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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Yaacov Meridor.md

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+---
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Politics
+  - Business
+  - Israel
+---
+[[Yaacov Meridor]] was a long-time friend of [[Menachem Begin 1]], who served as a minister without portfolio in Begin's government. He was involved in various businesses with [[South Africa]] through [[Transkei]], raking in commissions from countries that sought to bypass the boycott on [[South Africa]] by dealing through Transkei. Everything had to go through Meridor or a company he owned, including [[Degem]], which was actually controlled by [[Israel|Israel]]'s military intelligence and provided computer services to the [[South Africa|South Africans]] and to [[Guatemala]].[^1]
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+Meridor became embroiled in a scandal when he, along with [[Joe Peeples]] and a Romanian expatriate, attempted to sell a theoretically feasible but practically impossible solar energy system to the [[Hunt brothers]] of [[Texas]] for $2 million. He also sought a huge loan from the [[Israel|Israeli]] Treasury for this project, publicly announcing it on TV. However, a scientist from the [[Weizmann Institute]] exposed the scheme as a fraud, leading to Meridor losing his job as a cabinet minister and his credibility. His [[Transkei]] operations were also affected, which opened the door for [[Robert Maxwell]] to take over [[Degem]].[^1]
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+### Footnotes
+[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992. (Hereafter, "Profits of War")