EXPO 2020 DUBAI - Israel Participates

Video Of The Week - Israel's Virtual Embassy in Gulf States - https://tinyurl.com/y4ryydxb

 Expo 2020, scheduled for October next year in Dubai.

From J.Post - BY MORAN ZAGA, JUNE 22, 2019 - https://tinyurl.com/y42dqjl4

 While Israel was excited to host the Eurovision competition in May, in the Arab Gulf States, international events are held almost on a daily basis. One of the most prestigious of them is Expo 2020, scheduled for October next year in Dubai. The Expo ranks as the third most important global event after the Olympics and the World Cup (slated for 2022 in neighboring Qatar). While 132 states had signed up for the fair as of August 2018, Dubai’s leadership continued to debate Israel’s participation. On April 2019, Expo organizers issued a festive statement saying all countries “without exception” were welcome to attend. “For more than 170 years, World Expos have been apolitical events focused on furthering humanity for the common good through innovation, cultural exchange, creativity and collaboration. We are proud to continue that tradition,” according to the communique. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the news, writing, “This is another expression of Israel’s rising status in the world and in the region.” Whether Netanyahu’s insight meets reality or not, Israel’s participation provides itself with an unusual diplomatic opportunity, for which it must prepare wisely to fulfill.

The Expo events afford tremendous economic values for the participating countries, as well as the opportunity to shape their national image within the global community. The exposure to millions of visitors and the platform for establishing direct contacts among diplomatic representatives and key figures from around the world generates a unique hub of diplomacy. Indeed, beyond its importance for Israel’s economy and image, Israel’s participation in this event, hosted by an Arab Muslim country it has no current and past diplomatic relations with, is a significant achievement, which reflects the nature of Israel’s current relations with the UAE.

On the one hand, the UAE, as the host of an international event, is expected by the international community to provide access to all countries, including Israel. As a result, the UAE and other Gulf countries have legitimized in recent years the arrival of Israeli nationals to international conferences and tournaments they hosted. In that sense, the UAE’s decision to invite Israel to Expo 2020 does not reflect a change in the status of ties between the two states, nor does it forecast the beginning of direct and formal relations. On the other hand, meeting this international code points to the UAE’s willingness to compromise on anti-normalization measures toward Israel.

Currently, the UAE government distinguishes between bilateral ties with Israel and international cooperation with it, leaving room to maneuver in the case of the latter. In the international realm, an Israeli representative office has been operating for the past three years in Abu Dhabi, the capital, under the auspices of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Israel and the UAE also conduct joint air force exercises and business cooperation in the fields of diamond trade and cyber technology, under international umbrellas. The UAE was a pioneer among the Gulf States in allowing an Israeli sports team to display its national symbols at the October 2018 international judo championship in Abu Dhabi, in which the Emiratis also hosted Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev according to full ceremonial protocol. Additional sports events in the UAE, such as tennis tournaments, a car race and the Special Olympics have also included growing participation of Israeli delegations in recent years.

Conversely, the UAE strictly limits bilateral relations with Israel, conditioning them on a resolution to the Palestinian issue. Accordingly, the country has been outspoken in its criticism of Israel regarding measures it defines as unjust toward the Palestinian people. Therefore, it does not cooperate with Israel in areas such as culture, research, tourism, industry and media despite mutual interests in doing so.

AT THE same time, we are witnessing a new phenomenon in which Gulf citizens express support for Israel and call for the establishment of direct ties with Israel on social media. Khalaf al-Habtoor, a leading Emirati executive, asked on Twitter why the Gulf States are not signing a peace agreement with Israel, the “same as Egypt, Morocco and Jordan have done before.” Such voices do not regard Israel as an enemy, and view cooperation with it as a vital source of regional stability and development. While not reflecting an official government line, they signal a gradual shift from a formerly taboo subject to an increasingly acceptable opinion. These expressions of interest in bilateral relations create a crack in the traditional demand that has placed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the key obstacle to normalization with Israel.

The gap between the official UAE policy toward Israel and the mutual courtship between the two nations demonstrates that Israel is on the cusp of a formative phase in these relations. At this point of time, Israel would do well to leverage the relative openness of the Gulf States toward it by expanding its involvement in the region. Just as Israel sought a formal invitation to Expo 2020, it should continue to identify opportunities, map scheduled international events in the Gulf and ask to participate. Israel should also invite Gulf countries to take part in international events it hosts.

One important issue that arises from increased interactions between Israel and Gulf States is the need to study the culture, values, sensitivities and local laws when preparing Israeli delegations for excursions in the Gulf. Such preparation should be overseen by a government agency, which will formulate a plan for ties with the Gulf States and will be put in charge of these ties through diplomatic, security, economic and civilian channels. By so doing, Israel’s presence in the Gulf could become more acceptable and even be expanded. However, if Israel seeks a more significant opening to the region, it must advance a resolution of the Palestinian issue through a genuine process that would also be of great benefit for its ties with the Gulf States. Above all, Israel must acknowledge these new nexuses of power in the Middle East and draw up a corresponding map of alliances. Its integration into the expanding circle of opportunities emerging around the Gulf countries has the potential to be triplicate beneficial, since it consists of bilateral, regional and international opportunities.

