Toward the end of the debate at the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee on Feb. 25 regarding the significance of the sale of the Tnuva [food] Corp. to the Chinese, Rahamim Eliyahu, a member of the board of Israel Cattle Breeders Association, told of his meeting with Zehavit Cohen, the CEO of Apax Israel, in the period before the sale of the company to the British Apax.

Cohen had sought to ease his opposition to the deal, promising him that this was a strategic acquisition for at least 30 years, and he believed her. Less than six years have passed, and now she stands behind the contacts regarding a deal to sell the company to the Chinese firm Bright Food. This time, too, Cohen is operating in a similar fashion: personal meetings to soften opposition and the promise that the Chinese have no intention of importing cheese to Israel, which would hurt the local product. You cannot blame Eliyahu for no longer buying Cohen's promises. 

Cohen has already displayed a lack of receptiveness to the Israeli public interest in the days preceding the social protests. She preferred to increase the revenue of Apax from the largest food company in Israel, and gave a hand to the increase of the price of cottage cheese by tens of percentage points. This decision brought about a successful consumer boycott against Tnuva, and was one of the causes for the outbreak of the social protest in the summer of 2011. Cohen was then forced to resign from her position as chairwoman of the board at Tnuva, while in the background lay the claim that the increase in the national price of cheese was the result of the sale of Tnuva to foreign hands.

This time again Cohen proves that before anything she’s a loyal emissary of Apax: She is working hard to advance the deal with the Chinese, which, if it comes through, will enrich Apax by more than $6 billion — more than six times the price at which it bought 56% of the shares of the company in 2008. It turns out that she cannot be expected, as an Israeli businesswoman, to see the national interest. This is exactly where the state has to fulfill its role and take care of its citizens.