Israel's First Food Tech Accelerator

From The Daily Forward, November 25, 2013, by Liz Steinberg

                

...The Boston-based accelerator MassChallenge is partnering with Israel’s Strauss group to launch a food-focused accelerator program based in Israel. The program, drawing on Strauss’s food expertise and MassChallenge’s experience in nurturing young companies and ideas, plans to accept entrepreneurs from around the world with food-tech related ideas or startups, and help turn those ideas into full-fledged businesses.
...Accelerators help entrepreneurs with ideas or early-stage startups launch full-fledged businesses more quickly than they would without outside assistance. Help could come in the form of advisers, access to potential customers and to regulators, and funding, among others.
The food tech sector is underrepresented among startup companies, and part of the idea behind the program is to change that, says Amir Eldad, MassChallenge’s lead partner for international expansion.
There are two main benefits to the project, he explains. One is drawing more entrepreneurs and technologies to the Strauss Group in particular and the food sector in general. The other is to help craft Israel as a powerhouse in food technology with a global reach,” he says.
Strauss, for its part, is looking for an innovative way to compete against even larger multinationals such as Nestle, explains Dagan Eshel, innovation manager at Strauss and head of Alphastrauss, Strauss’ center for nurturing food technology.
“We thought, what is our competitive advantage? And the first thought that came to our mind is, we are Israeli...There is no Silicon Valley for food. No one until now thought that food is a big enough arena… for making a food tech industry...” ...
Hundreds if not thousands of food-related technologies are already in development in Israel, but there’s no one connecting the dots, pulling the entrepreneurs together and giving them the support that the high-tech industry has...
“Outside of the U.S., Israel is the place where there is a complete and very strong entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Eldad. ...
The project will take a broad approach to food technology. Food production goes beyond the food itself, explains Eshel — it necessitates technologies that touch on infrastructure, raw ingredients, packaging and more, he notes. As an example of the type of innovation he hopes to see in the accelerator program, he cites the example of a medical technology startup whose product could be used to identify foreign items in food.
The technologies developed by the accelerator won’t directly benefit either MassChallenge or Strauss. MassChallenge charges only a small fee for registration and takes no equity from participants, notes Eldad, while Eshel says his company is looking toward the long term.
“We want to create a community,” says Eshel.” We are looking 10 years into the future. If we could accelerate this community of food tech, it would be good for you, good for Israel and good for Strauss.”

French court fines boycott-Israel activists for discrimination

From Times of Israel, November 29, 2013, by JTA:

Judge imposes $1,300-penalty, and a suspended jail sentence, on 12 members of BDS group

Illustrative photo of supporters of a boycott against Israel protest in Melbourne, Australia, in 2010. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

A French court imposed a $1,300 fine on members of an anti-Israel group who called on supermarket shoppers to boycott Israeli products.

 

The Court of Appeals of Colmar near Strasbourg fined each of the group’s 12 members individually on Wednesday for their participation in a pro-boycott activity in 2009-2010, which the court qualified as “provocation to discrimination.” The court also gave the activists a suspended jail sentence, according to a report by the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.

 

The ruling reversed a 2012 verdict by the Correctional Tribunal of Mulhouse, which found the defendants not guilty. Prosecutors filed the appeal, CRIF said in a statement.

The actions for which the defendants were sentenced took place in 2009 in a supermarket in Mulhouse and again in 2010. Some of the defendants received a double fine for each action, CRIF reported.
 

The perpetrators were sentenced in accordance with strict anti-discrimination laws, including one passed by the French parliament in 2003 known as the Lellouche Law, after the lawmaker who drafted it, Pierre Lellouche.
 

In September, seven activists were given a $650 fine for a similar action in 2010 in a supermarket in Alençon...

Our ABC: a stultifying and intellectually unadventurous conformity to enforce a billion dollars' worth of narrow, left-wing ideology

From: The Australian, November 30, 2013, by: Greg Sheridan:

 

Spy story shows ABC at its left-wing worst

 

THE ABC emerges from the Indonesian spy scandal a diminished organisation, morally compromised and journalistically discredited. The problem is not that the ABC published stories which contained confidential national security information. Every decent media organisation does that from time to time.         

The problem is actually the reverse. The ABC did not behave as a credible media organisation.
Credible media organisations do not act as the handmaidens of competitor news organisations to amplify and dramatise their competitors' scoops. They may well report on those scoops, but the ABC did something altogether different.
It emerges as an organisation lacking effective accountability and with a leadership that is hopelessly confused and amateurish about how to behave when dealing with serious national security issues. It also emerges as an organisation effectively driven by a specific, narrow ideological worldview, and by the obsessions which emanate from that ideology.
The ABC presents itself as the beacon of courageous journalism in Australia. The problem with this episode is not only that it involved absolutely no courage. It also involved absolutely no journalism.
When the ABC first announced on air the scoop that the Australian Defence Signals Directorate in 2009 tapped the phone of Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and some of his senior associates, it presented this scoop as coming in substantial part from an ABC investigation.
But this investigation consisted of nothing more than giving the Guardian website its email address so the Guardian could send it the documents.
The Guardian newspaper in Britain has received a vast trove of secret intelligence documents stolen by Edward Snowden from the US National Security Agency. Snowden was a contractor for the NSA who worked as a systems administrator. The documents he stole represent one of the greatest assaults on Western intelligence in modern history. They are savagely damaging to the interests of the US and of its allies. They are particularly damaging to Australia. And The Guardian is apparently sorting through this vast amount of material and passing the Australian-related documents to the Guardian website in Australia.
What the ABC has decided to do has nothing to do with journalism as conventionally understood. Instead the ABC has decided to turn itself into the Australian broadcast arm of the Snowden/Guardian axis, to use every relevant part of its vast government-funded resources to promote The Guardian's scoop. This is not an act of journalism. This is an act of ideological commitment. It is an act of propaganda.
People could very easily die as a direct result of the ABC's decision. This is not inevitable, nor even the most likely outcome. But it is a serious possibility.
How so?
First, if the Indonesians seriously cut back on their efforts to disrupt people-smuggling, it is almost inevitable that a lot more boats will leave Indonesia for Australia. We know a proportion of those boats will sink and their sad human cargo drown at sea. We know 1100 people or more have perished that way already.
Second, if the Indonesians suspend the intimate counter-terrorist co-operation they have had with Australia, especially with the Australian Federal Police, it is more likely some terrorist plots will not be intercepted and will instead be successful. Nearly 100 Australians have died in terrorist attacks in Indonesia in the past 12 years. Many Indonesians have similarly died. Anyone with any familiarity with this field knows Australian co-operation with Indonesia has been central to uncovering plots, tracking terrorists and securing convictions. ABC commentators were among the many who, after the Bali bombings, denounced as an intelligence failure the inability of Australian authorities to predict these events.
A third way people could die is this. The political atmosphere created by these revelations makes it harder for an Indonesian president to exercise clemency for Australians on death row in Indonesia, by no means impossible, but more difficult. This is very grim, but it is true.
These are hard realities and a full comprehension of all their implications informs any serious journalist dealing with national security revelations.
Nonetheless, in general we are prepared to risk even the loss of life in the interests of a free media. That is the sort of hard but correct decision democratic societies make. But the ABC did not act as part of the free media.
It presumably is no coincidence that The Guardian's scoop fits so perfectly into the ABC's distorted, ideological world view.
We know this from the comments of the ABC managing director, Mark Scott, and those of Kate Torney, director of ABC News.
Scott and Torney have indicated their view that they have exposed a scandal, that the intelligence leaks reveal something wrong and reprehensible by Australia, akin to a criminal conspiracy.
This is monumentally wrong, and an unnecessary position to take in defence of publishing confidential material. But you have to believe the core ABC ideology is that there is something inherently wicked about Australian intelligence activities.
In fact all Australian intelligence agencies operate under specific legislation. They are extremely careful to operate within Australian law.
Here are some of Scott's remarks justifying the ABC's actions to a Senate estimates committee:

