When It Comes To Business, Israel Obliterates Lebanon

OK, so blogger is being really stupid. I was in the middle of posting something and then I lost it. Then, I couldn't get back on here. Anyways, I had written something about democracy and capalism and comparing it between Lebanon and Israel, but it's gone, and I can't remember what I wrote. Anyways, I have another long round-up to do. The business title has to do with all the awesome business developments that going on in Israel despite a war and neigbors about to break out into major civil war. That's what a solid capiatlist and democratic foundation gets you. You can be in a war, where 33.3% of your entire civilian population and infrastructure are threatened and under constant attack, and still survive economically. It's an extremely poor sign of your country's democractic and capalistic strength when, after less than 1% of your infrastructure is hit by precision bombing, your economy completely collapses. That's just the way those things work.
-This year, Israel jumped to 15th place in WEF competitiveness rankings.
-Last week, Jpost reported that a significant amount of oil was discovered in the Dead Sea area. This has the potential to be a massive discovery as Israel and the rest of the West look to develop energy independence from the Middle Eastern dominant OPEC nations. In the search to find out whether this oil is economically viable, Tshuva will join Ginko Oil Exploration Ltd in exploring the oil field. It will be a 50-50 partnership.
-Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, an Israeli company, and the largest generic drug manufacturer in the world, has been listed as a "buy" and is recommended as the basis for any solid stock portfolio. This announcement was given by Leader Capital Markets. They also listed Teva's target price at $45 a share, which is 25.7% higher than its current rating.

[...] Leader says that anyone wishing to buy Teva can expect to pay a premium of 50% on the current market price, reflecting a market cap of more than $40 for the company. Leader notes that Teva and its chairman Eli Hurvitz stand apart from the rest of the market due to their skill in long-term planning and execution, and their ability to accurately predict market developments. They are also unique for their approach that sees shareholders as real partners who are entitled to a share in the company’s potential by way of convertible bonds, and gives them priority over considerations of stock dilutions, control groups and capital structures.
[....]

-Well, another giant hi-tech company is opening up another business in Israel. Agilent Technologies Inc. has just opened its new R & D center in Petach Tikva. For now, it will be dedicated to developing wireless communications measuring equipment.

[...] Agilent has joined the long list of high-tech giants with R&D centers in Israel. Agilent’s center is important because electronic measuring equipment is barely known in Israel. Also, in contrast to other international companies, Agilent has not acquired a local start-up as the foundation for its R&D center, but has set it up from scratch.

In an exclusive interview, Byrne told “Globes”, “We’re starting with an R&D center, which will focus on customers. Later, we’ll probably support research carried out by Israeli research institutes (such as the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology). We realized that if we want organic growth, we must begin with a small project. We’re therefore starting with a small team, fewer than ten people whom we’ll hire in the coming months. We’ll then move forward step by step.”
[....]

-With all these hit-tech startups, of which Israel has the most in the world, it is no surprise that the Nasdaq loves Israel.

Now that the number of Israeli companies has hit 75 on the Nasdaq, Israel is the foreign country with the largest number of firms traded on that U.S. market.
[...]
Fischer revealed that during the early days of the war, TASE officials called him to ask whether they should stop trading for a few hours or days to prevent a crash. In spite of the opinions of others, including politicians and investors, Fischer was insistent that trading continue. Fischer and the TASE decided to continue trading - and was proven right as after initial losses, the market stabilized quickly.
[....]

READ THE REST...
-Moving on to other matters, as the West, especially the EU and the U.S., attempt to stave off a civil war from erupting in Gaza, leaders are using diplomaspeak in order to create paint a rosier picture than reality would warrant. This is especially true when it comes to Mahmoud Abbas. As this "moderate" leader is being paraded as the vanguard of peace in the Middle East, people like Condoleeza Rice, Jacque Chirac, and even Tony Blair are putting words into the Fatah leader's mouth in order to create the illusion that a unity government is still on the horizon and that Abu Mazen is the peace loving tree hugger they portray him to be. Unforunately, reality and Abbas' own words paint a very different picture.

Abbas dupes US: "Recognition" is functional, not inherent

“Abbas: Hamas must recognize Israel,” announced the headline on the lead story in today’s Jerusalem Post. The article went on to report that “PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas vowed to fire the Hamas-led government before the end of the month unless... they accepted Israel's right to exist. Abbas made his pledge in a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who expressed Washington's full support for the PA chairman and his Fatah party in their confrontation with Hamas."

