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Tony Thomas: Chicken Littles Clucking About Trump

By on February 27th, 2017

Swapping leftist absurdities over coffee is every fashionable nitwit’s democratic right, and fair enough too. What isn’t fair is that taxpayers must underwrite Geraldine Doogue’s faux profundities, not to mention those of her latest Saturday Extra guest.
Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most ardent ABC Leftist of them all? What a tough question! Such a crowded field of candidates, parading their green-left credentials day and night! The ABC Act (1983) does include the provision that our taxpayer-funded national broadcaster gather and present news and information impartially, but who cares about silly old legislation?

Anyway, I won’t keep you in suspense. My Captain’s Pick for ABC Leftist laurels is Geraldine Doogue, host of ABC Radio National’s Saturday Extra, who also hosts ABC TV’s Compass[1].

Her 15-minute 7.30am session last Saturday (Feb 25) was about what a fascist Donald Trump is.[2] Doogue’s interviewee was London University literature academic Sarah Churchwell[3], whose views of Trump-as-fascist were never contradicted and, indeed, sometimes topped by Doogue’s own hyperbolic contributions. In fact Doogue and Churchwell – billed by her university as “one of the UK’s most prominent academics” — spent their 15 minutes competing to paint Trump in direst hues.

Churchwell is still traumatised by the defeat of her idol, Hillary Clinton. As she wrote for the Guardian (UK), “Stop suggesting that Clinton failed us. The truth is, we failed her.”

Doogue sought out Churchwell because of another Guardian article headed, ‘It will be called Americanism’: the US writers who imagined a fascist future”. Churchwell had gone looking for literary references to fascist dictators (e.g. in Orwell’s 1984 and Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism) and claimed they all presaged the arrival of fascist President Trump.

Doogue lauded Churchwell’s lame attempt at a knife-job as both “fresh” and “clever”. Inspired, Doogue went looking herself for literary allusions to fascists and regaled her radio audience with them, sometimes giggling about the parallels with certain recent events (the Trump presidency is now all of five weeks old, let it be remembered).

Here’s a sample from Doogue’s Saturday Extra interview:

Doogue: You look at comments including Vice-President Henry Wallace quoted in a 1944 article, about American fascism. Quote, “…a Fascist is someone whose lust for money and power is combined with such intensity of intolerance towards other races, parties, classes, regions or nations, as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.”

It’s a pretty devastating old quote. You don’t think Trump is a fascist though really?

Churchwell: Yes actually I think he is. I do, I do.

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SWEDEN: TWO WOMEN RAPED IN A TAXI, PERPETRATORS STILL AT LARGE By Vincent van den Born

By on February 27th, 2017

While Swedish media are fighting the ‘good fight‘ against Trump, Swedish police broke the news that two women were reportedly raped in Järfälla, a community North East of the Swedish capital Stockholm. Alerted to the scene at 4:30, the two victims were, according to police spokesperson Carina Skagerlind,

“taken to the hospital to make the checks needed on these occasions.”

So what happened in Sweden on the night of Saturday to Sunday? Two women are reported to have taken an unbooked minicab from a restaurant. But instead of being driven to their desired location, the driver and another person took them to a wooded area outside of Järfälla.Described as an old military barracks, the area is now a recreational area. There, the women were raped in a way that one report describes as “rough.”

The forensic investigation of the “scene of the alleged crime” has taken almost the entire day. The area was cordoned off and searched with dogs. The technical investigation was closed at 2.52 PM, after which the area was opened to the public again. One person was taken into custody for questioning, but has since been released. According to Skagerlind, “this person is still being investigated.”

This rape case has been the third in about a fortnight. Last week there was an attempted rape, with a woman alerting the police that two men attacked her and dragged her into the woods. This was a day after a woman reported she was subjected to rape on a track course. Skagerlind commented that:

“this case is not like the others. These women came from a place other than Barkarby. So I do not want to speculate on that, but one cannot rule out a connection. We will look at this case alone but also look at any possible similarities.”

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U.N. Human Rights Council Quicksand: Get Out or Drown by Anne Bayefsky

By on February 27th, 2017

The U.N. “Human Rights” Council starts its main annual session on Monday in Geneva with elected members and human-rights aficionados such as Saudi Arabia, China, and Qatar settling into their seats. The question hanging over the head of President Trump is whether his administration will take its place beside these other states and legitimize the most anti-Israel, twisted bastion of moral relativism in the U.N. system.