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Startup Nation is becoming the AI Nation

Video Of The Week - The Future For Europeans  -https://tinyurl.com/y5akhxj2

‘This sector’s vital signs are positive,’ reports IVC Research in its summary of Israeli artificial intelligence startups.

ISRAEL 21C - By Brian Blum  11.12.2018 - https://tinyurl.com/y5ykxobc

Israel has a well-earned reputation as the Startup Nation. But it’s also becoming the AI Nation.

More than 1,200 artificial intelligence (AI) companies have been established in the country since 2010; 79 percent of them are still active and 6% have been acquired, reports IVC Research, which adds that “this sector’s vital signs are positive.”

Exits (where a company is either acquired or goes public) were higher in the first half of 2018 than for all of 2017, IVC adds.

The mix of AI companies in Israel has also changed – particularly in the last four years.

AI companies in Israel have traditionally focused on computer vision and this is where most of the development activity has been.

Jerusalem-based Mobileye, for example, builds systems that “watch” how your car is driving and sound an alert if you’re getting too close to another vehicle or veer out of your lane. Computer vision technology is now the basis behind Mobileye’s AI-centric approach to self-driving cars.

Beginning in 2014, though, there has been an increase in the share of companies implementing “data science” (a catchall name that encompasses data mining, statistical inference and prediction models) into their product lines. That’s been accompanied by a decrease in companies whose technology is more about computer vision, recommendation systems and text analysis.

IVC Research broke out the percentage of companies it tracks in each sector for the years 2010-2018.

• Recommendation systems (5%) – companies that use mathematical models to predict and recommend user preferences. Example: Outbrain, which has raised $144 million.

• Text analysis and NLP (8%) – companies which recognize and analyze the content and context of speech and text. Example: Twiggle, which has raised $35 million.

• Sound recognition and analysis (10%) – companies that analyze and process sounds for applications such as voice assistants. Example: Gong, which has raised $26 million.

• Chatbots, robotics and assistants (11%) – companies with technology that imitates a human interface. Example: Lemonade, which has raised $180 million. 

• Computer vision (20%) – companies which acquire, process and analyze digital images. Example: Mobileye, which was acquired by Intel for $15.3 billion.

• Data science and analysis (43%) – companies that build statistical models for data mining and analysis. Example: Gett, which has raised $597 million.

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An Ancient Village That Never Existed

Video Of The Week - EU illegal activities on area C - https://tinyurl.com/y46qtavv

From Israel Hayom – 12-6-2019 - By Naomi Kahn

A joint project of the Palestinian Authority and the European Union is taking over a strategic area in the center of Gush Etzion, creating a "historic" village out of thin air.

The Palestinian Authority, aided by the European Union, is taking control of a strategic area in the heart of the Gush Etzion bloc, between Highway 60 and Neveh Daniel. Over the past two years, the P.A. has created, out of thin air, a “historic” village – that just so happens to be located on a strategic point adjacent to the Jerusalem-Hebron highway. The name given to this new “ancient” village: Shoshkhalah.

Yishai Hemo, Judea and Samaria field coordinator for NGO Regavim, describes the methodology: “Over the course of the past two years, activists from the Arab town of Al Khader, backed by P.A. and European Union funding, occupied the ruins of two ancient shomerot  (watchman’s huts) – primitive stone structures used by passing shepherds or farmers as shelter from the elements – that dot the landscape in the Jerusalem and Sataf areas. They renovated these abandoned structures and turned them into homes – and from that point, in very short order, totally new structures have been added in the surrounding area.”

The signs posted on the refurbished buildings, proudly bearing the European Union emblem, explain that the site is an ancient village – Shoshkhalah – despite the fact that aerial photos paint a completely different picture: In the past two years, more than 15 homes have been built in this “village,” each connected to solar power infrastructure and water tanks paid for by the Europeans. Analysis of aerial photos from 1967, as well as historic maps dating back to 1880, prove that there was never any settlement of any kind at the site.

“This is another phase in the PA-European Union program to seize control over strategic  areas,” says Hemo.

“We are all too familiar with the program – from illegal construction in the Adumim Region, from land grabs and highly developed construction projects on Israel Defense Forces training grounds in the Hebron Hills and Gush Etzion, and from the extensive agricultural work that the P.A. is carrying out as a means of securing ownership rights to tens of thousands of dunams that have been illegally seized for Roots Project activity.

“The ‘ancient village’ of Shoshkhalah is just one more example of the fact that there is no such thing as a vacuum. When the State of Israel fails to regulate and register land in Judea and Samaria, the PA takes advantage of the opportunity to seize this land and annex it, de facto, to its jurisdiction.”

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