Only the day before, however, Abbas said on PA TV that Hamas does not have to recognize Israel – nor does his own Fatah faction: “Hamas is not required to recognize Israel… It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel.”

He went on to say that government officials must “recognize their counterparts” in order to “solve people’s problems,” indicating that this does not constitute an inherent recognition of Israel, just a functional recognition that allows the PA to get what it needs:

“I do not demand of Hamas nor any other to recognize Israel. But from the government that works with Israelis in day to day life, yes.”

It appears that Rice has been duped into believing that this is a sincere recognition of Israel. She told Abbas after their meeting: "We have great admiration for you and leadership," and is quoted in The Jerusalem Post as saying that the US will “redouble efforts” to help the Palestinians.
[....]

-It appears that Jews are still being called "their dogs", by the Muslims; only it's not just happening in the vitriol Middle East. It's also happening in America, "even in" San Francisco. I put "even in" in quotation marks since San Fran really isn't the peace loving flower in their hair hippies they make themselves out to be. They're nly liberal and open minded if you believe in and agree with what they believe in. If you don't, they're "surprisingly" uptight and violent.

A man brazenly shoots his way into the Jewish Federation of Seattle, kills a woman, and wounds four others, three critically. As he opens fire, the alleged assailant shouts: "I am a Muslim and I'm angry at Israel," as if to indicate that his religious affiliation gives him permission to kill Jews.

In a second incident, Mel Gibson, a Hollywood director and actor, is arrested in Malibu, on suspicion of drunk driving. He allegedly, screams at the officer: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," not realizing that nearly all today's wars are Islamic wars. He also asks his arresting officer: "Are you Jewish?"

In the third incident, Palestinians, in the streets of San Francisco, chanted proudly in Arabic and without fear of being detected: "The Jews are our dogs."

The common denominator in all three incidents is hate, racism, intolerance, and bigotry. While Jew-hating is not a new phenomena, it has recently become the insult de rigueur in many parts of our society.
[...]
The incident happened when I was at the anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco on Thursday, July 12. The demonstation, organized by a Palestinian group called Al Awda, was loud, boisterous, and passionate. Suddenly and shockingly, demonstrators began chanting in Arabic: "Al Yahud Kelabna," or the Jews are our dogs.

My first reaction to the Palestinian chanting was one of disbelief. Then I felt a mixture of fear, anger, and heavy-heartedness. Terrible memories cascaded before me taking me back to when I was a young boy, growing up in Egypt. These memories included Egyptian mobs descending upon the Jewish quarter of Cairo chanting "Al Yahud Kelabna," followed by violence that left some Jews dead and injured, and the community dazed.

Egyptian Muslim mobs no longer do this, because there is no longer an Egyptian Jewish community to speak of. We once were over 80,000. Today there are fewer than 50 Jews remaining in Egypt. Indeed, once thriving Jewish communities in ten Arab countries were likewise cleansed. Today, virtually no Jews remain in the Arab or Muslim world.

Arab spokesmen blame the creation of Israel, but, in reality, the situation of Middle Eastern Jewry began to deteriorate years before Israel was established.
[...]
Also heard at the anti Israel demonstration were chants such as "Black, red, brown, white! We support Hezbollah's fight! Black, red, green, blue! We support Hamas too!" Personally, I found it rather ironic when demonstrators were screaming at me to "go back to Europe." The ignorance of these demonstrators is profound: the majority of Israel's Jewish population is like me--we are Jews of color from Arab and other Muslim countries.

The demonstrators in San Francisco last week attacked Jews, not Israel. They did it in Arabic thinking perhaps only they would be in on the "joke." They didn't count on a group of indigenous Middle Eastern Jewish "dogs" being present at the counter-rally across the street.

They clearly felt certain that we are "their" dogs. In Arab culture, dogs are considered filthy, dirty beasts, and negotiating with "dogs" is not an option. Historically Jews were often identified this way because for centuries, we were living as a subjected people under the dominant culture of Islam.
[....]