Barack Obama deliberately designed a quicksand trap before leaving office. He put the U.S. forward for Human Rights Council membership in a U.N. election that occurred just ten days before the American presidential election. Attempting to rule from the grave, Obama knew full well that the U.S. would be occupying a three-year spot that officially commenced on January 1, 2017. The Bush administration had refused to join the Council, or to pay for it, when the Council was first created as a faux renovation of the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission back in 2006. Joining the Council was one of Obama’s very first foreign-policy moves in 2009.

The only way out of the quagmire for the Trump administration, therefore, is to resign.

The State Department’s Obama holdovers are pushing hard for the status quo. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told Politico: “Our delegation will be fully involved in the work of the HRC session which starts Monday.” This result would be the very opposite of draining the swamp.

Moreover, the only survivors in the U.N. Human Rights Council swamp are the crocodiles. There is a permanent agenda of ten items that governs proceedings at every Council session. One agenda item is devoted to human-rights violations by Israel and one generic agenda item is for all other 192 U.N. member states that might be found to “require the Council’s attention.” In classic State Department double-talk, the Obama administration promised that by joining the Council, the U.S. could reform the Council agenda from the inside. The Obama administration tried and predictably failed. But the Obama administration then justified staying on the Council — despite back-of-the-bus treatment for the Jewish state — as a price worth paying for other people’s human rights. Pitting minorities against each other was, after all, an Obama specialty.

Every year at the Council’s main March session, the Council’s Israel agenda item gives rise to four or five resolutions condemning Israel. That is four or five times more than the Council condemns any other state on the planet. Ten years of Council practice incontrovertibly indicates that we can expect a small handful of other countries to be subject to a single resolution and that about 95 percent of states can count on none at all.

Fully aware of this scenario, the Obama routine went like this. The United States would vote against the anti-Israel resolutions, often 46 to 1, with slight variations for the times that European Union states screwed up the courage to abstain. Team Obama would make a nice speech for public consumption about supposedly unacceptable bias against Israel at the U.N. and then turn around and spend American taxpayer dollars to implement those very resolutions.

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The Jerusalem of Science and Culture By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer

By on February 27th, 2017

On October 12, 2016, the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization, commonly known as UNESCO, adopted a resolution that snubbed Jewish ties to the Temple Mount by referring to in the resolution exclusively by its Arabic name. As described by the UK Guardian, (and echoed by many other newspapers including the Boston Globe): “ UNESCO’s tendentious semantics play into an ongoing propaganda campaign by the Palestinian Authority to “de-Judaize” the identity of Jerusalem, the foremost Jewish city on earth. UNESCO erred by allowing itself to be dragged into this controversy.”

It is no surprise that the resolution passed: The resolution, proposed by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan passed with 24 of the 56 members governing council voting for it, six against and 26 abstentions. Of the 24 who favored the motion, at least 9 (more than a third) have heavily Muslim ties.

What is surprising, however, is that UNESCO would violate its charter and raison d’etre to wade into the political fray, that it would allow itself to be hijacked by the current prevalence of Arab states on its governing board to self-immolate — and that it that it deliberately fostered international dissension by enacting a resolution in direct contravention of one of its enumerated goals. What is sad is that UNESCO would abandon its designated mission of impartiality and wade into the political turf. And what is disappointing is the rather impoverished, pedantic and pedestrian Israeli response.

As its name implies, UNESCO is charged with employing scientific, cultural and educational initiatives as a means to bridge divides, “to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration” in these areas — rather than create them. Specifically, it is charged with (inter alia) the promotion of cultural diversity, translations of world literature, international cooperation agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage (World Heritage Sites).

Immediately after the vote, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO criticized the committee’s stance, predictably arguing that: “You have just adopted a [resolution] against historical truth and one that stands in complete and utter contradiction to all values,” without further amplification. In response, Palestinian officials insisted that because the resolution refers to issues at Muslim places of worship, it justified the language.