"There are a number of questions raised by this material. One is the nature and extent of intelligence activities undertaken by Australia. A second one is how those intelligence activities and the information gleaned is shared - and then how secure that information is."

Scott had a clear disposition to regard what the ABC had revealed as scandalous. He further commented: "(US) Senator Kerry said that the intelligence activities had reached too far and that some of that activity was on automatic pilot because the technology was there."
So far this is the sort of mild left liberalism, ABC ideology-lite, which Scott specialises in.
He then went on, however, to make a bizarre comparison:

"Yes, I appreciate that the release of some of this material might be embarrassing and that the release of some of this material may cause some difficulties in the Australia-Indonesia relationship in the short term. But, to draw a parallel with another story, the reporting that was done on the activities of the Australian Wheat Board certainly caused embarrassment and damage to Australia in the short term. But I think we would say that that reporting was absolutely in the public interest - and it was probably also in the national interest in the long term."

This is truly a grotesque thing for Scott to say. The AWB story centred on allegations that Australian officials had paid bribes or kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq to secure commercial advantage. There is not the slightest, remotest comparison to the lawful activities of Australian intelligence agencies.
This is a tremendous insult to the dedicated men and women of the Australian intelligence services.
Not only that, it gives a clue to the kind of sub-Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Guardian ideology which permeates so much ABC discussion. Though seldom made specific, this ideology holds that the very nature of Western societies and especially state power structures is somehow immoral or inherently to be opposed.
The way the ABC has behaved on this story has shocked many non-partisan national security officials in Australia. The ABC refused to redact the majority of the material which the intelligence agencies asked it to in the interests of national security. Any serious national security journalist has written or broadcast stories the government of the day is unhappy about. I certainly have, many times. But responsible journalists are also normally willing to leave unpublished the elements which will hurt the national interest most.
The ABC's decision to publish on its website so many original DSD slides is a case in point. Many times a media outlet writes or broadcasts a story quoting such documents without publishing them.
But the rank enthusiasm of the ABC in this story suggests it will go to great lengths to prosecute its endless war against the dark forces of conservative Australia.

Torney was in some ways even more revealing than Scott. In connection with the Indonesian spy story she wrote:

"It is rare that any story about potential abuse of power fails to result in repercussions and damage to reputations and relationships. It is easy to forget that it is the original act that is the problem and not the fact that it was brought to light."

So there you have it. Australian intelligence activities directed at Indonesia, activities which have surely saved Australian and indeed Indonesian lives, are, without any specific supporting analysis, an "abuse of power".
Torney's undergraduate leftism is so egregious, and yet apparently all unconscious, that it leads her to a statement so ridiculous you can barely imagine an adult making it.
Every considerable nation in the world maintains intelligence services. Virtually all of them direct some intelligence gathering at foreign targets. Absolutely all of this would be embarrassing if made public.
It is absolutely not "the original act" which causes the problem, but the "fact that it was brought to light".
Torney's apparent view, that Western and specifically Australian intelligence activities constitute an abuse of power, is in fact the corporate ABC view.
If the ABC brought such matters to light through its own journalistic efforts it would probably be forgivable corporate and journalistic egotism for it to highlight this.
But in this case the ABC was acting for a foreign, anti-Western axis of a committed left-wing newspaper and an espionage traitor.
It is unclear why Australian taxpayers need to pay $1.1 billion of their money to support these activities.
The ABC is a public broadcaster, financed by taxes paid by all Australians. Half those Australians, more or less, vote centre Right, and half, more or less, vote centre Left.
But the ABC's worldview runs entirely from centre Left to far Left.
The ABC does vigorously criticise both the Labor Party and the Coalition, though very seldom the Greens. But as Gerard Henderson has pointed out with devastating force, it criticises both sides of Australian politics from the Left.
Take almost any contentious contemporary issue. Asylum-seekers is a good one. I have never heard an ABC presenter ask a politician a question based on the premise that too many illegal immigrants are coming to Australia by boat and that this will have deleterious effects on Australia. ABC presenters ask many tough questions on this issue, but always from the point of view that tough policies to stop boats are inhumane, and morally objectionable. Yet the vast majority of Australians vote for parties which support such tough policies.
The same is true of climate change, where former ABC chairman Maurice Newman has accused the ABC of group-think.
It is not that every ABC commentator needs to reflect the majority Australian view, but the fact that none of them does that signifies the problem of the narrow, orthodox, ideological worldview which governs virtually the whole of the ABC.
This also has expression in those outside commentators the ABC chooses to make stars. David Marr is the ABC ideal. He has worked at Fairfax, the ABC itself and now The Guardian. He is a committed man of the Left who hates conservative views and conservative Australia. Yet every pamphlet he writes is treated as a new book of holy scripture by the ABC. His scabrous pamphlet on Tony Abbott, replete with factual errors, earned him a worshipful interview with Emma Alberici on Lateline.
This week when the Abbott government criticised China for provocative actions in the East China Sea, the ABC went to its favourite strategic commentator, Hugh White, not only for its national radio current affairs flagship, PM, but for Lateline as well.
White suits the ABC because in his view everything is America's fault and Canberra's mistake is to align itself too closely with Washington. But in the whole of Australia is there really only one strategic commentator the ABC can find?
The same thing applies with Tim Flannery and all the other ABC pets.
Because the ABC spends hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on current affairs TV and radio, it naturally dominates this area. It is impossible for a commercial organisation, which must make a profit, to contest that space.
Now the ABC's move into online publishing is further corrupting its proper role in two main ways. First, it is again providing unfair competition to everybody else. It is plain socialism for the government to run a business in competition with existing private businesses. By its nature the government engages in predatory pricing and tends towards monopoly.
And second, the online space encourages all ABC personalities to become opinion writers, which further diminishes the tiny residual discipline in the ABC about fairness, impartiality, or the distinction between fact and opinion, or between the normal restraints which should apply to any activity conducted with taxpayers' money.
The ABC's dominance in Australia does not aid diversity of views. It fosters a stultifying and intellectually unadventurous conformity.
One question out of the Indonesian spy scandal is whether the ABC intends to continue as the propaganda arm of the Snowden/Guardian axis.
Another is whether we taxpayers are wisely using our money to enforce a billion dollars' worth of conformist, narrow, left-wing ideology.