-After more than a year of literally wondering the desert in search of a home, the first Gush Katif evacuees have been given plots to build their new permanent homes.
-For a police force that doesn't allow the majority of its crime fighting man-power to carry weapons, it's rather ironic that the UK has always considered its police force as ranking at the top in the entire world. It's even more ironic that they boasted this perceived fact on the morning of July 7th, 2005, right before a bomb went of on the tube of the London Underground, and it was apparent that the police didn't have the faintest clue as to what they were doing or were supposed to do in that kind of situation. This next article is a good read for those who want to learn about the UK Police's vicious cycle.

The British like to believe that their police force, the oldest in the world, is also the best, though they're careful saying that out loud ever since the current commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, said that his force's antiterrorism preparations were the "envy of the world" in a radio interview, and a couple of hours later the bombs went off in the London Underground.

The grim reality is that the police in Britain can scarcely claim to be any better than their counterparts elsewhere. An unprecedented epidemic of armed crime is sweeping inner-city Britain, and the police seem ill equipped to handle it. In at least two cases since the 7/7 bombings, bungled antiterror operations led to innocent civilians being shot, there is a general rebellion of drivers against traffic rules, and of course, there's the racism thing.
[...]
There have obviously been many instances of racism by police officers toward blacks, Muslims, Hindus and, of course, Jews; unfortunately the reports and the media storms they generated forced police commanders into an impossible vicious circle of having to prove their political correctness while trying to continue with their policing duties.
[...]
In the immediate wake of the London bombings, it was Blair and other senior police officers who led the "don't blame Islam" chorus aimed at exonerating the community that had hatched the home-grown suicide bombers.

On the morning after the bombing, I interviewed one of these officers in London. He confirmed that British policemen had traveled to Israel to learn how to counter terror attacks against public transport. In the space of a five-minute interview, he must have repeated at least three times the mantra that "of course methods like these are impossible in an open pluralistic society like ours."

Two weeks later police shot down an out-of-work Brazilian electrician in a London street who had been mistakenly identified as a terrorist.

The latest scandal over the Muslim police constable, Alexander Omar Basha, who was allowed to refuse to guard the Israeli Embassy in London during the Lebanon war despite being assigned the job, should come as no surprise in this context of a beleaguered police force, anxious not to offend the Muslim community in any way while trying to defend the city from Islamic terror.
[...]
To accept this account of events, you've got to believe that Hizbullah, at the height of war, had the resources to record every officer guarding every Israeli embassy and consulate around the world and to determine their identity and whether they had a brother or a cousin in Beirut. And then to go after them. But then, ridiculous policies call for ridiculous explanations.

-Onto the UN. Yes, I know. I'm tired of talking about them also, but, in light of the rapidly developing North Korea situation. As the entire Western World, and some in the East as well, are calling and screaming for sanctions against the Swedish porn lover's country, it still seems that any sanctions against Iran for their nuclear program are still very far from being put on the table. Maybe, if they ask Ahmi if he likes Swedish porn too, they'll be more inclined to spank him.

ANALYSIS: Iran and the UN - no sanctions on the horizon

It is difficult not to respond cynically to Washington and Europe's announcements of impending sanctions against Iran. This story has been going on for four years. In February the International Atomic Energy Agency resolved to report Tehran to the United Nations Security Council after finding the regime ridicules, deceives, evades and breaches promises.

But in August, the five permanent members of the Security Council could not agree on the next move. The U.S. wanted sanctions; Russia and China disagreed; Europe tried to mediate.

The truth is that is the story now, too. True, the Security Council, a huge ocean liner sailing slowly and struggling to change direction, has made a little progress. But Iran has been given another "last chance."
[....]

-Needless to say, the "United Nations'" credibility is on the line. Wait, did they every have any to begin with???
-Again, as the U.S. rallies the diplomatic troops in the UNSC in order to "condemn" North Korea, again read: spank them, with sanctions that will simply lead to even more millions of people without food and starving to death under Kim JungII, why do these despot psychos always have such hard names to spell?, what really needs to get done is that the U.S. needs to look at how it got into this mess.

Our World: History's dangerous repetition

It would seem that Karl Marx got things backwards. History does not repeat itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Rather, it repeats itself first as farce and second as tragedy. This, perhaps more than anything else is the conclusion one should reach from North Korea's nuclear test on Columbus Day.

