Netanyahu Says Tech Entrepreneurs Will Lose If They Leave Israel

(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any tech entrepreneurs who withdraw from Israel out of opposition to his judicial plans will lose out because the country remains “a safe place” to do business.

“I’m not worried, because Israel is a fount of technology, is a fount of innovation,” Netanyahu said in an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” broadcast Sunday. “Some of them who said they’d moved the money out lost the money.”

While Netanyahu didn’t say whom he had in mind, investors and leaders of Israel’s technology industry have expressed concern that the government’s plans to weaken the judiciary will threaten democracy and the country’s business environment.

Netanyahu previously defended the strength of Israel’s democracy after Moody’s lowered the country’s credit outlook because of the planned judicial overhaul, which has prompted mass protests. On CNN, he said the Israeli tech industry’s future is secure and suggested doubters would be making the wrong bet.

“If the herd moves one way, and I don’t think it is, but if it moves one way, then people who go with the herd actually lose money,” Netanyahu said. “The smart money will come into Israel in even greater numbers.”

Public opposition to the initial overhaul prompted Netanyahu’s far-right government to put a hold on the plan, which would curtail the power of the Supreme Court to choose new judges and cancel laws approved by parliament.

Whatever shape the judiciary reform ultimately takes, the “freedom to innovate, the freedom to make money” in Israel will be upheld, Netanyahu told CNN.

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