Increased Antisemitism in Australia

From The Australian, November 28, 2013, by Christian Kerr: 

THE number of antisemitic incidents reported in Australia in the past year is the second-highest level recorded.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry's annual report on anti-Semitism lists 657 reports of racist violence directed at individuals or Jewish facilities in the year to the end of September, a 21 per cent increase on last year.
The number of serious physical assaults was at its lowest since 2005, although the report did not cover the brutal attack on five members of a Jewish family in Sydney last month.
While the incidents included vandalism or attacks on facilities such as synagogues, most of the reports concerned threats and abuse rather than violence directed at people or property.
Antisemitic email reached its second-highest level on record, while the total number of threats from email, phone calls, posters, leaflets and mail was 60 per cent above last year's survey.

"Antisemitism remains at the fringes of Australian politics and society, and though there are exceptions, anti-Semitism is not generally part of the mainstream discourse," the report says. However, it warns of threats still faced by the Jewish community, saying "the fact remains that Jews in Australia worship, study and work under the protection of high fences, armed guards, and other security facilities".

"Condemning and countering antisemitism also need to be more actively pursued by the non-Jewish community."

The report also warns that reporting of incidents such as the "Prisoner X" case, the Melbourne-born Mossad agent Ben Zygier who committed suicide in an Israeli prison in 2010, can trigger "public expressions of anti-Semitic stereotypes and canards".

"A tragedy involving a single individual was used in some media to impugn the loyalty to Australia of Australian Jews as a group."Anti-Semitic stereotypes and false claims against Jews expressed in the mainstream media or by community leaders can portray anti-Semitism as legitimate and serves to encourage extremists to incite and act against individual Jews or Jewish communal facilities like synagogues or Jewish schools," it goes on to say.

ECAJ research officer Julie Nathan said antisemitism was not just a Jewish problem, but one affecting the whole of a society.
"The main measures to counter anti-Semitism include: political and civil society leaders publicly condemning anti-Semitism; public and school education on the evils and folly of racism, providing contemporary and historical examples," she said.
Ms Nathan also spoke of the need for legal recourse to tackle vilification and hate, citing sections of the Racial Discrimination Act the government has pledged to repeal

Australia is right to challenge the UN’s anti-Israel bias

From The Guardian, 28 Nov 2013, by Alexander Ryvchin:

The UN’s treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict needs greater balance. Its one-sidedness against Israel is a disservice both to Israel and the Palestinian cause

...The need for greater balance in the UN’s treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict recently came to light in the most unexpected of circumstances. Earlier this month, the UN general assembly convened to engage in its annual ritual of passing a series of resolutions condemning Israel. Not a single resolution critical of the Palestinian leadership, or concerning any other global issue for that matter, was adopted during the meeting. The point of interest was the candid reaction of a Spanish-speaking UN interpreter, oblivious to the fact that her microphone remained on as she addressed her colleague:

I mean, I think when you have five statements, not five, like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine, there’s gotta be something, c’est un peu trop, non? [It’s a bit much, no?] I mean I know… There’s other really bad shit happening [around the world], but no one says anything about the other stuff.

The interpreter’s remarks were amplified throughout the chamber and drew knowing snickers from the delegates. No doubt the embarrassed interpreter wished that the earth would swallow her up at that moment. Yet through her frank admission, the interpreter, unencumbered by rank or protocol, was perhaps the only person in the room who had nothing to be embarrassed about.
She had spoken an inconvenient truth, and the delegates in the chamber knew it. 
In 2006, the then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan criticised the UN human rights council for its “disproportionate focus on violations by Israel” while neglecting other parts of the world such as Darfur. His successor Ban Ki-Moon uttered similar sentiments the following year. Alejandro Wolff, deputy US permanent representative at the UN, accused the Council of having “a pathological obsession with Israel”.
It was for good reason that Israel’s legendary statesman and one of its founding fathers, Abba Eban, once remarked:

If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.