It was the Clinton administration, which back in the Roaring '90s began the policy of appeasing North Korea. Throughout the decade the US wined and dined the North Korean Stalinists who always responded by pocketing US concessions and escalating their nuclear and ballistic missile activities and threats against the US and its Asian allies.

The farce was then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's visit to Pyongyang in late October 2000, two weeks before the US presidential elections. There, after the North Koreans tested the Taepo-Dong 1 ballistic missile off the coast of Japan in 1998 and refused to end either their missile programs or missile exports to Iran, Albright tripped the night fantastic with Kim Jong-Il. Her buffoonery was a perfect capstone to eight years of the Clinton administration's addiction to ceremony over substance.
[...]
THERE IS of course also North Korea's ally Iran. Toward Iran, too, the substance of the Bush administration policies is little different from that of his predecessor. Like North Korea, the Iranians respond to US attempts at appeasement by escalating their rhetoric and redoubling their offensive military build-ups of missiles and nuclear capabilities.

The great shift, then which occurred under the Bush administration, a shift for which President George W. Bush has been pilloried by his political rivals, has been rhetorical.

While hypocritical, the division between rhetoric and substance has something to recommend it. The benefit of the current US position toward North Korea and Iran is that the rhetoric has left open the possibility that the policy itself will finally be suited to reality. Today, unlike the situation in the 1990s, the American public is at least aware that these states are a threat to US national security interests.

In the aftermath of North Korea's nuclear bomb test, the US can support military actions by Japan and South Korea against North Korea; build up its missile shield; and perhaps end its 14 year self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing and so revamp its nuclear arsenal.

Were the Bush administration to change its policy tomorrow regarding Iran - begin shaming Europe into ending its appeasement, and threatening Russia with trade sanctions if Moscow continues supporting Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, while building up its military options to strike at Iran's nuclear installations - the American public would understand why the policy change was necessary. Indeed, such a move could even help the Republican Party in the upcoming elections.
[....]

-Speaking of Security Councils, Israel plans on reporting the escalation of Kassam rockets being fired into Israel to the UN. Whereby, the UN will tell Israel that reporting the matter is a disproportionate use of talking, and they will cite Shimon Peres' "Kassam Shmasam" remark as proof to this effect.
-Getting back to our peaceful neighbors who only want to live in peace next to us with their own peaceful states. It seems that at least 50% of Arabs living in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria support suicide bombing and bombers. This poll follows the trend since before the second intifada started, so this statistic is fairly trust-worthy. Oh yeah, and remaining consistent with the numbers, more than 50% of those who answered the poll said that they support the resumption of military operations against Israe. Yup, our peaceful neighbors who have never wanted anything else than to live in peace next to us. Oh yeah, just for safe measure, those of you who think that this statistic exists as a matter of support for "freedom fighting" really need to look at the respondents for when in the Oslo peace bubble era. I know. I know. Reality's a bitch.
-Next up is the Baskin Robbins of the terrorist world. When it comes to Gaza, it's 31 flavors. There's a terrorist group there for every taste. Besides Al-Queda nicely setting up camp and making its presence known in the Strip, there are at least 16 terror groups operating throughout Gaza. So, pick a card, any card. You can't go wrong.
-Finally, when it comes to condemning Islamic violence, all moderate voices out there have to denounce it without falling prey to the tempting propoganda.

[...] Americans must be wary of political leaders who accept the propaganda explanations. To win the war on terror, America's leaders must recognize the powerful role of the Islamic religious principle of jihad, Islam's belief that it must conquer the world, which derives from the above hadith. Belief in jihad is what causes so many Muslims worldwide to cheer terrorist acts such as 9/11, European subway bombings, and Hezbollah and Hamas attacks against Israel.

Allowing jihadist teaching to continue is like allowing cancer cells to survive in a human body.
[....]

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hi-Tech, Technology, Business, Globes, Nasdaq, Stock, United, States, America, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hizbollah, UN, United+Nations, North, Korea, Iran, Europe, UK, Britain, Cancer, Arab, Muslim, Islam, Terror, Terrorist, Oil, Dead, Sea, Energy, Nuclear, Nuke, Power, Marx, Clinton, Bush, Albreight, Gush, Katif, Jihad, Gaza, PA, Palestinian, Authority, Abbas, Hamas, Fatah