[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 04/15 Links Pt2: Recognizing the Jewish State; Amb. Prosor sings Aretha Franklin

From Ian:

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The Judean People's Front: Recognizing the Jewish State

But why does it insist on recognition specifically as a "Jewish State?"
There are two main reasons for this:
First, it is important to remember that for the past 100 years, the Arabs have been acting as though the Jews are foreigners who walked in one day and stole the land from its rightful, indigenous inhabitants. If peace is to be sustainable, the Arabs need to recognize that the Jews are in fact the returning indigenous people of Israel with just as much a right to a state of our own here as the Arabs have in their own countries. They must recognize that Zionism is a native, national liberation movement with just as much legitimacy as Arab nationalism. This doesn't mean they all need to become Likudniks or have to accept or agree with everything Israel does, but it does mean that constant discussion of destroying the illegitimate Zionist Entity must stop.
Second, Israel's entire reason for being is to be a Jewish State. If Israel's enemies recognize Israel, but not the kind of state that it is, then what have they done exactly?
Israel must stand firm in its insistence that its enemies recognize its right to exist as a Jewish State as part of its demands for realistic expectations from them. The idea that Israel should make peace with governments who will then continue to teach their people that Israel is the enemy is entirely unacceptable. Cease-fire? Sure. Peace Treaty? Absolutely not.

Amb. Prosor sings Aretha Franklin at the Commission on Population Development

“The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, sang: ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me!’
This song is an anthem for anyone who has ever felt marginalized or minimized. Every human being craves respect. When we empower individuals, we strengthen entire societies."

Liberal Jews Push Obama to Drop Support for Israel at UN During White House Parley

Members of a group of Jewish supporters of the Democratic Party who met with President Barack Obama this week urged him to remove the long-standing American veto protection of Israel at the United Nations. The group, affiliated with the left-wing lobby group J Street, pledged to support the president within the Jewish community in the event of a Security Council resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian State.
The exchange took place in the second of two meetings Obama held with American Jewish leaders to discuss the current negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, as well as other regional issues. According to a source who was in the room, one J Street supporter told the president that if he decided to back a Palestinian state resolution over Israeli objections, “let us know first, and we’ll do the legwork for you, in the community… so you’re not going to come in cold.” Among the J Street supporters who were part of the delegation meeting with Obama were Alexandra Stanton, Lou Susman and Victor Kovner.
The atmosphere at that second meeting was described as pleasant and cooperative, in marked contrast to the first meeting, described by one source as “ungiving, very stern and tense.”

Israel becoming an increasingly more partisan issue in US, poll finds

The poll suggests that the American-Israel dynamic is shifting considerably from previous decades, and that it may represent a watershed moment that may have implications on US policy, both foreign and domestic concerning Israel.
The study saw that Republicans, by a ratio of more than 2-to-1, thought the US should stand behind Israel even if its positions diverge considerably from American interests. Conversely, those who identified as Democrats said the opposite was true at roughly the same ratio and that American interests override those of Israel.
The Bloomberg Politics poll also found that Republicans had more sympathetic feelings towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over US President Barack Obama at 67 percent to 16. Democrats, on the other hand, felt more allegiance towards the US commander-and-chief at a 76 percent to nine percent advantage.
The poll also investigated partisan sentiments on the hotly contested issue of the Iranian nuclear negotiations and their feelings about the tentative framework agreement struck between Tehran and world powers.
Democrats, by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio, said they were more optimistic than pessimistic that a tentative deal with Iran announced this month will contain Iran's ability to get nuclear weapons and thus make the world safer.

