Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer announced on Monday a surprise cut the prime interest rate as part of his battle to fight the appreciation of the shekel and help the economy to keep growing. The financial markets responded with the shekel-dollar rate rising more than 1.5 percent to the level of 3.61 shekels to the dollar.

Fischer announced the interest rate cut two weeks ahead of the usual end-of-the-month decision on whether to change the rate.

The dollar was worth only 3.55 shekels last week, dropping over the past several weeks from the relatively lofty level of 3.8 shekels to the dollar.

A lower shekel-dollar rate hurts exports because foreign buyers have to pay relatively more dollars than they would when the shekel is worth less. In addition, exporters make less money after converting foreign dollars into shekels.

Factors in the lower rate are the anticipation of tax revenue from Israel’s natural gas bonanza, which came on-stream several weeks ago, Warren Buffet’s $2 billion purchase of the remaining shares of the Israel-based Isracar tool-making company, the possibility of a $1 billion buyout of Waze by Facebook, and the relatively stable Israeli economy.

Fischer cut the rate by a quarter of a percent, with the new 1.5 percent rate making the shekel less attractive to foreign investors.

After the Bank of Israel’s two small purchases of dollars the past three weeks in an effort to keep speculators from forcing the shekel-dollar rate any lower, Fischer announced on Monday a massive dollar-buying plan on the scale of his purchases several years ago when the shekel-dollar rate sank to 3.30.

The Bank of Israel said the decisions to lower the rate and buy dollars was made “in light of the continued appreciation of the shekel, taking into account the start of natural gas production from the Tamar gas field, interest rate reductions by many central banks – notably the European Central Bank, the quantitative easing in major economies worldwide and the downward revision in global growth forecasts.”

The Bank of Israel added that global growth forecasts, especially for Europe and China have been revised downward, which effect Israel’s economy.

It explained that the program to buy dollars takes into account “the effects on the financial account resulting from the natural gas production” that will result in foreign exchange payments by the gas companies.

“As in the past, the Bank of Israel will continue to operate in the foreign exchange market in cases of exchange rate fluctuations which are not in line with fundamental economic conditions, or when conditions in the foreign exchange market are disorderly,” the Bank of Israel added.

Waze and Facebook have reached an impasse in their negotiations, but not over whether Facebook will buy Waze for 700 million dollars, or a clean billion, but over Israel, according to the Israeli site Telecom News.

Facebook wants to close down Waze’s Raanana office, and transfer some of the developers to the U.S.

While the proudly Zionist Waze wants the development facility to remain in Israel.

Both companies are holding their ground on this issue.

Of course, Facebook is also not noted for their particularly great coding skills, and the Waze people may be concerned about what will happen to their product if Facebook developers start playing with it without adult supervision.

Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom #179.

While struggling to turn around an expanding (5%) budget deficit, Israel sustains its unique role as a pipeline of commercial, defense and homeland security technologies to the U.S. and the Free World.  Israeli technologies, shared with the U.S. industry, have enhanced the U.S. employment, research & development and exports.

1.  Facebook about to acquire Israel’s Waze for $1BN.  In January, Waze turned down Facebook’s offer of $500MN (Israel Hayom, May 10, 2013). Warren Buffett completed acquisition of Israel’s Iscar – $2BN for the remaining 20% of Iscar.  $4BN were paid for 80% (Globes, May 1).  NYC’s KKR Private Equity acquired (from NYC’s Warburg-Pincus Ventures) 75% of Israel’s Alliance Tires Group for $500MN (Globes, April 15).  Israel’s Prolor was merged into Miami, FL’s Opko for $480MN (Globes, April 25).  San Jose, CA’s Avago Technologies acquired Israel’s Cyoptics for $400MN (Globes, April 12).  China’s Fosun Pharma acquired Israel’s Alma Lasers for $240 Million (TechTime, April 29).  J.P. Morgan sold 21% of Israel’s CaesarStone (held by Israel’s Tene’ Investment Fund) for $170MN, on NASDAQ (Globes, April 15).

2.  Japan’s Sony extends its medical tech investments, investing $10MN in Israel’s Rainbow Medical investment fund, joining prior giant investors: Minnesota’s Medtronic, Illinois’ Abbottand Italy’s Sorin.  Sonny is seeking Israeli acquisitions. Israel is a research & development hub for GE Healthcare, Phillips, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific and Switzerland’s Roche, which have acquired Israeli companies and have invested in scores of Israeli start-ups (Globes, May 9). GE inaugurated a software research & development center in Israel (May 1).