The consequences of the UN’s one-sidedness against Israel are grave. For one, it is a disservice both to Israel and the Palestinian cause. A complex struggle for national self-determination by two peoples over a territory less than half the size of Tasmania, has seen the Palestinians cast as victims, and Israel depicted as the brute. As a result, the world overlooks the true causes of the conflict, and by logical extension, is unable to see the solutions. 
For example, the EU recently found that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah had squandered close to €2bn of aid from European taxpayers; aid intended to build Palestinian institutions, enfranchise the people, elevate their quality of life. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Al-Quds University is reported to have staged a Nuremberg-style rally by members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation, replete with black uniforms and Nazi salutes. Yet such issues concerning incitement and mismanagement, which strike at the heart of why the Palestinians’ national goals remain unfulfilled, are routinely overlooked by the UN.
The UN’s one-sidedness has also damaged the larger cause of human rights. So far this year, the UN general assembly has passed 21 resolutions condemning Israel. Four resolutions have been passed against all countries in the rest of the world combined. In the meantime, one can only guess at what truly motivates self-declared supporters of the Palestinian cause who remain relatively silent about the Egyptian blockade of Gaza, or the suffering of Palestinians embroiled in the Syrian conflict.
To echo the sentiments of the UN interpreter, one could be forgiven for thinking that Palestinian human rights are the only rights of consequence. Or perhaps put more accurately, allegations of impropriety against Israel are the only ones worth a look in.
Australia’s support for Israel at the UN is not a commentary on settlements or a denial of Palestinian national aspirations. It is a principled and judicious attempt to wrench the agenda of human rights away from propaganda and vulgarisation and return the community of nations to a sensible, measured and proportionate debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Iran: has the leopard changed its spots?

From  the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 26 Nov 2013, by Peter Jennings, Executive Director: 

 

Hassan Rouhani, the 7th President of Iran.The Interim Agreement reached in Geneva last Saturday between the P5+1 and Iran over the latter's nuclear program is a high-stakes gamble for Middle-East security.

 

At best the deal somewhat slows Iran's capacity over the next six months to advance its nuclear program. At worst it could spark a race to proliferation in the Middle East and encourage an Israeli strike on Iran. Much depends on the inherently unlikely proposition that the Iranian leopard has changed its spots and will accept an agreement in six months that will be significantly more intrusive and limiting of its nuclear capabilities.

 

Commenting on the interim agreement, US President Barak Obama set out the limitations agreed by Tehran:

Iran has committed to halting certain levels of enrichment and neutralizing part of its stockpiles. Iran cannot use its next-generation centrifuges, which are used for enriching uranium. Iran cannot install or start up new centrifuges, and its production of centrifuges will be limited. Iran will halt work at its plutonium reactor. And new inspections will provide extensive access to Iran's nuclear facilities and allow the international community to verify whether Iran is keeping its commitments.

This, the President claimed 'will help prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, [has] halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, and key parts of the program will be rolled back.' A closer reading of the Interim Agreement suggests, however that the best the deal offers is a slowing of Iranian momentum rather than halting or preventing the nuclear program. Under the deal, Iran will still be able to process uranium using centrifuges that enrich the material by 5% per cent, sufficient for use in an energy-producing reactor.

There are two reasons to worry about this concession. First, the world market for enrichment is already undersubscribed, so there's no need for Iran to produce its own reactor fuel. A guarantee to provide it with fuel from a safeguarded supplier like EURATOM would've been vastly preferable. Secondly, while 5% enrichment isn't useful in nuclear weapons, it's a very good starting point for producing weapons grade material-more than 70% of the work has already been done. And the interim agreement allows Iran to keep its hand in the enrichment business. While that's consistent with its rights under the NPT, it also provides Iran with the capacity to choose to break out of the agreement in the future should it choose to do so. Iran has chosen to see the interim agreement as legitimising its 'peaceful' nuclear program-in effect a major concession on the part of the P5+1.

It is what is not covered by the interim agreement which gives greatest cause for concern. As set out by Republican Senator John McCain: 'this agreement is silent on the question of Iran's nuclear weaponization efforts and development of delivery systems, such as ballistic missiles, that are key components of its pursuit of nuclear weapons'.

Israel's opposition to the agreement has been strident and vocal. Prime Minister Netanyahu has labelled it as a 'historic mistake', adding:

    The Iranian regime is committed to the destruction of Israel and Israel has the right and the obligation to defend itself, by itself, against any threat. As Prime Minister of Israel, I would like to make it clear: Israel will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability.

What for Secretary of State John Kerry represents a glittering prize of a rapidly brokered 'deal' remains in Israeli thinking an existential threat to their country's future. One effect of the interim agreement could well be to drive Israel closer to countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which perceive Iran to be a strategic threat and will also not tolerate a situation where Tehran can get close enough to a nuclear capability that makes it possible to launch a quick final sprint to a bomb.

More broadly, Iran's blood-curdling rhetoric on Israel, its bloody backing of President Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have also been contingently overlooked in the P5+1's pursuit of a deal. But in six months' time when the parties are supposed to cement a more comprehensive framework, there'll surely have to be detailed questioning about what kind of state Iran purports to be in the Middle East. Tehran may be prepared to put its nuclear ambitions on a leash for the sake of more normalised relations with the west and for a reduction of sanctions, but do Washington and its P5 chums seriously propose to overlook Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and interference in Syria?

Having committed to this six month process, a disturbing feature of the Obama Administration's approach is that in defending the agreement it has comprehensively trashed the efforts up to now of the international community to enforce sanctions. The White House Fact Sheet on the Agreement says:

Without this phased agreement, Iran could start spinning thousands of additional centrifuges. It could install and spin next-generation centrifuges that will reduce its breakout times. It could fuel and commission the Arak heavy water reactor. It could grow its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium to beyond the threshold for a bomb's worth of uranium. Iran can do none of these things under the conditions of the first step understanding.

Furthermore, without this phased approach, the international sanctions coalition would begin to fray because Iran would make the case to the world that it was serious about a diplomatic solution and we were not.

There couldn't be a clearer statement of the failure of sanctions to prevent Iran's nuclear program. Obama has therefore cut off his avenue of retreat to the old sanctions policy should negotiations fail. In all probability Washington will neither be able to move forward on a comprehensive deal nor go back to sanctions. In such circumstances the risks of a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities increases.