Rights Group: EU & US Allowed Iran to Win Seat On UN Women’s Rights Board

Out of possible deference to the nuclear talks with Iran, the EU and the US failed to stop the fundamentalist regime from winning a top post on UN Women, the world agency for women’s equality and empowerment, in sharp contrast to the West’s easy defeat of Iran’s 2010 bid by backing an alternative candidate, said UN Watch, the Geneva-based rights group, in a statement today.
“Electing the Iranian regime to the UN women’s rights board is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer. “The UN’s decision is an insult to all Iranian women and to all women’s rights advocates around the world,” he added.
In letters sent today, UN Watch urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini to at least condemn the decision, “which sends absolutely the worst message to Iran’s women’s rights defenders, and to the world, concerning Iran’s dismal record on child marriages, forced head-coverings, domestic violence, and gender inequality,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.
“By elevating Iran to a global leadership post on women’s equality, the UN is legitimizing a regime that systematically treats women as second-class citizens.”

Dutch Diplomat Should Be Fired for Defending Iran’s Election to UN Women, Tweeting “Iran’s Not Misogynist”

The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch today called on Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders to fire a senior human rights diplomat for a series of embarrassing tweets defending the election of Iran’s regime to the board of UN Women because, in her words, “Iran is not misogynist,” its “main religious structure was built for a woman,” and “in [the] metro people stood up for me and gave me all the presents.”
Bregje Wijsenbeek, a senior political officer dealing with human rights at the Dutch embassy in Pretoria, posted her bizarre statements in response to a condemnation of Iran’s election to UN Women that was courageously reposted on Twitter by the Executive Director of that organization, Ms. Phumzile Mlambo.
Criticized online, Ms. Wijsenbeek attempted to defend her tweets, saying that her defense of Iran’s record on women’s rights was motivated by her opposition to “hate,” “ignorance,” “strong opinions,” and “stereotypes.”

Why Garry Trudeau Is Wrong About Charlie Hebdo

The cartoonist urged satirists to "punch up" against authority, but the world does not divide so neatly between the privileged and their victims.
Again, Garry Trudeau is not the first person to insinuate that France and Europe are guilty of over-concern for the sensibilities of Jews at the expense of the sensibilities of Muslims. Glenn Greenwald made the same point on the Intercept, by posting some prize specimens from his collection of anti-Semitic cartoons. The rulers of Iran likewise have organized a festival of Holocaust denial cartoons. (This is actually the second such festival in Iran; a prior festival was staged in 2006.)
But Trudeau is the first prominent person identified with the mainstream of American liberalism to advance the point, and that represents a milestone of sorts. But a milestone toward what?

Copenhagen Terrorist Was Placed with ISIS Supporter in Jail

The Islamist terrorist who murdered two people in twin attacks in Copenhagen in February had once shared a prison cell with an inmate who openly backed the Islamic State (ISIS) group, Danish media reported on Tuesday.
While serving time for a stabbing, Omar El-Hussein was reported three times by prison staff to the Danish Prison and Probation Service for expressing "extreme" views on Islam, TV 2 reported according to AFP, citing a confidential report by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Despite an email warning that the 22-year-old's "extremism is getting worse," he was moved to a Copenhagen prison where he was placed with a cellmate who openly sympathized with the ISIS group.
His fellow inmate was reported last November to prison services and to Denmark's security intelligence agency for "via a profile on Facebook supporting the Islamic State," the report said.

UK Media Watch prompts correction to Human Rights Watch photo illustrating child labor report

The caption for the new photo, on the last page of the report, notes that the image depicts “Palestinian laborers, including a 16-year-old, head out to work at a farm on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank…© 2015 Matt Ford for Human Rights Watch”. However, it’s important to stress that, per HRW’s own report, 16 year olds are legally permitted to work. The International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions, which Israel is party to, reportedly only prohibits children under 18 from performing “hazardous” work. It’s of course entirely unclear what kind of farm work the Palestinians depicted in the new photo are engaged in.
Nonetheless, we commend HRW for replacing the original highly misleading photo.

UK Media Watch prompts Telegraph correction to misleading photo illustrating HRW child labor report

The article also includes this addendum.

We commend Telegraph editors on the correction.

