Natalia started getting worried when she hadn’t heard from her husband Moti for a whole day. All she knew was that he was away on a business trip in Turkey somewhere near the Iranian border and that he wasn’t answering his phone.
“Moti hasn’t been answering for a whole day. He’s not online,” she wrote to a friend who called her to try to calm her down. Natalia updated her friend on the afternoon of Sunday, August 25, “I’ve found him. He left his phone and went to the border for three days. He’ll only be back at the hotel tomorrow. Such an adventurer.”
According to the indictment, however, this “adventure” of Moti Maman’s involved entering Iran twice and meetings with Iranian intelligence personnel in which they discussed missions to be carried out in Israel, including assassinating Israeli leaders.
Maman is a 72-year-old pensioner living with his wife in Ashkelon. He’s originally from Bustan Hagalil where he owns holiday chalets and rental warehouses. Investigations reveal that he had fallen into debt resulting in loans he’d given out, and that he was having trouble providing his new 39-year-old wife Natalia from Belarus with her desired lifestyle of hotels, restaurants and vacations.
He'd spent several years living in Turkey’s Samandağ municipality where his interrogators say he was working in the fruit and vegetable trade. This is where he met the Turkish Aslan family, including Andrey and Junayd, with whom he became good friends. In light of his financial situation, in April of this year, he asked them if they had any business ventures to offer him. They invited him to come to Turkey to meet an Iranian tycoon known as Adi.
In April, Maman flew to Turkey where he spent a few days with Natalia. Adi, however, didn’t show up. Maman and his wife returned to Cyprus en route to Belarus where Natalia was living at the time. He then received a call from Adi.
Adi said to him “Hi. I’m so sorry. I tried getting to Hatay (district in southern Turkey bordering Syria), but my people in Turkey told me it wasn’t safe. So, come meet my people here. It’s very important. After we meet, we’ll be able to start off big, I promise. No problem. You show up, have the meeting and leave.”
Maman responded, “I believe you. Give me a day or two. I’ll be there.“
Maman left Natalia, who traveled alone to Belarus, and he traveled to Turkey. His hosts picked him up and took him to a five-star hotel in a village near the Turkey-Iran border. Adi then, however, informed him that legal restrictions meant he couldn’t leave Iran and that the solution would be for Maman to come to him, inside Iran and that Adi would arrange the entry.
So, after a hold-up of several hours at the border, Maman and his entourage entered Iranian territory where they met Adi and another man known as Hajja. The two took Maman to a fancy villa and then to an upmarket hotel, both of which Adi claimed to own. At some stage, Adi asked whether Maman would be willing to carry out missions for the Iranian regime.
According to his lawyer, Eyal Besserglick, Maman initially believed this to be a legitimate business meeting. There, in enemy territory, however, he didn’t want to rock the boat and agreed to hear the offer. The investigation reveals that Adi suggested a few “easy” missions including depositing money and weapons at predetermined locations to be collected by a third party, photographing crowded locations in Israel and making threats against Israeli Arabs opposing the Iranian regime. Maman told them he’d check and get back to them. Late that evening, Maman hid inside a truck and crossed back across the border back into Turkey. He was given $1,300 for the trip.
Maman then flew to Belarus and returned to Israel with his wife Natalia. He didn’t report either his visit to Iran or the espionage proposal to Israeli authorities.
Why didn’t he report his visit to Iran?
Maman’s lawyer, Eyal Besserglick: “Maman was told that they’d just be doing business. At the meeting, he found himself in an unimaginably difficult situation, fearing for his life. He nevertheless agreed to discuss the missions proposed to him. For decades, he aided the Mossad and Israeli defense authorities and has the evidence to prove it – but he was shunned by them when he needed their help. Having lost faith in the authorities, he didn’t contact them on his own initiative.”
According to the indictment, Maman continued conducting conversations with his Turkish friend Andrey and talked to him about the possibilities of business with Adi. Three months later, he asked his wife Natalia to order plane tickets to the Turkish city of Van adjacent to the Iranian border. Natalia wasn’t enthralled by the idea:
Interrogators: Why didn’t you want him to fly to Van? What’s dangerous about it?
Natalia: “I thought he was doing business by the Iranian border and that it was illegal because it’s connected to Iran, a country that’s Israel’s enemy. I was afraid he’d be arrested or that they’d kill him."