 

Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei incites genocide

November 22, 2013

His Excellency
Secretary-General of the United Nations
Honorable Ban Ki Moon,
Your Excellency,
Racist and Genocidal Remarks by Iran’s Head of State
I write to you on behalf of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, a Category II NGO at the UN, whose members are lawyers, judges, judicial officers and academic jurists in over 50 countries.
I wish to communicate our members’ deepest anxiety and outrage at remarks made by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei during a Nov 20th speech broadcast live on Iran’s Press TV, as well as content published subsequently on the Ayatollah’s Twitter feed.
During the speech, the Ayatollah described Israel (which he refers to as “the Zionist Regime”) as a “rabid dog” and said that “Zionist officials cannot be called humans, they are like animals…”. He also said “the Israeli regime is doomed to failure and annihilation”.
On November 21st, the Ayatollah’s Twitter feed displayed an image of what purports to be a dog employed by the Israeli military pulling at the arm of an Arab woman, with the caption in English: “Israel is the sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region”.
The Ayatollah’s depiction of Israeli Jews as sub-human, evil and dirty is a typical manifestation of anti-Semitism and racism in its vilest form and is reminiscent of the worst examples of such phenomena from the last century.
In addition, by directly and publicly inciting for the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, the Iranian Head of State is guilty of incitement to the crime of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as well as under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
As an organization which was created, inter alia, to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small” (Preamble – UN Charter), it is incumbent upon the UN to respond forcefully and unequivocally in rejecting such rhetoric by the leader of one of its member states.
In the words of the Irish Statesman, Edmund Burke:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Thus, we call upon His Excellency to condemn the abovementioned statements of Ayatollah Khamenei in the strongest terms and to publish the condemnation as widely as possible. We also urge His Excellency to raise the matter before the Security Council with a view to imposing possible sanctions and referring the charge of Incitement to Genocide to the International Criminal Court.
Yours sincerely,
Irit Kohn, Adv.
President

Syrian children brought to Israel for medical treatment

From THE AUSTRALIAN, NOVEMBER 23, 2013, by DAVID KING:

MICHAEL Harari has been involved in emergency medicine for more than 30 years, but the trauma he has seen in northern Israel in recent months has been the most confronting of his career.

The veteran Melbourne medico, a specialist pediatrician, has been working at the Ziv Medical Centre at Zefat near the Syrian border in an unorthodox humanitarian program that has seen scores of severely injured Syrians brought quietly over the border.

More than 177 Syrians have been treated since February, when the first of the critically wounded were brought in by Israeli army ambulances.

The program at the Ziv Hospital is unusual given the frosty relations between Syria and Israel. But a policy of asking very few questions about who the patients are and how they came to be there has kept politics out of the equation.

As the civil war rages and villages are bombed, patients arrive at a rate of about 15 a week.

Many of the wounded are combatants injured in fighting, but there has been a large group of children suffering the effects of war.

Dr Harari, who trained at Royal Melbourne Children's Hospital and has worked in Britain and Papua New Guinea, says that the more than 20 Syrian children he has treated had "multi-system injuries".

In layman's terms, that means horrific blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, burns and lost limbs caused by explosions, mines and collapsing buildings. "War injuries are the hardest to confront because there is a human hand involved. It's been very hard for me."

Dr Harari, who has Syrian and Egyptian ancestry and speaks Arabic, said the children had all been highly traumatised, one girl taking a month to come out from beneath her blanket.

The hospital has an Arabic-speaking clown on staff who works with doctors to help reduce the children's anxiety while their wounds are tended.

Among the children brought to the hospital was a nine-year-old boy who lost his eye to shrapnel and a teenage girl who lost her leg in stages. As hospital director Oscar Embon says, doctors are "trying to save limbs, not just cut".

In September, the hospital was able to help an eight-year-old Syrian girl with shattered legs walk again after two months of intensive treatment.

The extra workload was thrust on the hospital, which is now looking to raise funds for the treatment of the wounded. In early February, Dr Embon took a call from the Israeli army telling him to prepare for the arrival of a group of severely injured Syrians. "They are just brought here somehow. We get told that 72 are coming, go to the trauma room."

None of the patients are refugees and so far all of them have asked to return to Syria. Mostly they will return to poverty and uncertainty, many showing signs of poor nutrition and anxiety as well as their wounds.

And, because many are worried about the consequences of having been treated in Israel, they are given referral letters in English on plain paper.

Dr Embon said the hospital would continue to treat the Syrians as the civil war continued.

"This is a humanitarian issue. We do not stop to examine whether the injured are civilians or which side of the fighting they support."

Hamas Threatens Israel with Genocide (again)

From A7, 22 Nov 2013, by Elad Benari:

Members of Hamas have recently implied that once the balance of power changes, the terror group will commit genocide against Israelis.

Members of the Hamas terrorist group that controls Gaza have threatened Israel with genocide.
... the comments were made last week as Hamas marked the first anniversary of the IDF’s counter-terrorism Operation Pillar of Defense which took place in November of 2012.
... Hamas celebrated its “victory” over Israel...
The...speeches given by officials in Hamas repeatedly highlighted the group’s commitment to the liberation of all “Palestinian territory”, denying the right of the "Zionists" to settle in the land of Israel and a declaration of the intent to perform genocide against Jews when the balance of power is reversed.
This message was expressed in a speech on November 13, 2013 given by Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas figure who is a Hamas parliamentarian, a member of the political bureau of Hamas and the Association of Palestinian Scholars which is affiliated with Hamas.

"This way [Hamas's commitment to jihad] says to them: [You] Zionists, you have no place on the land of Palestine ... we shall expel you from our land and we will fight against you on it [on the land], we will kill you or expel you from it when you are submissive ..."

Abu Ubaidah, a spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, echoed these sentiments, said Halevi. Abu Ubaidah said on the first anniversary of Pillar of Defense that it would be better for the Jews to leave “Palestine” as soon as possible before “the hand of justice" comes to them, implying that they will be physically eliminated by the Arabs...
This approach, which sees the conflict with Israel as an uncompromising religious war, is consistent with the Hamas charter and the positions expressed by Hamas leaders over the years...
“Hamas’s diplomatic ‘flexibility’ as reported by the media and different commentators is not expressed neither in Hamas's ideological line nor in its practical realization of the conceptual basis,” he writes...
Two weeks ago, a spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades vowed Hamas would continue building terror tunnels and press on in the terror war to destroy Israel.