Stanford Board of Trustees rejects BDS

The Stanford Board of Trustees concurs with what we've seen all along. BDS causes "deep divisions" in the University community and unfavorably impacts campus climate.
Stanford Report, April 14, 2015 Statement of the Stanford Board of Trustees on divestment
For the last several months, Stanford has been evaluating a request submitted by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine that it divest its endowment holdings of certain companies that do business in Israel. The Board concluded that the university's mission and its responsibility to support and encourage diverse opinions would be compromised by endorsing an institutional position on either side of an issue as complex as the Israel-Palestine conflict. Therefore the Board will not be taking action on this request, nor will it consider this request further.
The request from the Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine asserted that Stanford should divest its holdings in certain companies that they claim profit from human rights abuses and violations of international law in Israel/Palestine. Neither the APIRL nor the Board sought to determine the veracity of those claims, or to disprove them.
Rather than explore such issues, the Board focused on the questions of divisiveness and negative impact on its mission as contained in the Statement on Investment Responsibility. The Statement provides that if the Trustees conclude that a specific Trustee action "is likely to impair the capacity of the University to carry out its educational mission (for example, by causing significant adverse action on the part of governmental or other external agencies or groups, or by causing deep divisions within the University community), then the Trustees need not take such action." The Board concluded that any action on this issue would clearly have such an impact.

George Galloway Boasts He's 'The Biggest Enemy of Israel'

George Galloway says Israelis will be “dancing in the streets” if he loses his re-election bid. Speaking at the launch of the campaign of Halima Afza for Heaton last Monday, the Respect Party MP followed up on Afza’s accusations that the Labour Party is a “Zionist organisation that … starts wars based on lies” by reminding his supporters what is at stake in the parliamentary race.
Galloway, who supports a pro-Palestinian ‘one state solution’ to the Middle East conflict, said: “If I lose this election on the 7th of May there will be dancing on the streets of Tel Aviv. Every Zionist in the world will be dancing in the streets because the biggest supporter to the Palestinian cause – the biggest enemy of Israel – has been defeated in a parliamentary election in Bradford West.
“Does anybody want Tel Aviv happy about the outcome here? I very much doubt that.” Since the launch of Afza’s candidacy, Labour Party has filed a complaint against Galloway for allegedly breaking election laws by making false statements about the character and conduct of Bradford West candidate Naz Shah.

GreenStar boycott group trainer hurls “Israel-firster” slur at Schumer

We have written several times before about the effort by Jewish Voice for Peace activists in Ithaca, NY, where Cornell is located, to advance a referendum at the GreenStar Food Coop to boycott Israeli products.
The Greenstar Council is considering whether, under its bylaws, there are grounds to reject the referendum petition, or whether it is obligated to let the referendum go to a full membership vote in early November 2015. The GreenStar Council takes no position on the merits of the boycott, and seems aware that the referendum process itself, not to mention if it passes, will do serious damage to GreenStar itself.
Yet the referendum is being pushed hard by the JVP activists, particularly Ariel Gold (who works as an organizer for the anti-Israel Friends of Sabeel – North America) and Beth Harris (a retired Ithaca College professor long active in the boycott movement). Gold and Harris tried hard to and did manage to get themselves arrested at the 2015 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference as part of a Code Pink-led protest.
The boycott push, though just starting, has been marred by incendiary rhetoric from the pro-Boycott side.

Chomsky To Speak At Brandeis

On Thursday, April 23, noted anti-American and anti-Israel Professor Noam Chomsky will speak at Brandeis University at an event titled, “Activism from Vietnam to Palestine.” The event will be hosted by the Brandeis Department of Sociology, and will be sponsored by the Social Justice and Social Policy (SJSP) Program, which “links the university's commitment to social justice with the academic curriculum,” as well as Brandeis' Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies Program (PAX), which explores “ways of addressing conflicts that honor the integrity of all parties involved.”
Brandeis rescinded its offer of an honorary degree to noted champion of women’s rights Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the spring of 2014, but Chomsky is welcome to speak. His rhetoric speaks for itself. Some of his remarks, listed below, give an indication of how malevolent his feelings are for the United States and Israel:
“It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence.”
“...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.”
“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”

A British Conference on Israel's Right to Exist: Really?