Interrogators: If you understood how problematic it was to wander around there, why did you buy him the tickets?
Natalia: “What, am I his boss? Moti is very stubborn and I did what he asked me to do. He’s my husband.”
On Friday, August 23, Maman once again returned to the hotel in the Turkish village near the Iranian border. Natalia wrote to him “Shabbat Shalom my dearest husband. Lotz of luck tomorrow.” Maman responded “Lots." Natalia responded “Amen.”
Early the following morning, Maman got into the back of a truck and lay down on a “bed." Why did he agree to go to Iran again? “Money blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous,” Maman told Supt. Maor Goren in the interrogation. “I’m under a lot of pressure. I’m dying to settle a few of my debts.” Two Iranian intelligence personnel were waiting for him in Adi’s villa. This time, the proposals were much more targeted: Killing key figures in Israel, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The four sins
Maman isn’t alone. In recent months, no less than seven separate incidents of Israelis communicating with foreign agents operated by Iran have been made public. So far, 20 people have been charged, 14 with the most severe clauses on Israel’s law books: Aiding the enemy at times of war - a crime punishable by life sentence or execution.
Over the past weeks, we’ve looked into these cases and talked to interrogators, experts, prosecutors and defense attorneys. We asked them the most important questions: What motivates Israelis, almost all of whom hold blue ID cards, mainly Jewish, to make contact with Israel’s bitterest enemy, and in the worst cases, become agents in their service?
“Firstly – money,” said Supt. Goren, a security division commander at Israel’s Unit of International Crime Investigations at Lahav 443 in charge of these investigations. “Some are people who don’t care about the country so much, people with no sense of affiliation or commitment to the state.”
Money is indeed an important and the chief motive for most of the accused – but certainly not the only one. “The CIA conducted a 12-year study of dozens of traitors,” says Dr. Ilan Diamant, clinical psychologist and defense establishment alumnus. “They found four basic motives for treason: Money, deterioration, ego and ideology.”
These are the four sins likely to lead a person to commit treason against their country. In many cases it’s not just one single “sin,” but rather the four sins interconnecting: monetary temptation can meet ideological justification. A sophisticated handler can stage by stage, exploit a spy’s ego to cause him to deteriorate to carry out evermore serious actions.
“The CIA says that there are no happy traitors. For all of them, it’s a solution to historic emotional problems,” says Dr. Diamant who, with organizational psychologist Shlomo Peled, former commander of one of the defense organizations, recently published "Treason in the Kingdom of Secrets: A Journey into the Psyches of Spies Who Betrayed Their Country" (Matar Press).
Diamant: “Without knowing the accused parties, you can’t really diagnose them, but based on the indictments, one can give a general estimate based on our professional knowledge of at-risk groups.”
Who are the people usually in these at-risk groups?
“People who reach a point of despair, with a background of personality and family problems. They’re generally impulsive and not fully mature. Easy money is a big temptation for them, and they don’t factor in what it all means. Some are addicted to breaching trust, their basis being lies and deception. In terms of ego, many are narcissists, with an incessant need for attention and whose self-esteem demands external affirmation – which this kind of activity provides. ‘I’m worth something. I’m of value. They need me’.”
Those committing these “four sins” of money, deterioration, ego and ideology may one day find themselves in handcuffs in a Shin Bet or a police interrogation room facing serious charges. This has been the fate of 20 Israelis accused in recent months of communicating with a foreign agent – or of actually working for the Islamic Republic of Iran.
First sin: Money
The first sin, money, was certainly a central component in Moti Maman’s motives. When he got to his second visit to Iran beyond the border in that concealed compartment in the truck, the Iranian businessman Adi was waiting for him along with Hajja, who seemed to hold some kind of security position.
According to investigation material, they got into a brand-new Suzuki jeep and set off. While driving, Adi chatted to Maman in English about business plans and working for his country. The meeting’s subject matter was not concealed. Adi said that two intelligence personnel would be coming to the villa to meet Maman, with an “open check” for operations in revenge for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. Maman agreed to discuss the mission, but laid down certain conditions for each operation: $1 million upfront.
