Following new agricultural trade agreement signed between Israel and EU, chocolate, pastries, pasta, coffee and other products exported to continent will enjoy tax exemptions as of January 2010
Good news for Israeli food manufacturers: As of January 1, 2010, food products exported to Europe will enjoy tax exemptions. The products include chocolate, pastries, waffles, pasta, coffee, fruit juice concentrates, marshmallow, fresh salads, and more.

As a result, the prices of Israeli products in European markets could be reduced, increasing their competitiveness.

Following diplomatic efforts, President Obama signs memo eliminating import subcharge on dairy products from Israel. Exports of milk products to US totaled $6 million in 2007

So far, the exports of Israeli processed foods have been exported to Europe under restrictions of high levies, preventing their exports in some cases.

The tax exemption was reached as part of a new agricultural trade agreement signed between Israel and the European Union. The new deal was signed last weekend in Brussels, in the presence of Israeli Ambassador to the EU Ran Curiel and the ambassador of Sweden, which is the current EU president.

This new situation could serve as compensation for Israeli manufacturers, like Strauss and Osem, in light of the recent weakness in the Israeli food and beverages market.
The European market is the main market the Israeli processed food industry trades with, as 50% of the food imports to Israel are from the European Union and 44% of the exports in this sector are directed to EU markets. The volume of exports to Europe is estimated today at around $650 million.

“The agreement is expected to bring about a liberalization of about 95% in the commerce in processed food between Israel and the European Union, and significantly increase the competitiveness of the Israeli food industry in exports to Europe,” said Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

As for Israelis jumping ship – the more the better. In fact, I’d rather have all your kind over here in the US (where you all really wanted to be in the first place) than bugging the Palestinians with your acquisitive culture.

Israel’s in fourth in global scientific activity, ranking just behind Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark for the number of scientific publications per citizen, according to a report presented at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan on Monday.
Based on figures from 2005, the report, which was compiled by the Council for Higher Education, also shows that in that year alone, Israeli scientists and researchers published 6,309 essays and articles in foreign scientific journals. According to those figures, nearly 1 percent (.089%) of all scientific publications in 2005 came from Israel.

While impressive, that number was a slight drop from previous years. In 1997, for example, 1.03% of all scientific publications came from Israel.

Additionally, citations of Israeli publications by other scientists were extremely high. According to the report, Israel Institute of Technology-Technion professor Avram Hershko, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004, published 148 articles and was cited more than 16,000 times.

Finland, the Netherlands and Canada followed Israel in the report, while the United States placed 12th, and Germany placed 15th. Japan, Britain and Russia also fell behind Israel.

Israel’s role in global scientific activity is nearly 10 times the size of its percentage of the world’s population, the report shows.

On August 20 Neve Gordon, the chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and a long-time Ta’ayush activist, published an op-ed piece in the LA Times. In his piece, Gordon has called Israel an Apartheid state and voiced his support for the BDS campaign as the only means of saving Israel from itself. The response was a firestorm. BGU’s president, Prof. Rivka Carmi, personally led the attack against Neve: she threatened to fire him, said he is “welcome to consider another professional and personal home,” and argued that his views are not protected by his academic freedom. The message is clear: anyone who voices criticism of the sort Neve has is risking a public smear campaign if not his or her job.

Please write President Carmi (li.ca.ugbnull@imracr) to protest her treatment of Neve and her understanding of academic freedom and freedom of speech. Please also sign the online petition.

http://www.taayush.org/topics/neve.shtml#english

Time to boycott Israel
(guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/21/israel-international-boycott)

Education Minister slams Israeli lecturer’s ‘apartheid’ op-ed (haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109492.html)

Ministers Sa’ar, Margi slam anti-Israel article written by BGU lecturer
(jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418678166&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)

This from by Sever Plocker on the consequences for academics visiting the UK and how Israel is perceived in UK universities.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3798761,00.html

A thorn in the world’s side

Israel in midst of freefall on global front, yet we’re preoccupied with nonsense

I’ve been invited to deliver a lecture about Israel’s economy and society at Oxford University. As it is a short lecture, and a respectable forum, I gladly accepted the offer. The invitation was extended about six months ago. Yet now, as my trip approaches, I feel concern. I’m hesitating.

My acquaintances are warning me: Don’t go. Hostile elements will cause disturbances, protest, shout and interfere. The atmosphere at British universities is anti-Israel to an extent unseen in the past. Israel is perceived as a thorn in the civilized world’s side.

An Israeli professor who quietly left a prestigious British university told me: “My academic and social life there was intolerable. Colleagues stayed away from me as if I was a leper. I was not invited to meetings, which were shifted from university buildings to private residences in order to keep me out. The fact I openly expressed leftist views was to no avail. My objection to the occupation and endorsement of a return to the 1967 borders made no difference. In practice, I became ostracized.”

“Today you are a welcome guest in the British and European academic world only if you reject the very existence of the colonialist and imperialistic creature that methodically commits war crimes, known as Israel,” he said. “Today it isn’t enough to condemn Bibi and Barak; in order to be accepted by academia outside of Israel one must condemn the Balfour Declaration.”

British academia’s radicalism highlights the accelerated deterioration in Israel’s status and image. We are in the midst of a freefall on the foreign affairs front. The cold peace with three Muslim states – Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey – has turned into a cold war. Israelis are unwelcome guests in these and many other states, where in the past we were embraced.

Meanwhile, Israel failed in its efforts to isolate Ahmadinejad’s Iran and disqualify it as a member of the family of nations. Ahmadinejad is having a grand time.

Bibi doesn’t see the change

The intimate dialogue that in the past characterized the relationship between the US president and Israel’s prime minister is paralyzed. The pipeline of dialogue is clogged. India and China, the two emerging powers, voted in favor of adopting the Goldstone Report at the UN’s human rights commission. Ever since then, it has been etched on Israel’s forehead as a Sign of Cain.

Friendly governments, such as France and Britain, are turning their backs on us while currying favor with local sentiments. Israel’s membership in OECD, which was largely a done deal in the past, is distancing again – because of the growing negativity vis-à-vis Israel and not because any technical dispute. By coincidence, or not, large foreign investors are pulling out of Israel.

Does everyone hate us? Possibly so, yet the fact is that up until six months ago Israel enjoyed an extraordinary boom on the foreign affairs front, both in terms of its foreign ties as well as in global public opinion. This fact points to one source for the deterioration we’re seeing: The new government in Jerusalem.

Indeed, this is a government elected by the people and it reflects the preferences of voters, who wanted a coalition comprising Likud, Shas, and Yisrael Beiteinu. As such, Netanyahu appointed Lieberman foreign minister, did not agree to a government rotation with Kadima, was unable to arrange a work meeting with the Palestinian Authority president, and conveyed a message of indifference towards the peace process.

Yet worse than this, the 2009 Netanyahu does not understand the world, and he mostly fails to grasp the change taking place within conservative parties, which are close to his political positions. Today they are the source of harsh criticism against the Israeli government; Netanyahu’s government.

The current anti-Israel wave is particularly dangerous especially because it is not limited to the media and to leftist groups that traditionally were classified as “Israel haters.” This wave is rising, expending, drawing young people, and painting the perceptions of the well-established middle class and influential elites.

Israel’s image has hit a nadir; it is isolated, unwanted, and perceived as bad. The world is telling us that should we continue along the same contemptible path, we will lose our legitimacy.

Yet we’re preoccupied with nonsense.

these professors have got it coming to them. hopefully,you’ll be able to get them a job in the uk or usa when they get kicked out of theirs in israel.