Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the Holy Land for a week long tour, the first since Pope John Paul II came in 2000 and only the third visit in recent papal history.

Bringing and escorting the Pope around Israel is not a simple matter.  In fact, much of Jerusalem is coming close to shutting down this week to make way for an enormous security detail.  Dubbed “Operation White Cloak”, His Holiness will have over 80,000 security personnel in his retinue, including over 60,000 policemen.

Hashmira Security Technologies LTD. has set up a command and control center to supervise secuirty during the Pope’s visit to Israel.

According to an article in Globes:

Hashmira’s command and control center will provide remote monitoring solutions of the sites being visited by the Pope to Israel’s police and security forces.

The system that Hashmira has set up is estimated to have cost millions of shekels and will link to the Pope entire itinerary while he’s in Israel, including Jerusalem’s Old City, Yad Vashem, Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, the Notre Dame Hospice in Jerusalem, the residence of the Vatican Ambassador to Israel, and the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

Photo credit: Associated Press

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Looking for bit of irony? How about the fact that at the same time South African(SA) ports are boycotting Israel and refusing to unload cargo, the Israeli security firm, Nice Systems, has signed a deal to protect 5 more SA ports.

Globes reports: “The Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) intends to ask the International Transport Workers’ Federation to help bring about an end to the boycott imposed on Israeli ships by port workers in South Africa. “The union in South Africa is against anything connected to Israel, and in the past even objected to a cooperation agreement we signed with the Palestinian transport workers union,” explained Transport Wokers Union chairman Avi Edri.”

That in itself is pretty bizarre, since Israel is pretty much the only middle east country with such a developed labor union system, and their brothers in arms have sold them out!

News also broke today, “Transaction analysis firm NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) has extended its video surveillance technology deal to protect five additional South African port terminals. Transnet Port Terminals, the largest cargo terminal operator in South Africa, is expanding NICE’s IP video surveillance environment at Durban Car Terminal and Ngqura, for a total of five port terminals.”

So let me understand. We need to boycott Israel because of the recent war with Hamas, yet when it comes to protecting your own territory with video surveillance, Israel will do just fine. So let me understand. We need to boycott Israel because of the recent war with Hamas, yet when it comes to protecting your own territory with video surveillance, Israel will do just fine?

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Believe it or not but the current turmoil taking place in South Ossetia, and the capital, Tskhinvali is impacting Israeli businessman as well. According to report in Globes, ” The former Georgian ambassador to Israel estimates that Israeli real estate, defense, and other investment in Georgia exceeds $1 billion, and that the Russia-Georgia war is putting these investments at risk.”

Tourists have started returning to Israel and companies located in the surrounding areas have begun to evacuate their employees. Israel has come under pressure over the last 24 hours to halt arms sales to Georgia. The Jpost reports that actually, Israel halted shipments of arms a couple of months ago as the government sensed that conflict was imminent. According to an Israeli defense official, the article quotes: “Several months ago, we carried out an evaluation of the situation in Georgia and realized that Georgia and Russia were on a collision course. We have good relations with both, and don’t want to back either in this conflict,” the official said. “We therefore made a decision to drastically minimize sales of weapons to Georgia.”

Israel has successfully forged very good relations with both Russia and Georgia. Let’s hope that this current conflict doesn’t change that.

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Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.

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Investors in the Israeli company Nice Systems (NICE) can breathe a sigh of relief, as their earnings came in as expected. Some traders that we had spoken to were worried about Nice’s exposure to the financial sector and how the slowdown in spending would impact the numbers. Well it turns out that their security business is doing nicely.

The company came in with revenues of $155.3 million (a record) an increase of over 20% YOY. The company also showed an increase in margins and raised revenue numbers for the rest of ‘08.

According to PR Newswire, CEO Haim Shani said, “The demand for NICE’s solutions remains strong in our two market sectors, enterprise and security, across all regions. “We continue to execute well on our strategy of leading the market with our advanced applications solutions in the enterprise sector and of winning large-scale deals in the security sector.”

All in all, a pretty NICE report.

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in NICE. He has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 8/06/08.

Please see our Disclaimer HERE.

NEW! Introducing Israel Opportunity Investor, our monthly subscription-only newsletter. Stay ahead of the game and make smart decisions in Israel stocks. Go here to learn more.

Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.

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