At the villa, Maman was welcomed with a fancy banquet. Half an hour later, the two arrived. “One with a wig, the other with a briefcase,” Maman told his interrogators. Adi translated to and from English and Persian. The agent with the wig was particularly knowledgeable and even spoke a little Hebrew. The conversation quickly got to the point.
Maman said, “I first want a million dollars.” The agents talked of lower figures, of a few hundred thousand dollars, for a shooting. As candidates, the Iranians offered: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Maman, however, said that the security around these individuals was too high.
At this point, the agent with the wig asked him. “Do you know what’s in Ra’anana?” meaning the home of former prime minister Naftali Bennet. “I know what’s in Ra’anana,” replied Maman. “He’s former, so his security has to be lower,” said the Iranian.
Negotiations carried on into the evening, but Maman refused to operate for less than $1 million. The meeting wrapped up with no agreement. We’ll soon get back to that meeting and what happened next.
The “first sin,” money, was apparently the primary motive in the case of 35-year-old Vladimir Verhovsky who made Aliyah from Ukraine eight years ago, and has since managed to get involved in criminal activity and has been sentenced to community service. His financial situation wasn’t promising, so when “Eli” contacted him by Telegram presenting himself as an Israeli living in Canada, he was quickly tempted to carry out missions in exchange for money transferred to him in digital currency.
It started with spray-painting graffiti in Tel Aviv reading things like “Netanyahu=Hitler." Verhovsky was asked to photograph demonstrators in Tel Aviv in an effort to recruit them. As the Iranians saw Verhovsky cooperating, they stepped up a gear.
According to the indictment, Verhovsky was asked to collect a gun from a hiding place and, with it, murder an Israeli scientist for $100,000, and that he would be spirited away to Russia. Verhovsky reached the Tel Aviv address he had been given and started looking for the scientist. Investigation materials reveal that he asked people, showed them a picture and knocked on the scientist’s door - but couldn’t find him. The Iranian handlers, who had meanwhile recruited several networks inside Israel, assigned intelligence gathering to another cell.
“The cells are isolated from one another, each acting separately,” says Supt. Goren. “But sometimes, missions overlap and they’ll ask someone to hide petrol or equipment for someone else.”
In Verhovsky’s case, he was told that there was another cell that would prepare the mission for hi, and asked him to pick up the gun and wait for instructions. He went to pick up the gun that had been hidden for him in a field in Modi'in. “Wait a moment,” he told the taxi driver and came back a few minutes later with a bag containing a gun, a magazine and 15 bullets. Upon returning home that day, he was arrested by the Shin Bet. The Public Defender’s Office representing Verhovsky has not responded.
Money was the central component in the case of 30-year-old Vladislav (Vlad) Victorsson from Ramat Gan, formerly convicted of sexual offenses involving minors and who was also recruited over Telegram. An Iranian handler calling himself Mari Hossi contacted him offering him several operations and Victorsson agreed. He brought his 18-year-old partner on board and, according to the indictment, set out on his first operation in September. This involved setting cars on fire for $500 each and leaving anti-Netanyahu fliers at the scene.
He was then asked to murder someone for $100,000 and was promised that he and his partner would be smuggled to Russia. Victorsson started trying to get hold of a gun, but the two were arrested the following day. The Public Defender’s Office representing Victorsson has not responded.
“The moment an individual with low self-esteem has a secret, that self-esteem suddenly shoots up,” says Peled. “A person who sees themselves as a doormat is suddenly playing in the big leagues. He’s a player between states. The recruiters know all about this need, and employ a method known as ‘deterioration.'”
Second sin: Deterioration
This is a time-honored method used to handle agents. The idea is to initially give the agent small, simple, invariably worthless missions to carry out. “These are all kinds of minor missions that don’t necessarily need to be conducted for operational purposes,” explains Diamant. “But they’re designed to test the object’s capabilities, consequently reinforcing the manly side and deconstructing caution and braking mechanisms.”
Elimelech Stern, a 22-year-old Vishnitz Hassid from Bet Shemesh, is possibly the furthest thing from a person who might be involved in espionage. According to the indictment against him, his deterioration was almost a textbook case. It started with a mission of putting up posters in the street of bloodstained hands calling to protest the killing of children, reading “Let’s stand on the right side of history." Stern did it, his lawyer claims, without knowing that he was dealing with an Iranian agent.
