Ha’aretz reports on a new Israeli startup that has developed technology to detect terrorists:

Quietly, even stealthily, this unknown company has been working for five years now on one of the more interesting technological innovations to be created in these parts.WeCU (”We see you,” in case you are unaccustomed to SMS-speak) promises an automated system to detect people with mayhem on their minds. The system integrates methods and doctrines from the behavioral sciences with biometric sensors.

According to the company’s founders, in under a minute it can screen an individual, without his or her knowledge or cooperation and without interfering with routine activities, and disclose intentions to carry out criminal or terror activity. It can identify subjects who are not carrying any suspicious objects, do not demonstrate any suspicious behavior, do not fit into a predefined social or other profile and do not arouse any suspicion.

Unlike systems currently in use, such as polygraphs or biometric systems based on identifying an individual under emotional pressure, WeCU does not attempt to determine whether the subject is lying, concealing information, under stress or feeling guilty. Instead, it seeks to identify concealed intentions by uncovering an associative connection between the subjects and defined threats.

What isn’t clear is if this system would be deployed in public spaces or if it would utilized in interrogations. On the one hand the company’s saying that it can screen suspects “without interfering with routine activities” on the other hand the CEO goes on to explain:

How does it work? Givon explains: “The technology is patented. We take advantage of human characteristics, according to which when a person intends to carry out a particular activity or has a great acquaintance or involvement with a particular activity, he carries with him information and feelings that are associated with the subject or activity. In effect, his brain creates a collection of associations that are relevant to the subject.”When this person is exposed to stimuli targeted at these associations - such as a picture of a partner to the activity, items from the scene of a crime that he carried out, the symbol of the organization in whose name he is acting or a code word - he will respond emotionally and cognitively to these stimuli. The response is expressed with a number of very subtle physiological and behavioral changes during the exposure to the stimulus,” Givon said.

If the system exposes the subject to “stimuli” how does it do that effectively unless it’s in a controlled environment (such as an interrogation)?

The Guardian’s technology blog wonders (where I first saw the story):

There’s not much info on WeCU Technologies Ltd, but it is a Microsoft Partner and was “incorporated in August 2003″. The partner page has a summary of the approach, but the link to its web page doesn’t work.

While there are some questions about WeCU, one of the founders of the company, Prof. Shlomo Breznitz was previously involved with another startup, Mindfit Technologies that also focuses on cognition.

The trial was conducted at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center of Tel-Aviv University in Israel, where researchers are taking a leading role in the study of age-related disorders. During the two-year clinical trial, doctors conducted a prospective, randomized, double-blind study with active comparators of 121 self-referred volunteer participants age 50 and older. Each study participant was randomly assigned to spend 30 minutes, three times a week during the course of three months at home, using either MindFit or sophisticated computer games.While all study participants benefited from the use of computer games, MindFit users experienced greater improvement in the cognitive domains of spatial short term memory, visuo-spatial learning and focused attention. Additionally, MindFit users in the study with lower baseline cognitive performance gained more than those with normal cognition, showing the potential therapeutic effect of home-based computer training software in those already suffering the effects of aging or more serious diseases.

“These research findings show unequivocally that MindFit, which requires no previous computer experience of users, keeps minds sharper than other computer games and software can,” said Prof. Shlomo Breznitz, Ph.D., founder and president of CogniFit. “In fact, the same cognitive domains that MindFit keeps sharp are also central in most daily activities-including driving-that enable aging independently.”

Breznitz continued, “These findings support CogniFit’s belief that if you exercise your brain just as you do your muscles, you can build the speed and accuracy of your mental functions, significantly. ‘Working out’ with MindFit three times a week from the comfort of your home will yield similar results for your brain as exercising at the gym with that same frequency does for your muscles.”

In unrelated news Prof Breznitz was saved from the Holocaust by being hidden at a Catholic orphanage.

In somewhat related news Japan is considering fielding a facial recognition device to determine if a person buying cigarettes from a vending is of legal age (20 in Japan) to do so.

Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow’s feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country’s 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.

By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co’s system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000 people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.

And infra-red sensors give the Air Force an opportunity to detect and eliminate a threat to soldiers on the ground.

The sniper never knew what hit him. The Marines patrolling the street below were taking fire, but did not have a clear shot at the third-story window that the sniper was shooting from. They were pinned down and called for reinforcements.Help came from a Predator drone circling the skies 20 miles away. As the unmanned plane closed in, the infrared camera underneath its nose picked up the muzzle flashes from the window. The sniper was still firing when the Predator’s 100-pound Hellfire missile came through the window and eliminated the threat.

The airman who fired that missile was 8,000 miles away, here at Creech Air Force Base, home of the 432nd air wing. The 432nd officially “stood up,” in the jargon of the Air Force, on May 1, 2007. One year later, two dozen of its drones patrol the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan every hour of every day. And almost all of them are flown by two-man crews sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of a “ground control station” (GCS) in the Nevada desert.