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL: MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on February 26th, 2017

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Positive results for “wonder” cancer treatment. I reported previously (Dec 2013) that VB-111 from Israel’s Vascular Biogenics (VBL Therapeutics) had been fast-tracked by the US FDA for the treatment of GBM – aggressive brain cancer. Meanwhile, VBL has announced that VB-111’s Phase 2 trial for thyroid cancer was successful. http://seekingalpha.com/pr/16747478-vbl-therapeutics-reports-full-data-vbminus-111-monotherapy-phase-2-trial-recurrent-thyroid

Co-operating to study cancer. Researchers from Israeli and Palestinian Arab hospitals together found risk factors for B Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Studying 823 patients with the disease from both communities, plus a similar number of healthy controls, they found genetic, environmental, lifestyle and medical links.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0171709

Life-saving prize. Israel’s national volunteer emergency medical services organization, United Hatzalah, received the Jerusalem Prize for excellence in lifesaving. It was awarded in honor of the 3,200 volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), paramedics, and doctors, who work with the organization.
http://www.jems.com/articles/news/2017/02/united-hatzalah-receives-jerusalem-prize-for-excellence-in-life-saving.html

Bacteria sleep to evade antibiotics. Biophysicists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have found that bacteria go dormant to prevent being killed by antibiotics. This process also helps the bacteria develop faster resistance and suggests that resistance can be prevented by targeting dormant bacteria with separate treatments.
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/33464

Teva’s “blockbuster” treatment pipeline. Israel’s Teva expects FDA approval in 2017 for seven innovative treatments. They include for chronic migraine, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s Disease and tardive dyskinesia (movement disorder). http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-tevas-pipeline-shows-promise-1001177680

Detecting vertebral fractures. (TY Atid-EDI) Yet another diagnostic algorithm from Israel’s Zebra Medical Vision. This time its machine and deep learning Imaging Analytics engine will be able to detect compression fractures from uploaded scans and also identify people at risk of subsequent osteoporotic fractures.
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/medical-devices/zebra-medical-s-latest-algorithm-detects-vertebral-compression-fractures https://www.zebra-med.com/algorithms/bone-health/

Discovery can help diagnose dyslexics. (TY Avivit) Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists have discovered that dyslexics have a shorter implicit memory than non-dyslexics. On hearing a sound repeated sometime later, dyslexics failed to recognize it. The findings pave the way to early diagnosis and intervention.
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/33409 https://elifesciences.org/content/6/e20557

Brain surgery cures patient of rare tinnitus. For the first time in Israel, doctors at Beersheba’s Soroka-University Medical Center performed a brain catheterization on a patient suffering from severe tinnitus (ringing in the ears). The condition was due to an aneurysm of veins in the brain, causing blood flow to press on air cells in the ear. http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Brain-catheterization-treats-rare-tinnitus-482345

16 Palestinian Arab children can hear for the first time. Dr. Michal Kaufmann of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital performed cochlear implant surgery on 16 Palestinian Arab deaf and dumb children to allow them to hear for the first time in their lives. He performed six of the operations in just one month.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4924163,00.html

European approval for pain monitor. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (May 2015) on the pain measurement device developed by Israel’s Medasense Biometrics. The innovative PMD200 has now received CE approval, allowing physicians to assess and manage pain for patients who cannot communicate.
http://www.medasense.com/medasense-launches-new-pain-monitoring-device-pmd200-following-european-ce-approval/

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Nigel Davies Ten Myths About the Phony War

By on February 26th, 2017

Too many historians completely dismiss the first months of World War II as a period which saw the Allied powers sit on their hands, doing little while passively awaiting Germany to make the first move. Nothing could be further from the truth.
On April 8, 1940, the 1600-ton British destroyer Glowworm engaged, and eventually rammed, the 16,000-ton German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, which was leading a convoy on the way to invade Norway. It was a valiant effort, but you can probably guess which one went to the bottom. This was really the opening shot, the turning of what many people have described as the “Phoney War” into a very hot war indeed. In the next few months, world politics was changed fundamentally.

The problem is that term “Phoney War”. We have a very peculiar idea of the Phoney War. Too many historians completely dismiss it as the period where the Allied powers sat on their hands waiting for Germany to strike. Nothing could be further from the truth. This period is a fascinating study of the very traditional British pursuit of a “balance of power” solution.

The only conceivable reasons for most historians writing off the entire period as not worthy of consideration, are either: that it is too complex to explain, or, more likely, that it would completely undermine their neat explanations of the Second World War. The Phoney War is little understood, and is usually not considered in its real context. As the Israeli-born Cambridge scholar Gabriel Gorodetsky noted:

The clues to understanding the course of the war … and the seeds of the subsequent conflict are all to be found in the crucial period of 1939–1941 … In fact we can confidently assert that 1939–1941 was the most traumatic and dynamic period of the war.[1]

The German view of the Phony War

Why was the Admiral Hipper on its way to invade Norway in April 1940? Why did Germany need to invade countries that had quietly sat out the previous war?

