook hands, that was enough.' It was repeated three times on Egyptian television, but in Israel, no one ever took notice. I was in Egypt at the time, they said, 'Where are the Jews we know? We always trusted each other totally.' Meaning now, we don't.
    "We do all the mistakes possible. We don't understand the Orient. We don't even understand the Sephardi Jews. But the Sephardim also don't understand the Egyptians."
    They're no better at understanding us. "They're afraid of Israel's atomic bomb. It's on their minds 24 hours a day. Anyone who shakes the Middle East scares them -- it could be Saddam Hussein, or it could be Netanyahu."
    Almost as frightening as our A-bomb is our chewing gum. A couple of years ago, a story spread like wildfire in the Arab world that Israeli gum is an aphrodisiac, a looming threat to Arab society.
    "I figured out how that happened. An Egyptian saw the ad on Israeli TV for Orbit gum: a blonde woman says "yesh l'cha cheshek" (you feel like it) --  and winks. Someone who doesn't speak good Hebrew would think "cheshek" is for sex. The Egyptian media made a scandal out of it.
    "Everyone in Egypt was begging me to bring in this gum. I didn't know what they were talking about."
    Meltzer, 65, is, perhaps surprisingly, a staunch rightist. He was head of the Herut Party in Eilat, where he was one of the founding settlers. He now resides in a grandly spacious home in the village of Ganot Hadar, near Netanya. But at any given time, he's just as likely to be found beyond Sinai.
    "Without friendship there can be no business. Ninety five percent of doing business with an Egyptian is personal contact. I meet his father, his uncle, his cousins, I cross a barrier with them."
    It's the little things, personal consideration that shows Meltzer is attuned. Which is why he would give a gift of schmaltz herring.
    "There was a holiday, Shams a Nisim, when they eat rotten herring that they bury in the ground for three months. It's called f'sich. Smells terrible. Two years ago about 50 people died from bad f'sich. Anyway, I brought them schmaltz herring as a gift, 10 kilos of it, and I told them it's f'sich." It's a two-way road: when Meltzer's grandson was born, 50 Egyptian businessmen attended the brit.
    "Egyptians say to me, what are the Israelis like? I say it's a hyperactive nation that came by mistake to a hot climate. In such a climate, hyperactive people kill themselves. I'll wake up in the middle of the night for a $200 deal, I'll jump out of bed and go 200 miles. An Egyptian on the weekend says Muky, call me Monday. Leave me alone.
    "An Israeli manager is booked with appointments for the next three months. When I go to Egypt I fax, I call, to set things up, and they say Muky, when you get here, call me. It's impossible to set things up.
    "With the Israeli temperament, you cannot do business with Egyptians."
    A bit of the Egyptian mentality has soaked into him. "Since I've been going to Egypt, I'm a better human being, and a better driver. Time has no value. Tomorrow I have two important business meetings in Tel Aviv. I'll drive carefully, I'll stop on the way and have a coffee. I take it easier.
    "Y'know, it was only in Egypt that I discovered what's special about the Jewish people: curiosity. We invented it. I read five newspapers every day, I listen to four radio programs, I watch TV, I'm breathing curiosity. With this curiosity I try to understand Egypt, what they think, what they need.
    "Their biggest need is to industrialize agriculture. There's no planning. If you build a tomato-paste factory -- which doesn't exist in Egypt -- when tomatoes are very cheap you make it into paste, you give tomatoes a two-year shelf life. If not you have to throw them away. Now, Israel is closing factories because we can't compete in price with Spain and Italy. The best combination would be Israeli manufacturers with Egyptian growers. They need us, we need them."
    Meltzer fills a vital need for the Egyptians as a middleman who understands the quirks of both East and West.
    "I did headhunting for American companies in Egypt. They couldn't find Egyptian engineers because they asked their agent to find some, without knowing that the agent will only look in his family. When they asked me to look, I spoke to 200 people. I found the right ones.  
    "I'm shipping frozen strawberries from Egypt to Germany, because I found out the need, and I made the contact; it was my initiative. Now I'm selling 2,000 tons. Why can't Egyptians do it? First, they don't have many people who speak languages. Second, Egyptian industry until six or seven years ago was isolated. They never exported."
    The profit potential is untapped, and huge, he says. "The money is there. It's so much. Gulf people came to me, and according to my recommendation, they bought shares of Koor in London. 
    "I brought people to the Rishon Lezion shopping center, they spent $1,000 a day, each. A few families came to buy for weddings, instead of going to Italy. They told me they found the best hotel in Israel: the Sun Hotel in Bat Yam. You know why? It's near the Rishon shopping center."
    Meltzer points to the incredible imbalance of exports: Egypt earns $5 billion a year; Israel, with a tenth of the population, rakes in $25 billion. For the latter, he credits the Arabs.
    "Shimon Peres says the Arab boycott cost us,