In September 2008, just as countries around the globe-- including the U.S., Iceland and Great Britain -- were fighting for their financial lives, one country watched the story unfold from the sidelines. Israel was barely scratched by the global banking and credit crisis, thanks to a series of pre-emptive actions taken by its central bank more than a year before the contagion hit.

In an exclusive interview at the Bank of Israel headquarters in Jerusalem, the Governor of the Bank of Israel said foresight and “some luck” not only helped the tiny nation in the Middle East avoid the credit crisis, but stabilized and subsequently strengthened its own currency in the process.

Stanley Fischer has held the Governor’s post at the Bank of Israel for four and a half years. With a tour as Vice Chairman at Citigroup along with positions held at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and as the chairman of MIT’s Economics department, Fischer is familiar with global financial crises. Having worked on the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the one he calls the “most frightening” -- the Russian Ruble/Long Term Capital Management Crisis of 1998 -- Fischer says that in July of 2007 the Bank of Israel began shoring up its foreign exchange reserves.

“We began increasing our U.S. dollar reserves. We bought the equivalent of 10% of Israel’s GDP.” For such a small nation, it was a huge endeavor. “That would be like the U.S. buying up $1.5 trillion worth of foreign exchange,” said Fischer. “By July of 2008 we knew a serious crisis was coming. Lucky we had started buying [ForEx] when we did… when the crisis hit, Israel looked safer so Israelis brought their overseas money back home.” It wasn't 'foresight' and 'luck' but insider knowledge that helped Israel stay clear of this economic mess and help by friends of Israel like Bernie Madoff who helped swindle close to 100 billion from Americans and then shipped a lot of that loot back to the Mother Ship.

As for Fischer claiming that their USD holdings are preventing Israel from this economic implosion, that's BS.
China has a helluva lot more USD holdings than Israel and they're being sucked into the same whirlpool the U.S. is drowning.

What really saved Israel is that those toxic insturments known as Mortgage Backed Securities weren't sold to or in Israel. Toxic 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' that were designed and sold on Wall Street by friends of Israel, like Gary Gensler, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, AIG former head Alan Greenberg and the 'Godfather' of the MBS, Lewis Ranieri all Jews and devout fans of Israel.

Add in the trillions that the FED printed up and gave away to their friends like Israel and it's easy to see why that Apartheid nightmare is dodging this depression.

BTW, Stan, did you ever shake those charges of plagiarism on your 1969 Ph.D thesis at MIT?

And how did those crisis contagion protocols that you instituted at the World Bank back when you were Deputy Managing Director in 2001 work? You know, the protocols that allowed the World Bank to "... sharpen its scrutiny of national policies and international markets..." to avoid future monetary crisis.

Or were they designed to only protect one nation?