Australian "Friend of Palestine" discovers the truth...

From YouTube, 14 Nov 2013:



Darly Johns, a kind-hearted woman from Australia, who identified completely with the "Palestinian" struggle, because of the way in which they are represented in the international media as victims of Israel, one day decided to do something and to volunteer to assist ...

What drove her to this was the sight of dead "Palestinian" children, with their corpses torn to shreds.

She arrived in "Palestine" fully convinced that these children die because Israel tortures them to death. However, when she arrived in Jenin, after a few days, she witnessed a horrifying incident in which a young boy blew himself up in a suicide bombing. After having met with the hard reality, she suddenly understood that many of these children die because they are sent to die.

She discovered that children aged 7 and 8 are enlisted into the war- the adults endanger their lives and sacrifice them, and this is the reason that they die. It is because children aged 7 or 8 are not seen as children- not one playground is built for them.

And the children? They want to be like the engineer who sent the shahids to their death. Do they not want peace?

They want the State of Israel to disappear.

The encounter with the truth shocked the woman to the core. At the end of the film clip, she says, "They don't want peace. They never had any intention other than to destroy Israel".

Realism on Israel

From Australian Financial Review letters, Nov 22 2013:

It was refreshing to read Michael Stutchbury's realistic portrayal of Israel as an advanced country dealing with the same issues facing any other Western nation, as well as its own unique security challenges ("Amid turmoil, four reasons why Israelis feel safer", AFR, November 20).

Given the circumstances Israel has faced - a hostile neighbourhood and therefore massive defence spending, an arid environment, massive immigration, and, until recently, poor resources - other countries could learn from its success. The Israeli humanitarian efforts that Stutchbury reported, such as treating victims of Syria's civil war, or establishing a field hospital to treat Philippines typhoon victims, are also unknown to most.

Israel is ready and willing to use its abilities to resolve the challenge with which we are most familiar: the quest for peace with the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, it has always lacked the one crucial element over which it has no control - a partner that will genuinely accept its right to exist in peace.

Perhaps, if these facts were better understood, peace would be more attainable.

 

Justin Said

Coogee, NSW

 

Brandeis halts alliance with Palestinian university after Nazi-style demo

From Times of Israel, 19 Nov 2013, by JTA:

Brandeis University has suspended its partnership with the Palestinian Al-Quds University.

Brandeis University President Frederick Lawrence made the announcement Monday, saying the university will re-evaluate the relationship in the future. The universities have been sister institutions since 1998. 

Photo by Mideast Dispatches/Tom Gross

 

The decision was made in light of recent events at the university — which has campuses in Jerusalem, Abu-Dis and Al-Bireh — including a Nov. 5 Nazi-style demonstration at the main campus.

 

During the demonstration, protesters marched in black military gear with fake automatic weapons while waving flags and offering the traditional Nazi salute. Banners with images of Palestinian suicide bombers decorated the campus’ main square, according to a statement from Brandeis. Several students also portrayed dead Israeli soldiers.

 

Following the demonstration Lawrence called on Al-Quds President Sari Nusseibeh to issue in Arabic and English a condemnation of the demonstration.

 

In a statement issued to Al-Quds students Sunday, Nusseibeh said that “Jewish extremists” were using the demonstration to “capitalize on events in ways that misrepresent the university as promoting inhumane, anti-Semitic, fascist, and Nazi ideologies.” Without these ideologies, he said “there would not have been the massacre of the Jewish people in Europe; without the massacre, there would not have been the enduring Palestinian catastrophe.”

 

...The Brandeis University statement called Nusseibeh’s message “unacceptable and inflammatory.” It added: “While Brandeis has an unwavering commitment to open dialogue on difficult issues, we are also obliged to recognize intolerance when we see it, and we cannot – and will not – turn a blind eye to intolerance.”...

Replacement Theology preached in Mount Lawley

Last weekend I attended a talk entitled
“The Pope: The ‘Prime Minister’ of the New Israel”
at St Paul’s Catholic Church in Mt Lawley.
It was part of a weekend conference themed: “I Make All Things New!” presented by Robert Haddad, Head, New Evangelisation, Catholic Education Office, Sydney.
On 21 October 2013, when I first became aware of the conference and this particular talk, I emailed Mr Haddad an invitation to discuss the thesis of his talk, by email, phone or in person. At the time of publication (21 November 2013) he had not yet responded.

Robert Haddad

In his talk, Mr Haddad suggested:
• The “Old Israel” is the Jewish People, descendants of Abraham, who after the exodus from Egypt settled in Canaan, displacing the former inhabitants;
• 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel were dispersed by the Assyrians and “lost forever”;
• The remaining 2 tribes were later exiled to Babylon;
• The “remnant” of the Jewish people later returned to Israel;
• This “remnant” was dispersed by the Romans and their “fidelity” to G-d over the millennia has been questionable; and
• The (Catholic) Church is the “New Israel”.

Mr Haddad made no mention whatsoever of the modern State of Israel.

He suggested that Jesus showed grace to non-Jews in Canaan and is since then, the eternal “King” of the “New Israel”, a universal church. He went on to suggest that Jesus’s disciple Peter was the first “Prime Minister” of the “New Israel”, and that the Roman Popes since then are the subsequent “Prime Ministers” of the “New Israel”.
During the Q&A, when asked how it could be that several Popes had clearly committed grievous sins, Mr Haddad explained that they were still human, with free will, and could commit sins. However the teachings of those Popes were proper teachings of God’s word that needed no retraction. Thus the Popes are “infallible, but not impeccable”.

From Wikipedia:
Supersessionism, fulfillment theology, and replacement theology are terms long used for the biblical interpretation that the Church supersedes or replaces Israel in God's plan, and that the New Covenant nullifies the Biblical promises made to Israel, including the Abrahamic Covenant, The Land Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant…viewing the Christian Church as the inheritor of the promises made with the children of Israel...
More recently, supersessionism and replacement theology are also applied to the parallel case of Islam and its attitude towards Christianity and Judaism.