The "existence" of Israel -- the only country in the region with human rights, freedom of expression, and equal justice under law -- is not, and should not, even be in question. The more appropriate question is if organizations that ask questions such as that should exist.
Iran has violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty time after time, often undetected; it also continues to violate Article 2, clause 4, of the United Nations Charter: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
In March 2015, apparently not content with wiping just "Israel off the map," Iran, in the person of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, also called for "Death to America."
One can only hope that what clearly seems such a fatally dangerous deal as the Obama Administration's nuclear "framework" with Iran -- that threatens not only the existence of Israel, the Middle East and Europe, but, with Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile program, also the United States -- will not be allowed to happen.

Cancelled Southampton anti-Israel conference was academic fraud

In all their self-righteous grousing, Ben-Dor and his fellow BDS travelers have conveniently forgot to mention that last year at Southampton protests by anti-Israel activists resulted in the cancelation of a guest lecture by an Israeli scholar specializing in the (hugely controversial!) subject of optic sensors.
As Oxford University professor Ben Gidley notes, “When protests can effectively make a university a hostile environment for Israelis, even when they are there to talk about something as harmless as optoelectronics, this makes Jewish students feel vulnerable”

London High Court Probing Anti-Israel Event Cancellation

London's High Court will examine the legality of the University of Southampton's cancellation of a conference challenging Israel's right to exist, the Southern Daily Echo reported Saturday.
Entitled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism," the conference aimed "to explore the relatedness of the suffering and injustice in Palestine to the foundation and protection of a state" of Israel's nature, its website says.
The University of Southampton scrapped the three-day conference after it received harsh criticism and protests from the British Jewish community and even a number of politicians.

Israeli NGO wins historic $330m. judgment against North Korea for kidnapping priest

An Israeli NGO announced on Monday that a US federal court in Washington, DC has granted it a historic $330 million default award judgment against North Korea in a civil damages trial for wrongful death, torture and kidnapping.
The judgment, only announced Monday, but written on April 9, included $15 million dollars each to the son and brother of Reverend Dong Shik Kim, presumed dead, as well as $300 million in punitive damages.
In December 2014, the NGO, Shurat Hadin, convinced a US federal appeals court to grant default judgment against North Korea on liability, paving the way for Monday's massive damages award by the lower district court.

42% of Canadian Muslims Admit Islam and West 'Irreconcilable'

Two polls that received very little fanfare were released late last month, and found that the majority of Christian and Jewish Canadians think Islam is "irreconcilable" with the West - it also found 42% of Canadian Muslims agree with that assessment.
The polls, conducted by Leger Marketing, were published in the Vancouver Sun and found 63% of Protestants, 62% of Jews and 60% of Catholics felt Islam cannot coexist with Western culture.
That assessment was shared by 46% of non-religious Canadians, and in a large admission, by 42% of Muslims who felt their religion cannot be reconciled with the country they live in.
A full 2,000 participants were questioned in the poll, and of them 500 were born outside Canada. The polling took place in 2013 and 2014.

IsraellyCool: Top 12 Most Surreal Responses To @Israel’s Tweets

Back in 2010, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign affairs purchased the Twitter handle “@Israel” from Israel Meléndez of Miami, Florida which lay relatively dormant ever since registering it in 2007 for a reportedly 5-figure sum, making Meléndez the only living person to ever actually financially benefit from Hasbara on social media. He was also happy to part with the handle because even with no activity, he was a target of non-stop abuse from Israel haters.
Anything with the word “Israel” in it in social media usually has to put up with a lot of, well… riff-raff. Heck, once I even saw a story about Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole attract a “Free Palestine” or two.
So even though the Twitter account largely dedicates its timeline to innovation, technology, culture, arts, history and helping the world in times of need, you can expect @Israel to garner some interesting replies. But it’s not the replies itself that are interesting. It’s the way they try to change the topic from something so innocent like gazelles to the neverending downward spiral of the Israel-Arab conflict. As if there is a shortage of places to hold a discussion of the conflict and stay on topic, these folks make it a point to hijack anything and everything. Because Zionists.
Behold the most surreal responses. Warning to the faint of heart, these tweets are uncensored.