The usual reason, given in most modern books, is that the Royal Navy had been getting a bit frisky in response to German abuse of Norwegian territorial waters, and was planning to mine the “Narrows” to cut off German iron ore supplies from Sweden. But that is not the real reason that Hitler expedited Operation Fall-Weserubung from a mere planning exercise to a matter of urgency.

In fact the Germans believed that they had been forced into pre-empting an Allied occupation of Norway, and potentially Sweden, that had in fact been ordered, and then delayed, twice over the last two months. From the German perspective, the invasion of Norway was forced on them by Allied plans. The Fuhrer’s War Directive for “Case Weser Exercise” issued on March 1, 1940, began:

The development of the situation in Scandinavia makes it necessary to prepare for the occupation of Denmark and Norway … this would anticipate English action against Scandinavia and the Baltic, would secure our supplies of ore from Sweden …[2]

For the first time Nazi Germany was reacting, rather than initiating. That alone should give us pause for thought about populist over-simplifications about the Phoney War period.
The Allied plan for an ‘intervention’ in Scandinavia in March 1940

As part of the division of Eastern Europe in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, the Soviets occupied Eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, large parts of Rumania, and Finland. Finland was the only one to fight back—quite successfully, for several months. Their David-versus-Goliath struggle captivated the world, and the fact that Finland’s 150,000-man volunteer army—with only thirty-two tanks and 114 aircraft available—had victory after victory against well over a million Soviet troops—with over 6000 tanks and 3800 aircraft—gave the conflict the aura of one of the epic sagas of history. One poem, by Alfred Noyes, written shortly after Finland’s surrender, captured the mood:

Far off between the mountain and the sea,
In Ancient days this word was sped:
“Tell them at home we held Thermopylae,
According to their will, and lie here, dead.”
Now from the north there comes a mightier cry:
“We fought and failed against titanic powers.
But ask mankind—whose is the victory
When every unchained heart on earth is ours?”[3]

The League of Nations, moribund and useless for most of the 1930s, finally stirred itself into action for “superb, sublime Finland” as Churchill called it. They expelled the Soviet Union from the League in 1939, not over Poland or the Baltic States or Bessarabia, but over Finland. (One of the first post-war acts of the new United Nations was to bow to Soviet pressure to prosecute Finland for “crimes against peace”!)

The League also, in 1939, requested every member state to assist Finland in any way possible, and eventually dozens of nations sent money and weapons. Some of these included Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands—all of whom were justly wondering who might be next on the Nazi-Soviet hit list. Others were Britain, France, Spain, Italy and the United States.

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France: Deradicalization of Jihadists a “Total Fiasco” “Deradicalization in and of itself does not exist.” by Soeren Kern

By on February 26th, 2017

The report implies that deradicalization, either in specialized centers or in prisons, does not work because most Islamic radicals do not want to be deradicalized.

Although France is home to an estimated 8,250 hardcore Islamic radicals, only 17 submitted applications and just nine arrived. Not a single resident has completed the full ten-month curriculum.

By housing Islamists in separate prison wings, they actually had become more violent because they were emboldened by “the group effect,” according to Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas.

“Deradicalizing someone does not happen in six months. These people, who have not been given an ideal and who have clung to Islamic State’s ideology, are not going to get rid of it just like that. There is no ‘Open Sesame.'” — Senator Esther Benbassa.

“The deradicalization program is a total fiasco. Everything must be rethought, everything must be redesigned from scratch.” — Senator Philippe Bas, the head of the Senate committee that commissioned the report.

The French government’s flagship program to deradicalize jihadists is a “total failure” and must be “completely reconceptualized,” according to the initial conclusions of a parliamentary fact-finding commission on deradicalization.

The preliminary report reveals that the government has nothing to show for the tens of millions of taxpayer euros it has spent over the past several years to combat Islamic radicalization in France, where 238 people have been killed in jihadist attacks since January 2015. The report implies that deradicalization, either in specialized centers or in prisons, does not work because most Islamic radicals do not want to be deradicalized.

The report, “Deindoctrination, Derecruitment and Reintegration of Jihadists in France and Europe” (Désendoctrinement, désembrigadement et réinsertion des djihadistes en France et en Europe) — the title avoids using the word “deradicalization” because it is considered by some to be politically incorrect — was presented to the Senate Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs on February 22.

