Israeli Army Chief Sold Stocks Hours Before War

[laststeamtrain]

JERUSALEM : Israel's army chief Dan Halutz reportedly offloaded his stock portfolio hours before the Jewish state unleashed a massive offensive in Lebanon and the stock market tumbled.

According to the Maariv daily, Halutz sold the shares at noon on July 12, three hours after two soldiers were seized by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid and as Israeli artillery began to pound the positions of the Shiite militia in Lebanon, the paper said.

Israel's main TA-25 index slumped by 8.3 percent over two days from July 12.

Halutz confirmed that he sold his shares for 120,000 shekels (26,000 dollars) and said he lost 5,400 dollars in the transaction.

"It's true that I sold these shares at noon on July 12, but you can't link the transaction to the war. At that moment I did not think that there would be a war," Maariv quoted Halutz as saying.

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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/225103/1/.html

[ERF]

1. Wow, this is a new one. Are the similar insider trading laws

in Israel and if so, could this be considered insider information?

[Sherman A1]

2. Agreed

certainly seems to be taking advantage of what he knew to be coming. Hmmmmm.....?

[Xipe Totec]

3. Unethical yes, Illegal maybe not

Insider information is information from inside an organization (accessible to corporate officers), but not outside events.

Technically, he may be in the clear.

[tanyev]

4. No one could have anticipated that there would be a war.

Especially not the, uh, army chief.

[Turbineguy]

5. Hezbollah

did not give out flight- and seat numbers. Whodda thunk it?

[sofa king]

6. It's a good thing all that 9/11 insider training never happened.

Because if it did, it might be used to establish a pattern.

[QuettaKid]

7. Snopes is a joke.

They are wrong way more often than they are right.

[lancebanyon]

8. Sounds like this guy should be nominated for a World Stupidity Award

http://stupidityawards.com

[snooper2]

11. I find them to be credible...

Are there any examples of lies/falsehoods you can point to?

[daleo]

9. He had to take time off to do this

While the rest of the war planners were in emergency meetings, he was off selling his stocks. That's what I recall reading in Ha'aretz anyway.

It sort of reminds you of 911 - while the planes were crashing, many U.S. political and military leaders were busy with other things (e.g. Bush, Rummy). Maybe it was part of a conspiracy to do nothing, maybe it was simple incompetence. Either way, they were more likely to get a medal than a reprimand for it.

[ama]

10. 120,000 shekels

in todays money that would be what.. about 30 pieces of silver, right

[rbentxxx]

12. It's been said that...

The same type of thing happened before 9/11. I believe it. Historically, there's been great coverage of this issue on the American Scoop. www.americanscoop.com

[eccles12]

13. Only a few hours after the soldiers were captured? This means to me

that he already knew there would be no chance of negotiations as in the past and that Israel was going to unleash the carnage it did.