Last Updated on March 14, 2023
Israeli bankers and tech firms pulled a whopping $1 billion from the failed Silicon Valley Bank in the days immediately leading up to its collapse, marking America’s biggest financial meltdown since 2008 and the second-biggest bank collapse in American history.
The Silicon Valley Bank, an openly left-wing financial operation that promoted “woke capital” ESG programs and worked closely with politicians and tech oligarchs alike, is not only linked to powerful Americans, but to powerful Israelis as well. According to the Times of Israel, in the days immediately preceding the bank’s collapse, Israeli bankers, working on behalf of themselves and the nation’s own tech oligarchs, pulled a whopping $1 billion out of SVB.
The Times of Israel reported that Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim, the two biggest banks in Israel, set up a “situation room” and worked “around the clock” to help Israeli firms pull their money out of SVB “before it was seized” by American authorities.
“Israel’s two largest banks, Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim, set up a situation room that has been operating around the clock to help firms transfer their money from SVB — before it was seized — to accounts in Israel. Over the past few days, teams at LeumiTech, the high-tech banking arm of Bank Leumi, have been able to help their Israeli clients transfer about $1 billion to Israel, the bank said.”
Silicon Valley Bank has been described by the Times of Israel as the “go-to lender of technology startups in Israel,” despite it being based in California. Israel’s technology sector is massive and is responsible for employing as much as 10% of the nation’s total workforce.
The same Times of Israel report also fretted over the possibility that Israeli cash that wasn’t pulled out in time could have been lost forever in SVB’s collapse.
“The US bank served many Israeli startups and technology companies, sending fears into the industry that some firms may find it difficult to make payroll payments at some point in the next month if they cannot access the funds they hold at SVB, although the amounts are not yet known.”
At the current time, it’s unclear if the United States federal government is going to be footing the bill for lost foreign cash, but the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they are working to determine “whether or not actions are necessary to assist Israeli companies in distress, mainly with cash-flow, due to the collapse of SVB.”
While a swath of Republican legislators have already declared that they won’t be supporting any 2008-style bank bailouts, the Biden Administration is considering a number of options, most of which have been compared to bailouts being presented under a different name.