After making it through this stage, Stern was assigned a larger mission: setting fire to a forest next to Jerusalem’s Valley of the Holy Cross. “They’ve elevated my rank to that of a fully-fledged member,” he wrote to Yonatan, the man for whom he put up the posters. “I’m talking straight to the boss,” Yonatan replied. Stern later added, “I just don’t understand why they’re doing this.” Yonatan responded “Because they’re anti-Israel. Clearly.”
Stern, apparently regarding himself as having stepped up a rank, himself became a handler and recruited Netanel, who he found in a jobseekers’ Telegram group. “There’s now a mission to set off a fire, and that’s a bit scary. You need a lot of courage.”
Netanel avoided carrying out the mission, and Stern also ultimately refused. He also didn’t carry out more serious missions for fear of being caught and made do with picking up a secure cellphone and burying money via his operatives.
Stern’s lawyer, Adv. Akiva Meir, claims there to be no connection between his client and the other incidents. “Stern didn’t know he who was dealing with, innocently believing this to be some kind of left-wing anarchist wanting to make their voice heard. Stern refused to carry out any mission that is forbidden, or that he regarded as unethical. He wasn’t aware that he was part of widescale Iranian recruitment efforts.”
Moti Maman, on the other hand, understood exactly what his handler wanted of him, but claimed in his interrogation that he didn’t intend to do anything, just take the money and disappear. The Iranian agents, however, were sure to convey a veiled message. According to the indictment, following the meeting at the villa in which he demanded $1 million upfront prior to the operation, he stayed the night at the fancy hotel, returning the next day to the villa.
In this meeting, the Iranians once again proposed a series of possible missions, including assassinations of Israeli Arabs who had received money from Iran, and who had not carried out the missions. Diamant says, “When agents talk about assassinating Arabs, what they’re doing is sending a warning message: Look what happens to those who don’t cooperate with us.”
Peled explains that this is also part of the deterioration method. “This is how they push you further and further down into the tunnel. You have no way out. You’ll either fall into Iranian hands or get caught by the Shin Bet.” In Maman’s case, it was the latter. He received €5,000 for the meeting, came back to Israel and was then arrested here.
Adv. Eyal BesserglickPhoto: Ilan BesorAdv. Besserglick, why did he reenter Iran?
“The second time, he was supposed to meet a businessman about fruit, vegetable and spice ventures in Turkey. He waited there for two days. This time, the contact misled him, telling him he couldn’t get to Turkey, and so found himself again at a meeting point across the border. He certainly made an error of judgment in agreeing to the new meeting point across the border. He couldn’t have expected, or known, that they would ask him to do things to which he wouldn’t agree or that the individuals brought to the meeting would be there. The indictment states otherwise. Following his arrest, Maman cooperated completely with security authorities and this cooperation has helped security authorities.”
Third sin: Ego
Ego is possibly the most complex of them all. There are people who, after years of mundane and tiresome lives in low-level jobs, are offered the chance of becoming an agent and, all of a sudden, they finally feel important. Some people’s egos are nourished by the “mind games” with their handlers.
Eden Debs, a 30-year-old psychology student from Ramat Gan, played a double-edged game with his Iranian handlers for the duration of most of their communication. He was contacted over Telegram by an Iranian handler offering him the chance to make money by putting up posters in the street.
This is known in the Shin Bet as “Spray and Pray”. A huge number of messages are sent out to Israelis across social media, hoping that as many as possible will respond. “In most cases, it’s a general message like “Cast your bread upon the waters,” says Adi Carmi, senior Shin Bet official. “There are links on websites and bots on social media generating temptations, such as making easy money. As soon as the connection is made, the Iranian handler is activated and he starts developing the relationship.”
According to the indictment, following negotiations regarding the payment amount, 50 posters for NIS 2,500, Debs put up posters, took pictures and sent the photographs to his handlers, and then took them down. He referred the Iranian handler to another Telegram account with lots of members, that he also owns, i.e., the other profile was also run by Debs.
“These manipulations provide the operative further justification for his action - as if he’s not committing treason, but rather making fun of the handler,” says Diamant. “It also reinforces his ego. He says to himself, ‘You think you’re handling me, but actually, I’m playing you.” As soon as the stops are gone and you’re in the process of treason, you’ve no way out.”