Honest Reporting: Do News Stories Have Borders?

HonestReporting’s Yarden Frankl joins VOI’s Josh Hasten in-studio to challenge The New York Times’ use of the slogan: “Countries have Borders, Stories Don’t.” If so, he asks, “Why so little coverage of the plight of the Palestinians in Syria?” Yarden also criticizes the BBC’s interview with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, accusing the network of being too soft on the terrorist leader.

Despite Peter Greste’s journalistic bravery, Al Jazeera is a network of darkness

Al-Quntar is one of the most feared terrorists in the world. Among his many crimes was the kidnap and murder of Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter, Einet. Entering Israel from Lebanon, Al-Quntar grabbed Danny and Einet as hostages but with his dinghy disabled, found himself stranded on the beach.
Al-Quntar shot Danny and, in front of his child, drowned him.
What he then did to the whimpering child — who raised her little arms in an effort to protect herself — cannot be published in a responsible newspaper. She died.
Her sister, Yael, 2, was accidentally suffocated by her mother who was trying to keep the young girl quiet as they hid from the terrorists.
Al-Quntar and his mates were captured and jailed. For this, the Achille Lauro cruise liner was hijacked in 1985 and a disabled passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot in the temple and thrown overboard with his wheelchair. Arab authorities announced that Mrs Klinghoffer had murdered her husband for the insurance money.
In the end, Israel — as indebted to its brave soldiers as we are to ours — agreed to trade Al-Quntar for the bodies of two of its abducted and murdered men.
Predictably, Al-Quntar returned to Lebanon a hero with street marches — soon stating that he hoped to have the opportunity soon to kill more Israelis, indeed, all of them.
He also received an Order of Merit personally presented by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Most astonishing, he appeared at a surprise birthday party hosted on air by ... Al Jazeera!
Calling Al-Quntar an Arab hero, the network’s bureau chief organises a band, fireworks and a cake that he made Al-Quntar cut with an Arab sword. Little Einet was never mentioned.

Yom HaShoah Report Shows Unprecedented 400 Percent Rise in Antisemitic Incidents in 2014

Since the beginning of 2014, there has been an increase of 400 percent in the number of antisemitic incidents in Europe and around the world as compared with 2013.
The data showing the increase was collected as part of a special project by Israel’s NRG news website and the Forum to Coordinate the Fight Against Antisemitism. The report, coming almost seventy years after the Holocaust and the end of World War II, shows that there is real concern for the future of world Jewry, and particularly European Jewry.
The report also said that in 2014, the lines and boundaries between anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist rhetoric and actions and antisemitism became increasingly blurred.
According to the report, the intensity and nature of the antisemitic wave that erupted in Europe last summer during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza indicated cooperation between networks of extreme leftists and immigrants from Arab countries that hold extreme Islamist views. In the United States, the main growth came in the form of anti-Israel activity on college campuses across the country which had antisemitic overtones.
Moreover, according to the report, the internet, social media and mobile applications have become favorite and effective tools to spread antisemitic messages and propaganda, like the infamous antisemitic screed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Man confesses to Montgomery County synagogue vandalism

An 18-year-old Gaithersburg, Maryland man has confessed to police that he spray-painted swastikas and wrote KKK at the Shaare Torah Synagogue because he disliked the Jewish people who attended the congregation, WTOP has learned.
Law enforcement sources familiar with the case say Sebastian Espinoza-Carranza admitted to detectives that he had planned and carried out the vandalism, which occurred April 7.
Espinoza-Carranza is charged under the state’s hate crime law with Property Damage to a Religious Institution, as well as Defacing a Religious Property, and Malicious Destruction of Property Over $1000.
Police recovered surveillance video of a group of males in their teens at the 7-Eleven located at 121 Kentland Boulevard, before and after the crime occurred — a quarter-mile from the temple.