I suppose that there are those who will see in this increased use of video and recognition technology a manifestation of Big Brother. In the limited use they’ve been deployed so far, it doesn’t seem that governments are getting too intrusive. Then again maybe it would be reassuring if governments limited this technology for really important stuff instead of (unsuccessfully) saturating society with it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Jimmy Carter in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section:

The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished.This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.

Israel and the US refused to accept the right of Palestinians to form a unity government with Hamas and Fatah and now, after internal strife, Hamas alone controls Gaza. Forty-one of the 43 victorious Hamas candidates who lived in the West Bank have been imprisoned by Israel, plus an additional 10 who assumed positions in the short-lived coalition cabinet.

As I’ve commented in the past, Jimmy Carter’s say-so that elections are “honest and fair” is worthless as he’s covered for elections stolen by Yasser Arafat and Hugo Chavez.

Still Carter, is not a lawyer and knows nothing about international law. However, David B. Rivkin and Lee Casey specialize in the subject and outlined Israel’s rights and obligations according to international law.

It is because an occupying power exercises effective control over a territory that international law substantially restricts the measures, military or economic, it can bring to bear upon this territory, well beyond the limits that would be applicable before occupation, whether in wartime or peacetime.The Israeli military does not control Gaza; nor does Israel exercise any government functions there. Claims that Israel continues to occupy Gaza suggest that a power having once occupied a territory must continue to behave toward the local population as an occupying power until all outstanding issues are resolved. This “principle” can be described only as an ingenious invention; it has no basis in traditional international law.

The adoption of any such rule (designed to limit Israel’s freedom of action and give Hamas a legal leg up in its continuing conflict) should be actively opposed by the United States. Its adoption would suggest that no occupying power can withdraw of its own volition without incurring continuing, and perhaps permanent, legal obligations to a territory. This issue is particularly acute regarding territory not otherwise controlled by a functioning state — failed states or failed areas of states where the “legitimate” government cannot or will not exercise effective control. Such places — call them badlands — were once rare. Over the past 15 years, though, there has been an explosion in the number of such areas, notably parts of Afghanistan, Somalia and portions of Pakistan.

I suppose that Jimmy should be flattered, they called his declaration that Israel should not be allowed to defend itself “ingenious.” I don’t think they meant it in a complimentary fashion though.

Furthermore restricting Israel’s right to defend itself, has implications in relation to the United States.

Unduly handicapping states that intervene in such badlands — whether to protect their own interests, those of the local population or both — is unrealistic and irresponsible. Requiring agreement by the “international community” (whatever that may be) as a precondition for extinguishing such a designation is equally unproductive if the goal is saving lives. Consider the example of Darfur.Even worse is pretending that groups such as Hamas are merely criminal gangs that must be dealt with as a local policing problem — just one of the potential side effects of imposing an “occupied” status on a territory. This implicates U.S. interests directly, since America’s ability to use robust armed force against al-Qaeda and similar non-state actors remains critical to defending our civilian population from attack.

Perhaps rather than lecturing us about international law, Jimmy ought to sit down and read a book or two on the topic before spouting off.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

One of the thing conservatives like me marvel at is the way the supposedly objective media will describe a conservative politician who adopts liberal positions as having “grown” in office. It doesn’t really mean that the politician became more flexible, because a politician moving in the other direction would be described as “having become more conservative.” What “grown” means is “he’s become more like us.”

That’s how to approach the Washington Post’s U.S. Jews’ Relationship With Israel Evolves. “Evolves” in this case means the same thing as “grown” in the context mentioned above.

Growing up at Congregation Olam Tikvah, Michelle Pearlstein remembers how Israel was taught at religious school: “Black and white — you can’t trust anyone, and it was a united front in support of Israel.” Today, Pearlstein, 35, is the Israel specialist at the Fairfax synagogue, where she teaches what is now the mainstream approach: “We call it ‘Israel, warts and all.’ “The change in curriculum is but one manifestation of the changing relationship between American Jews and the Jewish state, even as the country celebrates its 60th birthday this week.

Multiple new polls show that younger American Jews feel less of a connection to Israel than older Jews. And while there is heated debate about some of the polls’ methodologies and conclusions, most Jewish leaders are very concerned about the data. The leaders see them as a long-term byproduct of intermarriage, assimilation and controversial Israeli policies, including settlement expansion in the occupied territories.

I’d put that last bit differently, “… growing ambivalence, reflecting attitudes seen in the media, towards such non-controversial Israeli policies as defending itself against terrorist organizations.” But of course emphasizing “settlements” as “controversial” underscores the reporter’s belief that American Jews are becoming more like her.