According to the incitement, the Iranian agent recognized Deb’s capabilities and asked him to add fake followers to his “The People’s Army” Telegram group to be used for recruiting further agents. Debs complied, adding a further 2,000 followers to the group, providing greater exposure. Iranian agents posted messages along the lines of “Military coup is the only way to save the country. Join us before it’s too late. Message us if you want to cooperate with us and make some money.” Debs received $150 in digital currency. The Iranians got a group that thousands of potential recruits could join.
But Deb’s games with the Iranians didn’t end there. At some stage, he was asked to make threats against a senior defense official. The mission was to decapitate a doll of a sheep, paint it red and place it in a box beside a knife outside the home of the defense official. Debs asked his mother to buy a toy sheep. He removed the head and placed it in a box outside his father’s home and sent a video of it to the handler as if it was outside the home of the defense official.
“This sense of adventure obscures what lies beneath, be it despair, pessimism, loneliness or depression,” says Diamant. “When they’re performing missions, they less feel everything that’s bothering them, and get a different sensation – one of competence and self-esteem.”
When asked to set a car on fire, Debs downloaded from the Internet a video clip of a car on fire and sent it to his handler. He turned down more complex missions that were hard to fake. According to the indictment, he received $12,000 and quite a bit of action.
“This sense of adventure obscures what lies beneath, be it despair, pessimism, loneliness or depression,” says Diamant. “When they’re performing missions, they less feel everything that’s bothering them, and get a different sensation – one of competence and self-esteem.”
Debs isn’t represented by an attorney at this stage. At the time of his arrest, his then-attorney claimed, “The accused, in fact, deceived the foreign agent, defrauded him to get money out of him for being Iranian. When the court is exposed to all the evidence, like myself, it will understand that a mountain has been made out of a molehill.”
Moti Maman’s interrogation reveals that, for him too, ego played no small part and that his handler seems to have recognized this. At the end of the second meeting in the villa in Iran, as mentioned, a night in Adi’s hotel was ordered for him where he was allotted an entire floor complete with waiters and staff serving his every desire. “These displays constitute a very important component for the ego,” says Diamant. “He was given respect. They were showing him that he could trust them.”
When arrested upon his return to Israel, his ego crashed into reality. “Do you know who we are?” Shin Bet personnel asked him at Ben Gurion Airport. “I don’t give a f**k who you are,” replied Maman. As mentioned, in his interrogation, Maman claimed to have acted for the Mossad in the past, and so derided the Shin Bet personnel arresting him.
“The whites have ruined the country,” he said. “For the Shin Bet, arresting someone like me on the right side of the political map, who’s contributed to the country’s security their whole life rather than arresting traitors like Ami Ayalon, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, is more important.”
His attorney, Besserglick claims that he has in his possession proof that he had aided Israeli state security. We asked Supt. Goren about Maman’s security history. “BS,” he says. “It’s been checked out and dismissed.” In the Lahav 433 interrogation cell, Supt. Goren asked him what would have happened had he really received the $1 million from the Iranians. “I don’t know what would have happened if they’d have given me the money. A million bucks. What would you do?” replied Maman. “We’re only human.”
Fourth sin: Ideology
Ideology is among the world’s greatest motives for recruiting agents. An agent sharing the same ideology as his handler will need much less coaxing.
Ideology was a dominant component in the case of the most recent network caught. Seven members of a cell from East Jerusalem’s Bet Zafafa - six of whom are Israeli citizens - were recently indicted. According to the indictment, 23-year-old cell leader Rami Alian was contacted via Telegram by a profile named The Timon. Here too, initial missions included putting up protest posters and spray-painting graffiti. The deterioration, however, was quick.
Alian, it’s claimed, recruited a friend from the neighborhood and, together, they set cars on fire for NIS 4,000 ($1080) in digital currency. After carrying out this mission, the handler presented himself to Alian as a 38-year-old Shi’ite Muslim working for the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Alian shared these details with his friends, adding that the great goal toward which they would be assisting was the destruction of the State of Israel.