Israeli-developed breath test catches stomach cancer early

The NaNose technology developed at Israel’s Technion is an effective tool in detecting early-stage gastric (stomach) cancer, according to a study published Monday in the medical journal Gut.
The study showed that the tech was able to detect elements indicating the onset of the cancer in the breath of patients, matching the results picked up by the standard method of gastric cancer detection, called GCMS (gas chromatography mass spectrometry).
The advantage of his method, said Dr. Hossam Haick of the Technion, inventor of NaNose, is that the nano-tech breath analysis is a lot cheaper and presents results far more quickly than GCMS. “The attraction of this test lies in its non-invasiveness, ease of use, rapid predictiveness, and potentially low cost,” enabling doctors in clinics who don’t have access to the expensive needed for GCMS analysis to diagnose stomach cancer.
“Mostly the patient arrives for diagnosis when the symptoms of the sickness have already begun to appear,” Haick told The Times of Israel in an interview earlier this year, describing the drawbacks in current detection protocols. “Months pass before a real analysis in completed. And the process requires complicated and expensive equipment such as CT and mammography imaging devices. Each machine costs millions of dollars, and end up delivering rough, inaccurate results.”

Israeli App Offers Alternative to ADD and ADHD Medications

Aziz Kaddan, one of the co-founders of Myndlift, didn’t flinch when asked in front of an audience at the recent BrainTech conference in Tel Aviv how he plans to go up against the better-funded American companies with his alternative non-drug treatment for attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Myndlift uses neurofeedback, also known as electroencephalographic (EEG) biofeedback, to train the brain to focus. It’s a computer-based technique developed and tested by NASA to improve attention, focus, and learning. Kaddan, the 22-year-old phenom taking Israel’s brain-tech world by storm, knows the path to changing hyperactivity treatment is a tough one, but he’s positive his app-based, wearable neurofeedback solution, coupled with specially tailored mobile games that only work through concentration, can increase attention levels with just 10 minutes of play time a day.
“I know that I have a product that has a value to a lot of people,” he said, from his co-working space for high-tech entrepreneurship and innovation at Tel Aviv’s public library. Myndlift’s idea is to get sufferers of ADD and ADHD off medications like Ritalin, which suppresses appetite and has other negative side effects, and help them focus their minds using a mobile app, neurofeedback, and a brain-sensing wearable technology.

TabTale makes first US acquisition with Sunstorm Games buyout

Ever-expanding Israeli mobile games developer, TabTale, has announced its first US acquisition with the buyout of rival Sunstorm Games.
“We followed Sunstorm’s activity for a while and reached the conclusion that acquiring Sunstorm and working alongside its talented team, will not only enrich our portfolio, but will also expand our worldwide reach,” said TabTale CEO Sagi Schliesser. “Sunstorm Games has a proven loyal fan base, similar to that of TabTale. We look forward to collaborating with Sunstorm and continuing to develop the best mobile games for our loyal customers, over 40 million monthly active users, the majority of whom are in the US.”
The Tel Aviv-based company, that recently acquired Level Bit and Coco Play, is now adding the Las Vegas-based “Maker” series developers to its roster. Sunstorm is also known for hits like Gymnastics Events and My School Dance.
TabTale says it has seen 600 million downloads of its more than 300 titles. The company’s Linebound game, now called Borderline, snagged over a million downloads in its first 72 hours.