From Jewish Virtual Library:
…High level dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish people is undertaken by the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC)...
The 1985 meeting of the ILC took place on October 28–30 in Rome, and was a major commemoration and reassessment of the publication 20 years previously of Nostra Aetate no. 4, part of the "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to non-Christian Religions," the Second Vatican Council document which paved the way for the subsequent development of Catholic attitudes to Jews and Judaism. The progress which had taken place in the intervening years was evaluated, a program for the future outlined, and the importance attached by the Church to the proceedings emphasized by an audience with Pope John Paul II...
The most substantial discussions at the Rome meeting, however, were in connection with the newly prepared Vatican document, "Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church." This "internal" Church document, intended to develop the teaching of Nostra Aetate and to help integrate it into the everyday life of the Church, met with a mixed response from the Jewish delegation.
On the positive side, the State of Israel was for the first time mentioned in a Vatican document, Jewish suffering in the Holocaust recognized, the "ongoing spiritual vitality of Judaism" to modern times appreciated, and guidance given on how to interpret New Testament texts without deriving antisemitism from them.
On the other hand, Jews were upset that they had not been fully consulted in preparing the document, felt that treatment of the Holocaust failed to acknowledge any Christian guilt, were dissatisfied with the lack of a positive theological evaluation of Israel, and detected inconsistencies in the theological sections, including remnants of typology and "replacement theology."…

From “Christians and Jews: Starting Over - Why the Real Dialogue Has Just Begun” by Luke Timothy Johnson:
The Second Vatican Council's ecumenically path breaking Nostra aetate (Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions) disavows any basis in Scripture for regarding Jews as "repudiated or cursed by God," but precedes that line with the bald statement, "the church is the new people of God." And while deploring "the hatred, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source," Nostra aetate fails to acknowledge the church as one of those sources and takes no account of the Holocaust or the papacy's inadequate performance in the face of the Nazi regime.
"A unilateral pronouncement by one party which presumes to redress on its own terms a wrong that it does not admit," was how Rabbi David Polish responded to the declaration.
The same combination of contrition and obtuseness has too often characterized subsequent Vatican statements and gestures.
…[Supersessionism] led to the persecution and murder of Jews. …Christians need to do more than make symbolic gestures or eloquent apologies. They need to pray for the mercy of God and ask for the prayers of those Jews who have survived their savage stupidity. Most of all, they need to repent. The word means change...

RACISM IS NOT FREE SPEECH

November 2013
We have read with growing concern that the Federal government has plans to remove or water down the protections against racial vilification which presently extend to Australians of all backgrounds under the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA). This would be a step backwards for Australia. We oppose absolutely any such change.
The proposal to change the RDA is being put forward in the name of free speech. Vilifying entire groups of people because of their race has nothing to do with free speech. To be vilified because of one’s ethnicity or national origin hurts one’s ability to participate fully in society.
Belonging to a racially vilified group can undermine and ultimately destroy the sense of safety and security with which one goes about one’s daily life. And, paradoxically for free speech advocates, racial vilification can have a silencing effect on those who are vilified. Racial vilification deprives its targets of equal treatment and a fair go. This is what makes it un-Australian. Australia should not contemplate going down the path of licensing racial vilification.
The cultural diversity of Australia’s people is a great source of our nation’s strength. It also imposes an obligation on government to protect and encourage social cohesion. Failure to do so can have very serious if not catastrophic consequences for our society. A change to the RDA would send a signal that racism is acceptable.
Freedom of speech is fundamental to our liberal democratic society. But any right to free speech has its limits. For example, we have well-established laws against defamation, misleading advertising and the transmission of offensive material through the post. Freedom does not mean the license of individuals to do just as they please because that would ultimately result in the destruction of freedom. The RDA strikes a careful balance between freedom of expression and freedom from racial vilification.
We urge the Attorney-General to consult with us and other stakeholder communities before any Bill is introduced into the Parliament.
 Authorised by:

• Les Malezer and Kirstie Parker, Co-chairs, National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples
• Randa Kattan, CEO, Arab Council Australia
• John Petropolous, President, Australian Hellenic Council
• Peter Wertheim, Executive Director, Executive Council of Australian Jewry
• Patrick Voon, President, Chinese Australian Forum
• Dr Thang Ha, Vietnamese Community in Australia
• Samir Dandan, President, Lebanese Muslim Association
• Vache H. Karamenian, Executive Director, Armenian National Council of Australia
• Maha Krayem Abdo, Executive Officer, United Muslim Women Association
• Priscilla Brice-Weller, CEO, All Together Now

Indonesia's overreaction mimics Australia's

THE deepening conflict between Australia and Indonesia over the spying revelations reveals serious pathologies in the political culture of both countries...

Tony Abbott has inherited a firestorm in the context of a political culture uniquely ill-equipped to deal with Indonesia.
... the Left resolutely campaigns to destroy any actual Australian influence in Indonesia. The Greens' Adam Bandt complains that Abbott is risking the relationship, yet the Greens' longstanding support for West Papuan independence is designed to rip Indonesia to shreds.
...On the Indonesians' side, the spying dispute reveals the continued, exaggerated, defensive nationalism that pervades so much of their public discussion and political culture. ... Everyone knows that this sort of spying is almost routine and conducted almost universally, including by Indonesia. ...
...In 2010, the Israelis used an Australian passport in a counter-terrorist targeted assassination of the kind Australian troops routinely carried out in Afghanistan, and that Australia supports when carried out by American drones. When this was revealed, how calm and measured was the Australian reaction? Our government denounced Israel publicly. Unlike most other Western governments similarly affected, we expelled an Israeli diplomat and gave the Israelis no advance notice of this. His name and intelligence affiliation were leaked to the press. We declared we were pulling back on intelligence co-operation, although such co-operation gives us more than it gives the Israelis. Our reaction was disproportionate and hysterical. So we ought to take some pause before we criticise the Indonesians for overreaction.
If the Indonesians do cut off co-operation in significant areas they would damage themselves as well as damaging us. Sadly, such counter-productive actions are pretty common when nations get het-up with nationalistic fervour about slights, real and perceived.
What can Abbott do now? What should he do? What is at stake? Abbott's statements have all been sound and reasonable. There is overwhelming sense in neither confirming nor denying intelligence activities and there are virtually no promises he could reasonably make about the future...
... there is a demonstrable need to try to soothe Indonesian feelings on this issue. One of the most attractive elements of Abbott's political personality is that he doesn't like to say things that he doesn't mean or that aren't true. However, that makes it especially difficult for him to apologise without apologising, or make a promise that is not really a promise. That is why his statement to parliament on Tuesday, while completely correct in substance, sounded a little tough.
Sometimes international diplomacy does demand very odd locutions. A lot of things are presumably happening on back channels. The gulf may be too big to breach, but presumably Australian diplomats are exploring whether there is any form of words Abbott could actually reasonably utter that would be helpful to the Indonesians. Similarly, our friends, the Americans, but also possibly the Japanese, the Singaporeans and others, may be quietly reminding the Indonesians of how beneficial for the whole region a good Jakarta-Canberra relationship is.
Here is an uncomfortable, unpalatable, undiplomatic truth. No nation can so easily cause us grief as Indonesia, from people-smuggling, through counter-terrorism co-operation, through regional diplomacy or, at a much worse level, perhaps causing headaches on the borders of Papua New Guinea or East Timor, where we have de facto security responsibilities. That is a basic power consideration Australian prime ministers must take into account...