3.  London’s Amadeus Capital led a $17MN round of private placement by Israel’s ClickTale (Globes, May 1).  Israel’s Micronet Enertec raised $8MN on NASDAQ (May 6). Waltham, MA’s Battery Ventures participated in a $6MN first round of private placement by Israel’s FTBpro (Globes, May 9).

4.  The scope of Leviathan’s offshore proven natural gas reserves is larger (19 Trillion Cubic Feet) than expected (17 TCF), according to Yedioth Achronot, May 2).

5.  Israel’s unemployment decrease to 6.5%, during the first quarter in 2013, derives from increased integration – by Arabs and ultra-orthodox Jews – into the job market. The average unemployment rate is 10.9% in the EU, 12.1% in the Euro Bloc and 25% among the youth of the Euro Bloc.

6.  “In January, Intel executive Greg Slater noted that many of his company’s major innovations over the past three decades started in Israel—including the latest ‘Ivy Bridge’ and ‘Sandy Bridge’ microprocessors, which accounted for 40% of Intel revenues in 2011….Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, said in 2006 that ‘the innovation going on in Israel is critical to the future of the technology business….’ Scores of major U.S. manufacturers—from General Electric GE to General Motors, GM, Microsoft, IBM, Google, Apple and others—have R&D centers and technology incubators in Israel…. Israel [contributes] to the U.S. economy thousands of skilled professionals, hundreds of joint patent applications, and hundreds of coauthored scientific and technical papers…. (Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2013).”

Visit The Ettinger Report.

Israel’s rumor mill spun out of control with reports that Facebook is buying the Israel’s Waze for up to $1 billion, but neither company has officially confirmed that negotiations are taking place.

The Waze app has more than 45 million users, who share road location data with other users. The app connects with Facebook, showing tens of millions of Facebook users where their friends are and also use information to help them navigate traffic quicker.

Facebook has been burned before, when premature leaks of the purchase of the Israeli-based Face.com company almost ruined the deal because the price of Face.com soared.

Previous reports on talks by Waze have proven to be nothing more than rumors, and  the Israeli Globes business website reported on Thursday that a $ 1 billion price tag, double the amount that was rumored a few months ago, may be too rich.

Waze has a highly successful navigation map but does not have a platform that can generate income for Facebook.

However, Facebook can exploit Waze’s Facebook usage and take away search traffic from Google.

“What search is for the Web, maps are for mobile,” Waze Chief Executive Noam Bardin said at a mobile conference last month. “The searches you do on mobile that actually are monetizable, and are different from the Web, are searches that have to do with location.”

A Facebook buyout of Waze would help make it easier for Facebook’s 750 million mobile users to find they want on their smart phones. through Facebook. That means more ad revenues for Facebook – and  less for Google.

Israel Daylight Savings Time (DST) has long been a bone of contention between the religious and the secular communities. The extended summer clock is a major problem for religious Jews. I recall, back in New York, heading to the early minyan in pitch darkness in mid October, which was never enjoyable and also presented a problem in terms of when it was halachically appropriate to put on a tallit. Needless to say, I gravitated to the later minyanim, but that’s a luxury religious Jews in Israel cannot afford, as the work day here begins at 8 AM, and so they need to be done and in the car going to work by 7.

Traditionally, the Interior Ministry, which decides these things, has been held, more often than not, by a religious minister, and so, despite vociferous objections from secular Israelis who wanted their autumn days longer, DST usually ended here right before or right after the high holidays (nothing sweeter than a Yom Kippur fast that ends at 6 PM).

But now, following the great Lapid-Bennett victory, the new Interior Minister is Gideon Sa’ar, a secular Likudnik, who is bent on flexing some secular muscle on DST.

A committee that had been appointed by the outgoing Shas Interior Minister Eli Yishai—because the secular folks were pushing him relentlessly—extended the maximum DST period from 190 to 198 days, which the religious promptly protested but eventually accepted.

Now Minister Saar has appointed yet another committee to examine the issue, which should submit its report within a month, according to Yedioth Aharonoth, and if you don’t think it will recommend extending the daylight savings period then you haven’t listened to a word I’ve been telling you about Israeli coalition politics..

Haredi politicians from both black hat parties were smart enough to refuse to comment on the prospects of a longer DST, preferring not to ignite a new firestorm over this issue—which they couldn’t possibly put out. The votes are stacked against them.

For comparison, in Europe the summer clock is stretched over 218 days, and in the U.S. a whopping 239 days, which makes you wonder if the measly 126 winter clock period deserves to be named “Standard.”