China’s Baidu makes third investment in Israel

Chinese Internet giant Baidu, along with its Israeli venture capital partner Carmel Ventures, on Tuesday announced that it was investing $5 million in Israeli start-up Tonara, which makes interactive apps to help prospective musicians learn how to play.
“Tonara has consistently pushed the envelope when it comes to developing innovative and revolutionary technology,” said Peter Fang of Baidu. “We are certain that Tonara’s future will be extraordinary, and we’re proud to be a part of it.”
For Baidu, the Tonara investment is its third in Israel since it “discovered” the start-up nation last October, when the company, along with Chinese insurer Ping-An and software company Qihoo360, invested in an venture capital fund sponsored by Israel’s Carmel Ventures. More recently, Baidu invested $3 million in Israeli video capture firm Pixellot.

Israeli Professor Takes Home Award for Cryptography

Israeli Professor Daniel Boneh of Stanford University will be awarded the 2014 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences for his work in cryptography. The award specifically will recognize his work in “pairings-based cryptography,” which is a technique whereby documents are encoded on the one hand, and only the “designated recipient” would have the ability to consequently decode it. This is not the stuff of espionage, but also critical for passing private information in Fortune 500 companies and between government offices.
The award is mainly out of recognition for making cryptography more accessible and easier to implement, leading to private security ventures like Voltage Security Inc. which was recently bought out by Hewlett Packard.
Boneh will be honored at Infosys’ annual Awards Banquet on June 20th in San Francisco, California. Along with the award, he will receive a cash prize of $175,000.

Apple buys photo-tech firm LinX for its third Israel acquisition

On his recent trip to Israel, Apple CEO Tim Cook predicted that the company would make new acquisitions in the near future – and on Tuesday, that prediction came true, as Apple confirmed that it was buying Israeli digital photography tech firm LinX Imaging. The deal was worth about $25 million according to industry insiders quoted in the Hebrew media. LinX could not be reached for comment.
If the iPhone has been slipping in the race for the best camera against competitors from Samsung, LG, and others, as some in the media claim, the LinX acquisition could give Apple a major edge over others. Using advanced algorithms, LinX claims to have solved many of the problems inherent in the additional of small SLR-type cameras to smartphones.
“There are many attempts by various companies to develop multi aperture cameras but many of them suffer from serious artifacts,” the company said in a recent presentation. “We leveraged the multiple channels to boost the sensitivity of the camera which allows us to capture stunning images at very low light levels and keep exposure times short at normal indoor light levels. Our array cameras capture SLR like images in normal lighting conditions with very low noise levels.”

Israeli and Jordanian Environmentalists Cooperate to Protect Gulf of Aqaba

A meeting between Jordanian and Israeli environmentalists in Aqaba recently has the green sector in both countries cautiously optimistic. It was the first time in 10 years that Israeli and Jordanian groups working to improve and conserve the coastal and marine environment in the Gulf of Aqaba came to the table. “Participants were excited and enthusiastic about the meeting and about the possibility to further meet in the future,” says Mare Nostrum Project initiator and coordinator Prof. Rachelle Alterman of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The Mare Nostrum Project is an EU-funded cross-border initiative that explores ways of protecting the Mediterranean coastline.
Raanan Boral, academic program manager of the Mare Nostrum Project and a veteran environmentalist, tells ISRAEL21c that the Gulf of Aqaba is included in Mare Nostrum because “our project deals with the coast even though the shared coastline between Jordan and Israel is not on the Mediterranean.” Partners in the global initiative include universities, research institutes, municipalities, environmental NGOs and port operators from Malta, Greece, Israel, Jordan and Spain.
The project’s main goal is to bridge the policy-implementation gap between the ideals of the Barcelona Convention’s Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) and its effects on the ground in conservation and management in the Mediterranean Basin. “Environmental issues on one side of the border immediately affect the other,” says Eilat-Eilot region environmental department head Asaf Admon, referring to the Evrona oil spill in December 2014. Admon says the latest meeting signals a renewal in joint work on issues of importance to both sides.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/15/2015 06:00:00 PM