Then there’s this:

What affect would a weakening of the emotional link between Israel and American Jews have on U.S. policy toward the Middle East? Last month, a group of left-leaning Jews established a lobbying group hoping to counter the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has often lobbied U.S. governments to maintain a tough line toward Israel’s adversaries.

J-Street is of course not the result of the “weakening” of an “emotional link,” rather it is the expression of contempt by a segment of Jews towards Israel. Though masquerading as a leftist “pro-Israel’ lobbying group, it features the likes of Henry Siegman who has made a career of ripping Israel and apologizing for the likes of Hafez Assad, Yasser Arafat and Hamas.

Experts in Jewish education describe replacing mushy classic ballads like “Jerusalem of Gold” from the 1960s with tracks from Israeli rappers who sing about immigration and sexuality, or jettisoning lessons about pioneering kibbutzim and replacing them with ones about Israel’s technology wunderkinds.

While I can’t disagree with the later sentiment, the first one is offensive. “Jerusalem of Gold” (”Yerushalayim shel Zahav”) is not mushy. It’s beautiful. At least to my (untrained) ear. More likely the problem with it is that it was written Naomi Shemer an Israeli who was associated with the political right and who was proud of her country. And those who wish to see the American Jewish relationship with Israel “mature” have no place for for feelings of nationalism and pride.

Pearlstein said much of the teaching material about Israel is outdated. Either it sticks to Biblical Israel and does not go beyond 1948, or it ends at 1967 — the Six-Day War. “I think that’s because recent years have been so negative,” she says. Her main goal is to teach students to have a connection with Israel, “to show that Jews have always been in this land, we can see it in the Bible and we can see it today.” But you have to do it frankly, she says, by showing “shades of gray, Israel’s challenges as well as its achievements.”

I don’t have a problem with the “shades of gray.” Israel is a country run by people, so obviously it won’t be perfect. The problem is that those who see the importance of adding the “shades of gray” are looking for opacity; they’re looking for for a really dark gray that will block out all light of achievement. (Pardon the cheap metaphor.)

Read (most of the articles in) the Forward or read James David Besser in most American-Jewish weeklies. I would argue that neither of them are pro-Israel. The problem isn’t that they present shades of gray. It’s that the image of Israel that they project is almost unremittingly negative. The problem isn’t that education about Israel in the Jewish community is overly romanticized; it’s that many of the public forums in the Jewish community unfairly criticize Israel.

The evolution hailed by the Washington Post is, in reality, a step back.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The woman killed by a kassam rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the terrorist group that Sami al-Arian was convicted of raising money for, has a name: Shuli Katz.

She leaves behind her 90-year-old mother. Her mother is in a retirement home.

She leaves behind four children. One of them, her son, was with her during the attack, and probably saw her die.

She leaves behind five grandchildren. None of them will see their bubbe again.

None of these facts will find their way into the AP, Reuters, or AFP stories about Shuli’s death. The AP finally updated its story, but the focus is still on the Hamas truce demands. And they still have Katz’s age wrong, and no name, nor quotes from family, nor even circumstances of her death. From Ynet, with an update time of 00:33 Israel time (17:33 Eastern time):

Qassams claim another victim: Shuli Katz, a 70-year-old resident of Kibbutz Gvaram was killed early Monday evening from a Palestinian Qassam rocket which crashed into the backyard of a residential home in Yesha – a small community belonging to the Eshkol Regional Council.

A widow, Katz is survived by four children, five grandchildren and her 90-year-old mother, who lives in a retirement home.

She sustained critical injuries from the impact and MDA paramedics alerted to the scene fought to resuscitate for some time before ultimately calling the time of death. Medics also treated a 50-year-old man for shock.

It doesn’t say if the 50-year-old man is Shuli’s son. But note the time: 5:33 p.m. Eastern standard time. Now look at the AP lede, with a timestamp of 6:10 p.m. Eastern standard time.

A rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed a 75-year-old Israeli woman Monday, just as an Egyptian mediator was winding up truce talks in Israel - underlining both the urgency and complexity of working out a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

The rocket hit a house in the village of Yesha, about four miles from the Gaza Strip. As recently as Friday, a fatal rocket attack drew reprisal Israeli airstrikes that killed five Palestinians in Gaza.

That’s it. No name, nothing about the survivors—all information that Israeli reporters managed to get. Compare this with the reports of Palestinian civilian casualties. Two weeks ago, the news was filled with stories about the Palestinian family that was killed “while eating breakfast” by a supposed Israeli tank shell. (It was subsequentlly shown to be the explosives on terrorists hiding outside the house.

And if the media do acknowledge Israeli victims, you usually get the terms “settlers” or “ultra-Orthodox” appended to the victims.

Welcome to Israeli Double Standard Time. It occurs on days that end with a “y.”