The report is the preliminary version of a comprehensive study currently being conducted by a cross-party task force charged with evaluating the effectiveness of the government’s deradicalization efforts. The final report is due in July.

Much of the criticism focuses on a €40 million ($42 million) plan to build 13 deradicalization centers — known as Centers for Prevention, Integration and Citizenship (Centre de prévention, d’insertion et de citoyenneté, CPIC) — one in each of France’s metropolitan regions, aimed at deradicalizing would-be jihadists.

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Malcolm Turnbull Greets Netanyahu

By on February 26th, 2017

Malcolm Turnbull:

‘I came here to the shul with a message, a message of absolute solidarity for the state of Israel.
I came here with a message of solidarity on behalf of the Australian Government in the wake of that UN resolution [SC 2334] which was so regrettable. A resolution we would never support.
My Government will not support any more than the government of John Howard would, or the government of Tony Abbott would a resolution so one sided, attributing fault only to the state of Israel. That has no contribution to make to the peace process.
It was an unfortunate resolution. We regret it and we disassociated ourselves from it in our public statements and here, right here in this shul.

You know we’ve spoken of security a lot today, both at the lunch and of course Bibi and I have spoken about that in our meetings and it is plainly simple. The first duty, as I said out our press conference, the first duty of every government, of every prime minister, every president, is the safety of the people of the nation they lead.

And so the fundamental requirement of what we hope will be a negotiated outcome between Israel and the Palestinians, a two-state solution negotiated between the parties, but the fundamental condition, the foundation of that must be the safety, the security of the state of Israel and its people.
We do deplore the efforts that de-legitimise the state of Israel. We deplore the boycott campaigns. We stand with Israel. We are a committed and a consistent friend. We have been so, from the beginning [see here] and we will always be so.

Now, I want to say, however, as I observed in the article that was published in … The Australian today – it is easy to see Israel and its situation entirely through the prism of security.
That is inevitable, I suppose, given the existential threat that Israel faces.
And given the miraculous success of Israel brought by the determination, the enterprise, the indefatigable courage of its people, not simply to establish the state of Israel – that a miracle in itself – but to maintain it, to continue it, to enhance it for it to succeed again and again against extraordinary odds. That has been an extraordinary achievement. Wondrous, miraculous and now we see the state of Israel leading the world in the most important technologies of the twenty-first century.

As I said today at the luncheon which I know many of you have been at, which we were at earlier today in the city, I said that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery and indeed it must be that Israel should be sincerely flattered because so many countries, including our own seek to capture some of that extraordinary innovative chutzpah which enables Israelis, in a nation, until the recent discovery of gas I might add, but until then, absolutely devoid of natural resources other than the brilliance and the enterprise of its people enabled Israel to develop that culture of innovation to lead in technology, to recognise, as Bibi said today, that once a nation has achieved that middle-income status, to get from there to great success and greater heights, you need to be competitive, you need to be productive and the key to that is innovation.

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Vaccines and Terrorism By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on February 26th, 2017

What better way to conquer your enemy than through the use of vaccine terrorism? Apparently the country of Denmark did not consider the ramifications of the aforementioned question because it “recently sold its state-owned vaccine manufacturing facility to a conglomerate owned by the Aljomaih Group, a Saudi family dynasty.” This Group is led by Sheikh Abdul Aziz Hamad Aljomaih who is also the largest single stockholder and chairman of Arcapita Bank, which, as an Islamic bank is comprised of Islamic scholars, who make certain that the bank’s activities will comply with sharia or Islamic law.

Since those who sit on the bank’s Sharia Board promote aggressive jihad, would it be asking too much why a Western country would leave vaccine manufacturing to an avowed enemy that publicly states that the West must be destroyed?

Some of the men who sit on the Sharia Board include Taqi Usmani who has said that

“[a]grressive Jihad is lawful even today . . . Its justification cannot be veiled.” Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who is considered the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, used to sit on Arcapita’s sharia board. His life’s work is to conquer Europe and America and establish a global caliphate. In “an October 2010 interview with Al-Jazeera, Qaradawi was asked whether Muslims should try to acquire atomic weapons ‘to terrorize their enemies.’ He replied that such an objective was permissible, saying he was ‘happy’ that Pakistan already possessed such a weapon. According to Qaradawi, the procurement of such agents of mass destruction was in compliance with Koranic verses urging Muslims ‘to terrorize thereby the enemy of God and your enemy.'”

