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If the U.S. didn't want Larry Summers, Israel would have loved to have the former U.S. treasury secretary run its banking system. Unfortunately for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Summers turned him down.

Reuters' Dan Williams cause a minor storm Saturday after he disclosed that Netanyahu offered Summers the Bank of Israel governor job. Summers wasn't necessarily a lock for the position, according to the Jerusalem Post: he still needed approval from the Turkel Committee heading the search. The bank’s acting governor, Karnit Flug, is also in the running. But calm your fears: Summers reportedly turned the job done, according to Israel’s Channel 2, by way of The Hill. The Times of Israel reports there's a different front runner anyway:

Hebrew media speculation has it that the leading candidate for the influential post, in a process that has dragged on for over days, is Professor Zvi Eckstein. Eckstein is the dean of the School of Economics at Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), and served as the Bank of Israel’s deputy chief between fron 2006-11.

Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid plan to announce Stanley Fischer's new successor on Sunday. Stanley Fischer, the previous central bank governor, announced his departure earlier this year and left the job in June.

It seems Summers is in high demand but can't quite land a steady job. Summers was in the running to succeed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chair, but he dropped out after some public outcry. The job eventually went to the people's candidate, Janet Yellin, who was Federal Reserve vice chair under Bernanke.

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