With 90 days to go to elections, my memory takes me back to early 1985 when I was, for one year, the interim general manager of Luz Industries Israel Ltd., the company that built 354MW of solar-based electricity spread over nine generating stations in the high desert of California between 1985-1990, all of which are still operating today.

We were in the midst of preparing to deliver the first pilot station, which needed a significant amount of steel substructure to support the large concave mirrors that were used to concentrate the sun’s rays and heat the system fluid that powered the generators. At the time, the only company in Israel with the capacity to supply the steel was Koor Metals Ltd., headquartered in Holon’s industrial area and managed by a retired IDF general, Yitzhak Ben Dov, of blessed memory.

I recall vividly that even though we were negotiating purchases that approached $10 million annually (equivalent to $31m today), we had to travel from our office in Jerusalem’s Har Hotzvim tech park to his office in Holon to discuss the purchase. I once asked one of my associates at the company why we were making the trip to the seller rather than him coming to us and the response was: “He is a........

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