Israel’s Frutarom flavor technology company’s appetite continues to grow with the announcement Thursday of the purchase of the American flavor company Hagelin and its affiliate NRC Operating Company for $52 million.

It is Frutarom’s third buy-out of a foreign company in a month and counters the trend of American companies purchasing Israel high-rech startups.

Frutarom recently bought Russia’s Protein Technologies, a savory and seasoning compounds company,  and Guatemala’s Aroma.

The Israeli firm said that the purchase of Hagelin will help expand its product line and introduce advanced technology to its operations.

Hagelin’s markets extend form the United States to Britain Central and South American, and Africa.

Alan Gross’ wife and Washington’s Jewish community are calling on President Obama to prioritize securing his release from a Cuban jail and will attend a demonstration at Lafayette Park outside the White House at noon next Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment.

Judy Gross and officials from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington will be joined by leaders from other religions and local elected officials.

Gross, a subcontractor for the State Department on a mission to hook up Cuba’s small Jewish community to the Internet, was arrested in December 2009 as he was leaving Cuba. He is serving a 15-year sentence for “crimes against the state.”

At the rally, Judy Gross will read an excerpt of her most recent letter from her husband, who wrote in an excerpt of the letter the family provided to JTA, “It is clear that only the president of the United States has the power to bring me home.”

“On behalf of my family and myself, on behalf of every American who might ever find himself or herself in trouble abroad – I ask President Obama to direct his administration to take meaningful, proactive steps to secure my immediate release.”

Judy Gross told JTA in an interview that her husband, 64, is depressed and is in chronic pain from arthritis. “The best thing to do is contact the White House,” she said she’d tell people at the rally.

The Cuban government has indicated that it wants the United States to allow the return of Cuba five spies currently in prison or on probation in the United States.

Middle East experts are experts by virtue of their positions of power.

Some of them, like former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, even have learned a thing or two about international affairs. Rice actually has a Ph.D., which as comedian-pianist Victor Borge once said, should be read as “phttttttttttt.”

The experts, and that includes John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Catherine Ashton and the Oslo Accords crowd, may have learned about prophets, kings, oil and sheikhs in International Relations 101, but they missed out on the basics, like selling non-kosher turkeys to the Arabs.

I learned more about Arab-Jewish relations by working in kibbutz turkey barns than Kerry and Ashton could ever learn in their worldwide visits to official residents of presidents and prime ministers in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Amman.

Turkeys, like people, are cute when they are babies, but after a few weeks, they are not like most people. Their feet are scratchy and they begin to stink. When they get to be three months old, some of them pick up a cold, a little bronchitis, or start to hobble on weak knees, probably from too many carbohydrates.

Then they start acting like grown teenagers. The stronger turkeys pick on the weaker ones, just like fifth-graders playing king of the hill. They peck at the skin until the poor gobbler cannot stand on his feet.

When I was in charge of the birds on a kibbutz farm, the sick and injured had their own quarters, a fenced-off intensive care ward where the bullies couldn’t bother them. But sometimes it was too late. Their broken legs and their bronchitis often are more than modern medicine can cure on a cost-efficient basis.

What can you do with a sick and lame turkey? You sell it cheaply. After all, the reason to raise turkeys is turn them into fat candidates for the slaughterhouse and convert them into cold cash. The Humane Society really does not have much demand for them.

That’s where a revised International Relations 101 course could have taught the experts, sitting in their sterilized offices, something besides making roadmaps to nowhere. Even Professor Yossi Beilin, the darling of the Israeli Left, doesn’t know a kibbutz from Damascus.

Peace is a business, like anything else these days. But you have to know the rules of the game. A good Western businessman knows that a handshake is a handshake, a word is a word, and a deal is a deal.

For instance, Tom wants to sell his two-year-old Chevy for $5,000. Clyde wants to buy it for $4,000. One of them budges or there’s no deal. Jim tries to cut a deal at $4,400. If Tom and Clyde compromise at $4,500, Tom gets his money and Clyde gets his wheels. As for Jim, that’s his problem.

But that’s not the way it works in the Middle East. Here, Abe writes out a check and Ahmed gives him the key. The next day, Abe discovers the key doesn’t fit. “Of course it does not fit,” Ahmed retorts. “The price of the car was according to the real value of the dollar. The inflation rate went up 0.2 percent yesterday. You owe me $10!”