Minister Saar wrote on his Facebook page yesterday: “The purpose of the committee is simple, to determine the best arrangement for the citizens of Israel, having examined all relevant aspects. I instructed the committee to hold hearings quickly and efficiently, in an effort to complete them within a month.”

And vote in favor of the secular.

This is one more area where the Israeli—and European—notion of democracy differs from the Anglo-Saxon. Over here, democracy means making sure the will of the majority is expressed in government decisions. In British-influenced civilized democracies, the purpose of legislation is to protect the interests of the minority.

The headline for this story translates roughly as “Extremists replace the picture of the Dome of the Rock with Talmudic writings.”

The Palestinian news site pls48.net reported:

Jewish religious leaders do not stop targeting the Al-Aqsa Mosque, trying to harm it in many ways, with daily attacks on the mosque and with Talmudic rituals which are a prelude to building a temple on its ruins.

In the latest attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Yehuda Glick, one of the leaders of an extremist religious Jewish group, a promoter of the myth of temple rebuilding and one of the prominent settler organizers of incursions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, published a photo in a special page on Facebook, showing the Dome of the Rock has been replaced by the hat worn by Jewish settlers and inscribed with Talmudic slogans, in an attempt to perpetuate the occupation by Jews and install the temple, which they claimed used to exist there – at the expense of the holy mosque.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for the Protection of our Heritage said that these malicious actions demonstrate the magnitude of the plot that surrounds the entire Al-Aqsa Mosque and confirm the ambitions of the occupation, as part of an increasing number of desecrations targeting various holy sites.

It really makes you wonder if the Arabs still have a sense of humor, because if they don’t, then the Jews are definitely winning this one.

I have never been sexually abused. I therefore have no real way of identifying with the pain suffered by victims of abuse. All I can do is take the word of the victim about the pain they suffer. And of course observe the tragic consequences when the depression a victim falls into as a result of both the abuse the reaction to them by their community. Those consequences are sometimes so severe that they end up in suicide for the victim.

Recent events here in Chicago have once again resulted in a resurfacing of this issue. I am not going to name names. Full disclosure requires me to say that I know and admire some of the people involved. But I am not in a position to interview them. Nor am I in a position to judge them since I do not know all the details of the case. But based on what has surfaced so far in the public square I feel the need to speak out so as to be consistent in my approach to sex abuse.

Here is what I know so far.

An 18 year old female victim who is a student at a religious school here in Chicago posted on her Facebook page about the sex abuse she suffered. When officials at the school discovered this, they asked her in a very insensitive way to remove it as that violated the school’s code for use of social media. She was severely reprimanded for this violation and unless she removed the ‘offensive’ content from her Facebook page she faced a possible expulsion.

The outrage from some in the “victims’ advocates” community against officials of the school came fast and furious… defending the victim’s right to express her pain in any way she saw fit. They condemned the official response of the school. Some are even asking heads to roll. That is the way some see it – calling it a no tolerance policy. I call it ‘slash and burn’ policy.

I completely understand a no tolerance policy when it comes to sex abuse and fully support it. The question arises when such a policy is extended to secondary concerns – important though they may be.

Should there be a slash and burn policy in every case where an official errs in how they handle the pain of a victim? Should the welfare of a fine institution with exceptional leaders be destroyed because someone made a mistake? Should the career and good name of someone who has contributed so much – and many decades of service – be instantly destroyed because of a few poorly chosen words – hurtful though they may have been?

I don’t think that’s right.

Personally, I do not think the response was appropriate. There is little doubt that victim was hurt beyond anyone’s imagination by the abuse she received. And she was once again hurt here. Based on what is public knowledge about this case – this should not have been done. The response seemed cruel to me.

In defense of the institution, they have every right to set a policy for the use of social media and demand that it be followed. And I fully support a school’s right to carry out whatever consequences they spell out in their literature for violations of that policy.

On the other very legitimate hand, doing so in this case – especially the way in which it was done – was using very poor judgment in my view. A school’s right to carry out its policies does not mean they can’t use discretion when it is warranted. When it comes to victims of abuse, there is no better time to use that discretion. What was warranted here was compassion.

I do not fault the school for telling the victim that she should not have used social media to express her pain. This does not stifle her from expressing it. All it does is limit who will have access to it. No matter how much pain a victim suffers, it does not give them the right to use a shotgun approach to disseminating it to the world. There are other – far better ways to do that. Like speaking with parents; or counselors who are experienced in these issues; or a sympathetic teacher; of even a group of intimate friends.