The means for establishing a global caliphate include incremental change in any infidel’s land. First aspects of sharia law are introduced; then the loss of free speech under the guise of blasphemy laws is demanded; there is also an increase in antisemitic acts; furthermore, the status of women is denigrated, with a concomitant acceptance of polygamy. Even a cursory look at Europe shows that the jihadists’ success is astonishing as one after another European country accepts its dhimmi status under the guise of multicultural tolerance but, of course, springing from an abject fear of what the jihadists will do if they disobey.

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Israel’s economic surge in defiance of adversity Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on February 25th, 2017

1. Notwithstanding Israel’s unique challenges of the chaotically unpredictable state of the Middle East, the Islamic and Arab onslaught, the scarcity of natural resources (other than brain power), the UN enmity, the European appeasement of rogue regimes, systematic criticism by the “elite” media and the attempt to boycott, divest and sanction, the independent, non-partisan quarterly, The American Interest, stated on January 24: “This is there is a new name on our list of The Eight Greats, Israel….

“Israel is a rising power with a growing impact on world affairs…. Large off-shore discoveries of natural gas and oil are turning Israel into an energy exporter [e.g., a $3.5bn-$4bn dollar initiative was just concluded to expand Israel’s natural gas fields]…. Turkey’s ties with Israel strengthened…. Israel’s newfound clout comes from the rise of industrial sectors and technologies that good Israeli schools, smart Israeli policies and talented Israeli thinkers and entrepreneurs have built…. The rise of domestic cybersecurity and infotech economy…. Private investors all over the world look to invest in Israel’s tech startups…. It’s not just America; India, China and Russia want a piece of Israeli tech wizardry…. In the Middle East, Israel has been transformed from a pariah state to a kingmaker…. Never has Egypt-Israel security cooperation been as close as it is today…. The rise of Iran has made Israel critical to the survival of the Sunni Arabs, including the Gulf States…. Israel begins 2017 as the keystone of a regional anti-Iran alliance, a most-favored-nation in the White House and a country that enjoys good relations with all of the world’s major powers bar Iran….

2. Bloomberg, February 16, 2017: Israel’s economy grew 6.2% in the fourth quarter of 2016, its most robust gain since 2014, sending the Shekel to its strongest level in more than two years. GDP for 2016 grew 4%, the most since 2013, supported by record-low unemployment rate of 4.3% in December, 2016. Manufacturing reached its highest level in 7 years. Exports advanced 11.2% and capital investment grew by 7.4%.

3. Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio has systematically declined (62.1% in 2016), compared with Japan’s 250.4%, the USA’s 104.9%, France’s 97.1%, the Euro bloc’s 91.7%, Britain’s 89%, Germany’s 68.2% and South Korea’s 39.9% (Globes, January 23).

4. In 2016, Israel’s population grew by 2% – compared to 1.2% globally, 0.81% in the USA and 0.18% decline in Germany – identical to Israel’s population annual growth during the last 10 years – 83% due to natural growth and 17% due to Aliyah (Jewish immigration), resulting in a substantial expansion of Israel’s infrastructures of housing, transportation, education, health, medical, etc. (Globes business daily, January 9, 2017).

5. While global venture capital funding has declined during the last two years – according to PriceWaterHouseCoopers, Money Tree and CB Insights – $420mn were invested, during January 2017, in Israel’s hightech companies, sustaining the record level of 2016. Israel’s cyber technology companies attract investments. IntSights raised $15mn, 6 months following a round of $7.5mn. Israel’s CrediFi raised $13mn (Globes, Feb. 14). Israel’s Feedvisor raised $20mn (Globes, Feb. 1). Israel’s cyber security SentinelOne raised $70mn, led by RedPoint from the Silicon Valley (Globes, January 26), which also invested $16mn – along with Emergence Capital from the Silicon Valley – in Israel’s Chorus.ai (artificial intelligence), according to Globes, Feb. 8).

6. John Donovan, AT&T’s Exec. Vice President and Chief Strategist: In 2010, we established a research & development center in Israel, which offers a unique array of startups. Unlike other US companies, which acquire Israeli companies, we consider Israel a platform of development and expansion. AT&T’s personnel has grown 20% in 2016 (Globes, Jan. 17).

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