Abe protests, “Where’s the cell phone antenna that was on the roof? I am stopping payment on the check. You owe me $25 for the bank charge.”

“I’m not finished stripping the car,” retaliates Ahmed. The DVD is mine, but I’ll put back the original radio. It works most of the time, especially the Al Jazeera channel.”

“Look, here,” snarls Abe. “I paid you $4,500, but that was based on the price of gold. It went up two cents yesterday. The real price is $4,498.09.”

“You can add another $120 for the deluxe hub caps, or I’ll take them with me,” Ahmed shouts.

They agree to talk again tomorrow. That was 10 years ago. They still are talking.

It doesn’t matter that Abe still has to thumb a ride to work and that Ahmed does the same because he doesn’t have enough money for gas. The principles are that the other guy didn’t get what he wanted so they can continue arguing.

In Western societies, negotiations are a means to an end. The objective is to make a deal so both sides get what they want.

Israel  has been holding for three years an Al Qaeda terrorist, once arrested by Americans a decade ago, after he tried to infiltrate into Israel to train Palestinian Authority terrorists to stage a biological attack, it was revealed on Sunday.

The terrorist was identified as 39-year-old Samer Abed al-Barak, who had been arrested by American authorities and jailed in Guantanamo Bay in 2003. He was released three months later to Jordan, where he was a free man but later was arrested for terrorist activities. Jordan let him go in 2008 and apparently tipped off Israel that he would try to cross into Israel, according to documents filed in court by the Justice Ministry in response to a petition to free him.

Authorities said Al Barak had studied microbiology in Pakistan and tried to enter Israel via the Allenby Bridge in 2010 to put his knowledge to good jihad use and train Palestinian Authority terrorists to manufacture poisons for a biological attack in Israel.

Al-Barak also was planning a similar attack on Jewish tourists in Jordan.

His administration detention is to expire in several days but can be renewed once more, and the Justice Ministry told the court that releasing him would produce an immediate and serious threat to Israel. It is not known why he has not been charged and placed on trial.

His lawyer said he was engaged in Pakistan in “humanitarian activities,: which is a nifty Al Qaeda code word for “killing Jews.”

Government officials confirmed the detention after it was published in the media.

The government’s defense in court said that al-Barak is from Kuwait and moved with his family to Jordan and then to Kalkilya, in Samaria, before landing up Pakistan in 1995, where he obtained a masters’ degree that gave him his background for producing biological weapons. Al Barak moved on to Afghanistan to engage in military training.

He joined Al Qaeda in 2001 after being recruited by the terrorist organization’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Russia and Egypt are set to sign a major arms deal that is of similar value to the amount of aid the US had been sending to Egypt until it froze much of it last month, according to a report in Makor Rishon. The deal is valued at 1.2 billion Euro (1.6 billion dollars).

According to the report, unlike US aid, the Russian deal explicitly has no strings attached, and Russia says it will not get involved in local Egyptian politics.

Furthermore, at the meeting held two days ago, Russia said they would also direct Russian tourists to the visit the Egyptian pyramids, a move that would strongly bolster the local tourism economy that thrives mostly on those visits. Tourism is one of Egypt’s most important industries.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told General el-Sisi that Russia will support the Egyptian roadmap, respect the current [Egyptian] government, and have no intention of getting involved in the internal issues of another country.

He added that Russia is prepared to support Egypt in all areas to help restore the country. He described Egypt is a central partner in the Middle East with whom they have deep ties, and plan to deepen them further.

These statements are the exact opposite of those emanating from John Kerry and the US government, who have been placing conditions on continued US support for the current Egyptian government.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister was careful to point out that the new closeness between Egypt and Russia should not be viewed as coming at the expense of its relationship with the US.

Sure.

The US has tied aid to Egypt on progress towards democratic elections and a civilian government, while ignoring that democratic elections are what brought the radical Islamic Morsi government into power, that the Egyptian army was forced to overthrow.

Saudi Arabia has also pledged to match US aid to Egypt, as have some other Middle Eastern countries, making it unlikely that the US plan to reintroduce a radical Islamist democracy into Egypt unlikely.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu publicly stated on Wednesday that he ordered Housing Ministry Uri Ariel to retract his plans for development of the controversial E-1 area of Maaleh Adumim because of expected reaction of the international community at the same time he is campaigning against letting  up the pressure on the Islamic Republic.