George Galloway, a member of the British government from the Respect Party, has made it clear that his abrupt departure from a debate at Oxford University last Wednesday, when he learned the person he was debating was Israeli, was not an impetuous move.  Instead, Galloway’s bolt was based upon his firmly-held belief in boycotting anything and everything about Israel except anti-Israel Israelis.

Galloway posted a message on his Facebook page Monday, February 25, because he felt it necessary to clarify certain questions that arose after his departure from Christ Church College last week.

He made several points.

First: that no one is going to tell him what the parameters of BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) against Israel are; he will boycott anyone and everyone who supports the “racist Apartheid creed of Zionism,” which he described as a “cancer at the heart of the middle-east.”

Here, Galloway was responding to a public statement issued the day after Galloway’s widely-publicized exit by the “Palestinian BDS National Committee” clarifying that the official position of the movement is to boycott Israel and anything that supports the “Occupation,” but it does not boycott individuals, whether Israeli or Zionist.  Galloway’s supporters, such as Israeli Israel-hater Gilad Atzmon, turned on the BDS Movement for trying to distance itself from Galloway’s action by calling them suck-ups to their Evil Zionist Paylords, including “liberal Zionist George Soros.”

Second: What he will and does embrace are any Israelis or Jews who despise the state of Israel for the same reasons that he does.  He provided an example: Israeli ex-pat now British prof. Ilan Pappe, whom he calls his comrade.

Pappe is well-known for his belief that Israel is guilty of the ethnic cleansing of Arabs in the 1948 war of independence, and his ardent support of their “right” of return. “What turned me into a great lover of the Palestinians is the will of many among them to share the land with us,” he explained in 2008, even people in Hamas.”

The third point Galloway made was to attack and ridicule the organizer of the Oxford debate, Mahmood Naji, a fourth year medical student at Oxford.

When Galloway walked out of the debate and in subsequent discussions about the incident, he repeatedly claimed Naji had “deceived” him because his debate opponent’s Israeli heritage was not made known to Galloway before the debate.  Naji finally had enough of the slander and published an open letter to Galloway, calling him to task for his ridiculous claims.

In his letter, Naji wrote that Galloway never asked about his opponent’s nationality when the debate was set up. “As the organiser, am I to know about every one of your views? Should I let you know if your opponent is a vegetarian in case you have a policy of not debating vegetarians? Am I misleading you if I do not tell you your opponent’s shoe size?” Naji suggests that it would be at least highly irregular for someone to inquire about, and make a decision about whether to engage in a debate dependent upon an opponent’s nationality.

Incidentally, Galloway referred to Naji as an “Iraqi Muslim,” but, as Naji told The Jewish Press, “I find it somewhat ironic that he assumed from my name that I am a Muslim (I am in fact atheist) but was not able to use these same powers of inference to suspect Eylon [Aslan-Levy] may be Israeli.”  Naji was born in Iraq but has lived in England for more than 15 years and is a permanent resident.

Naji’s responses to Galloway have all been logical, but he could have gone even a step farther: exactly whom did Galloway think was going to be taking the opposite position in a debate the topic for which was, “Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank”?

Here is Galloway, in his own words:

Me and the Palestinian cause: A number of questions have recently arisen I need to deal with. Firstly if people want to talk to the Palestinians they need to contact the Palestine Liberation Organisation. This is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and has been for many decades. Secondly, an organisation calling itself “BDS” does not own the words or the concept of boycott, divestment or sanctions. They are entitled to their own interpretation of these words but they don’t own or control me. I will make my own interpretation. And it is this – no purchase of Israeli goods or services, no normal contacts with individuals or organisations in Israel who support the existence of the racist Apartheid creed of Zionism. That’s what I mean by boycott. That’s what I do. Israelis who are outside of and against the system of Zionism are comrades of mine – like Prof Ilan Pappe. My opponent at Oxford University did not meet this test. The organiser of the event momentarily lionised by the liberal as well as the conservative establishment needs to know this, especially as he is a medical student. To compare Israeli Zionism to “Vegetarianism” is like a doctor not knowing the difference between a pimple and a tumor. Apartheid Israel is a cancer at the heart of the middle-east. Only it’s replacement by a bi-national democratic state from the Jordan River to the sea will cure this. That is what I am fighting for. George Galloway MP House of Commons London

After one of Galloway’s supporters insisted that Mahmood Naji must be a “secret Zionist,” Naji weighed in.