Shurat Hadin's Akiva Hamilton debates Stuart Rees, a supporter of Jake Lynch and the Boycott & Delegitimisation Campaign

From the ABC 7:30 Report, 30 Oct 2013:

Israel-boycotters meet strong disapproval in Australia

Sydney University's Jake Lynch sued under Federal Racial Discrimination Act of 1975

October 30, 2013:
An Israeli civil rights group, Shurat HaDin, has filed a class action lawsuit under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 with the Federal Court of Australia over a Sydney University Associate Professor Jake Lynch’s participation and public support of boycotts of Israel including an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
Earlier this year, faculty and students at Sydney University called for the severing of links with Israeli institutions, actions that would be deemed racist and in violation of Australian Federal anti-discrimination laws. This lawsuit follows up Shurat HaDin’s complaint against Associate Professor Lynch filed with the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in late July. Lynch effectively refused to mediate this complaint and thus the AHRC was unable to resolve it. The complaint was terminated by the AHRC allowing Shurat HaDin to pursue the matter in Federal Court.
The lawsuit filed by Shurat HaDin's Australian solicitor Andrew Hamilton is the first time that a Federal Court lawsuit under the Racial Discrimination Act has been launched in Australia against those promoting boycotts, sanctions and divestment (BDS) against the Jewish State. It is the first time that Australia's anti-racism laws have been utilized against those seeking to harm Israeli academics or businesses because of their national origin.
In its Federal lawsuit, Shurat HaDin relies on the Federal Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 which makes it unlawful for anyone "to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion…or preference based on race…or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose…of nullifying or impairing…fundamental freedom in the…economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."
Earlier this year, the university's student body endorsed Associate Professor Jake Lynch's academic boycott of Israel. Lynch had publicly announced his refusal to work with Dan Avnon, an Israeli professor from the prestigious Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which promotes Israeli-Arab coexistence, and also called for a boycott of Technion University in Haifa.
Lynch has consistently refused to heed the Tel Aviv-based rights group's warnings that he must cease participation in unlawful, and racist, boycott activity. Although widely condemned by mainstream politicians and community figures, Lynch has also been publicly supported by notorious Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben.
The BDS movement has been recognized as anti-Semitic by leading authorities such as the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, and in a report recently released by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
According to solicitor Andrew Hamilton: "The BDS movement is racist by its own definition because it seeks to discriminate and impose adverse preference based on Israeli national origin and Jewish racial and ethnic origin of people and organisations. It does nothing to help Palestinians and indeed harms them. It is merely an excuse for the vilest public anti-semitic campaign the western world has seen since the Holocaust."
According to Shurat HaDin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: "Lynch and his ilk seek to boycott Israeli and Jewish national products, whether its goods, services, performers or professors. By singling out Israel and no other country the BDS extremists expose the anti-Semitism that motivates them. We are hopeful that this historic proceeding against the BDS movement will serve as a model for battling it in other jurisdictions worldwide."
Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center is an organization dedicated to enforcing basic human rights through the legal system and represents victims of terrorism in courtrooms around the world. The group was founded on the model of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center - a non-profit legal center that over the last four decades has successfully confronted racist groups across the United States.

Public Talk “Israel’s Innovative Mind” Tuesday, 19 November 2013

 

Australian Friends of Hebrew University, WA Division invite you to a talk by

Prof. Ronnie Friedman

Vice-President for External Relations & University Advancement, Professor of Immunology, Former Dean of Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment

“Israel’s Innovative Mind”Tuesday, 19 November 2013
7:00 pm (light Kosher supper will be served)
7:30 pm (talk begins)
Maurice Zeffert Home, 119 Cresswell Rd, Dianella

RSVP to Nikki Leib by Monday, 11 November 2013wafhu@austfhu.org.au

Prof. Ronnie Friedman, Vice-President for External Relations and University Advancement is a Professor of Immunology and holds the Ron Barbaro Chair in Veterinary Medicine. He is former Dean of the University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, former Head of the Department of Animal Sciences, and former Vice-Dean for Teaching.
Born in South Africa, his family made Aliya in 1960 and he grew up on a moshav near Jerusalem. Prof. Friedman earned his B.Sc. in Agriculture and his M.Sc. in Immunology from the Hebrew University, and his Ph.D. in Immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science. He undertook postdoctoral research in Immunology at Harvard Medical School and has since spent time there as a research fellow and a visiting professor. He has also been a research fellow in avian immunology at the Institute of Animal Health in the United Kingdom.
Prof. Friedman’s research interests include nutritional approaches to improving immune responses and resistance to disease in poultry; development and function of the entire immune system in omnivorous birds; and mechanisms of peripheral tolerance to protein antigens.
He has published some 100 papers, reviews and chapters in peer reviewed journals and scientific volumes, and delivered over 200 conference and seminar papers and guest lectures in Israel and abroad.