He said Ariel’s decision to advance the project by hiring an architect was “an unnecessary confrontation with the international community at a time when we are making an effort to persuade elements in the international community to reach a better deal with Iran.”

Ariel, a member of the government coalition partner Jewish Home party, has not commented and is licking his wounds. Prime Minister Netanyahu took a deep breath and two weeks ago when he tolerated Ariel’s leading an unsuccessful battle against freeing more Palestinian Authority terrorists in order to continue the struggling discussion between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Stopping a “bad deal” with Iran is paramount in Netanyahu’s policy, and he immediately snuffed out Ariel’s once he heard about them. Ariel’s plans for homes in the E-1 area, although it is part of the city of Maaleh Adumim, set off alarm bells in Washington and Ramallah and triggered a short crisis that Netanyahu quickly defused at the cost of building an image of following orders from the Obama administration.

“At this time, the attention of the international community must not be diverted from the main effort – preventing Iran from receiving an agreement that will allow it to continue its military nuclear program.,” Netanyahu told the Knesset.

Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Shatayyeh finally have quit as Palestinian Authority negotiators after endless threats to do so because of Israel’s audacity to continue to permit Obama’s “illegitimate” Jews to build their homes in Judea and Samaria.

Erekat’s previous resignation was reported here two weeks ago, and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas quickly rejected it, but this time he accepted their decision. He added that maybe, just maybe, he can convince Erekat to change his mind.

Wednesday’s act in the Peace Talks Follies followed reports on Tuesday that Israel’s Housing Minister Uri Ariel is going ahead with plans for 1,500 new residential units in Judea and Samaria.

Erekat, with deft timing, pounced on the opportunity to resign, which Abbas ascribed to “lack of progress” in the discussions with Israeli negotiators Tzipi Livni and Shlomo Molcho.

Abbas has brilliantly danced circles around the Obama administration so that the U.S. State Dept. has no choice other than to dance to his tune or bail out as a power broker, which it isn’t anyway.

He told CBC television in Egypt, “Either we can convince it to return, and we’re trying with them, or we form a new delegation,” he said. Either way, “Bring on the clowns.”

Talks with Israel won’t resume for a week, giving the State Dept. plenty of time to put on a spectacular show of damning Israel, perhaps enough to give Erekat a sense of satisfaction that he caused more humiliation of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

On the other side of the coin, several Likud Knesset Members said after Wednesday’s Palestinian Authority terrorist murder of an IDF soldier that Livni and Molcho should quit the talks in protest over continuing terror.

That is not going to happen, but Wednesday’s murder certainly might be the last straw that will break the Cabinet’s back and refuse to approve stage three in the four-step release of Palestinian Authority terrorists.

If the Cabinet refuses next time around, it is bye-be to the peace talks, and Israel can justifiably point the finger at Abbas for not combatting terror while pretending he wants a Palestinian Authority country that will protect Israeli citizens.

A New York restaurant deliveryman was awarded $900,000 for enduring 16 years of anti-Semitic harassment by three supervisors, a U.S. District Court jury in Brooklyn decided after four hours of deliberation

Adam Wiercinski sued the Mangia 57 restaurant in Manhattan, where he stated that one manager would pass gas in front of him and then joke that it was Zyklon B, which was used in the Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust, The New York Post reported.

Wiercinski, whose father’s family died at the hands of the Nazis, said he had to explain what Zyklon B was to the jury because they were “very young.” “When I explain how it was used in the gas chambers, they were very serious. Everybody [in the courtroom] was silent,” he told the Post.

Supervisors also called him a “dirty Jew” and threw pennies at him while making anti-Semitic comments, and they docked his tips.

Wiercinski did not quit because he felt he was too old to get a new job.

Employees at the restaurant and caterer, which has three Manhattan locations, have denied the harassment took place, and the restaurant is expected to appeal the decision.

The point of this report is not that Wiercinski won his lawsuit.

The point is that in the United States of America, no would think that nearly seven decades after the Holocaust, someone in the capacity of a restaurant manager in the city of the Statue of Liberty, in the city attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists, would act like an ignorant Nazi guard at a death camp.

No one would think that.

Think again.