With ideological persuasion of the mission’s virtue, the Iranian handler proposed the next stage of assassinating a “nuclear scientist at the Weizmann Institute” for NIS 200,000 ($54,000). Alian procured a Glock pistol and started checking out the addresses his Iranian handler had given him. The scientist apparently lived at one of the addresses. He brought more friends on board and built up a cell that went to the Weizmann Institute at midnight but was stopped by security. The group later found the scientist’s home, took photos and sent them to the Iranian handler.
According to the indictment, Alian thought the pistol wasn’t the right weapon for the job, so paid a weapons dealer NIS 13,500 ($3,645) for a bomb. At this stage, Alian was arrested by the Shin Bet along with the entire cell. The Public Defenders Office has not responded.
Lack of ideology can also play a part in the recruitment of agents. The Shin Bet describes it as “low attachment to the state.” Apparently, this is what helped the Iranians recruit their most effective network so far of Haifa and Nof Hagalil residents, including two minors, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Over a two-year period, they carried out over 600 missions inside Israel. Their handlers equipped the cell with maps of military bases and infrastructure facilities and trained them how to gather intelligence without getting caught. Their target banks included military bases and infrastructure facilities that were targets for the Iranian missile attacks. According to the indictment, following the Iranian attack in April, the cell members were even sent to inspect the damage the missiles had caused at IAF bases.
The cell was headed by 43-year-old Aziz Nisanov from Haifa who had made Aliyah from Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Aziz worked unloading containers at ports, but the company closed down two years ago and he ran into financial difficulties. In his time of need, he contacted a friend living in Azerbaijan, Iran’s northern neighbor.
According to the investigation, Aziz’s Azerbaijani friend put him in touch with an individual named Elkhan Agayev, who was in contact with Iran and could help provide him with financial assistance in exchange for carrying out missions. Nisanov accepted the offer. As the relationship took shape, Nisanov recruited, to the ever-increasing missions, acquaintances also originally from the Soviet Union.
Apparently, unlike most Olim from the Soviet Union, this group had not integrated into Israeli society and had kept themselves separate. At this stage, communication was transferred directly to Elkhan and the man presenting himself as his Iranian commander, a handler known as “Orkhan.”
“In this case,” says Supt. Goren, “the handler mapped out Israel’s military and strategic installations from north to south, and transferred them to the target bank via an encrypted app. They gave a nickname to each target, and would move over to a different encrypted app to run these missions.”
What were the missions?
“Taking stills photos and videos, giving precise GPS locations, filming routine and security arrangements (at sensitive sites).”
And did they manage to reach all these strategic points?
“They didn’t get inside any facility. But they found good vantage points – very tall buildings or adjacent hills - from which they filmed. They were asked to purchase appropriate equipment such as mobile phones, laptops, cameras, tripods, etc. They were even asked to buy a jeep and took an offroad driving course to get to various locations in the north and south that are hard to reach.”
“They got lots of attention from their handlers,” says a State Attorney source. “It reinforced their self-esteem to the point that they suggested missions themselves.”
According to a defense establishment official, during one of their tours in the north, they encountered the IDF’s Sky Dew observation balloon. Without knowing what this balloon does exactly, they filmed it and sent it to the Iranians. Last May, the balloon was attacked by Hezbollah.
Last April, the Iranians tried sending this cell to carry out an assignment. The target was a female scientist dealing with the Iranian issue. Orkhan sent Nisanov her picture and asked him to find out details about her. Nisanov went to the university where she taught but was stopped at the gate by security. Oh, and it’s been a decade since the scientist herself taught at this university.
It's unclear how much intelligence damage has been caused by the cell. Some of the material they filmed is freely available to anyone with Internet access. “But,” they say at the State Attorney’s office, “they also took pictures of flight training and aircraft armament at a proximity no Iranian could reach.” The Public Defender's Office, representing Nisanov has not responded.
Shlomo Peled, the picture of the accused in all shades – Haredi, a young secular guy, a pensioner, Israeli Arabs, Olim from the former Soviet Union – raises the possibility that anyone could actually be a spy.
Peled: “No. We’re actually saying the very opposite. Let’s not get too paranoid. Spies and traitors are people in certain at-risk groups, and most people aren’t there. Iranian motivation has now met technology allowing them to easily reach lots of people. So yes, we shouldn’t ignore it, and definitely not sweep under the rug or hide it. On the other hand, we don’t need to build it up. It’s not COVID and there’s no pandemic.”
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