Poll: 50 percent of Israelis say U.S. pressure should not sway Israel
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Half of the Israeli Jewish public concurs that Israel should follow current government policy even at the price of a confrontation with the U.S. administration, a new poll published Tuesday revealed.
Additionally, according to the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University December 2012 Peace Index poll, two-thirds (67 percent) of Jewish Israelis agree that, no matter which parties prevail, the peace process with the Palestinians will remain at a standstill for reasons not connected to Israel.
In the poll, Israeli Jews continued to define themselves as right-wing (55 percent) more than centrist (21 percent) or left-wing (17 percent). In addition, 50 percent reported their intention to vote for the secular and religious right-wing parties and 30 percent for parties of the Center and Left, while 20 percent remain undecided or would not answer.
The public was also polled on their attitudes toward some of the politicians leading parties in the Knesset elections. With regard to their ability to handle political-security issues, Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) was judged suitable by 53 percent of Israeli Jews, Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) by 28 percent, Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) by 25 percent, Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) by 22 percent, Tzipi Livni (Hatnuah) by 19 percent, Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) by 14 percent, and Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) by 8 percent.
When asked about their ability to handle socioeconomic issues, Yachimovich was deemed suitable by 45 percent of Israeli Jews, Netanyahu by 36 percent, Lapid by 25 percent, Naftali Bennett by 20 percent, Livni by 19 percent, Lieberman by 17 percent, and Mofaz by 12 percent.
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UN group: Cuba’s detention of Alan Gross is arbitrary
(JNS.org) The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on Tuesday made public its opinion in the case of Jewish-American contractor Alan Gross, stating that Cuba’s detention of Gross is in fact arbitrary and calling for his immediate release.
Dec. 3, 2012 marked the three-year anniversary of Gross’s arrest. He was sentenced to a 15-year prison term for helping Cuba’s Jewish community access the Internet while he was a subcontractor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Cuba convicted him of “crimes against the state.”
Gross was tried by Cuban courts that “did not exercise their function in an independent or impartial manner,” according to the UN working group.
“The tribunal should have granted Mr. Gross the benefit of being released on bail while awaiting trial, instead of keeping him in detention for more than 14 months,” the group said in its opinion.
Josefina Vidal—head of North American Affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry—had already revealed contents of the UN working group’s opinion on Gross in a press conference last month, but the opinion was not officially released until Tuesday.
Comprised of neutral experts from Chile, Norway, Pakistan, Senegal, and Ukraine, the UN working group issues opinions that are not binding or enforceable, but could still be significant, Gross’s attorney Jared Genser told JNS.org last October.
“Having an independent and impartial group in the United Nations saying that he’s been held in violation of international law provides a very strong political and public relations tool to put pressure on the government of Cuba to resolve the case,” Genser said.
Palestinian mayor: Israel tries to tempt children with toy-shaped explosives
(JNS.org) A Palestinian Authority (PA) mayor said on television that the Israel Defense Forces tries to bait Palestinian children into picking up explosives “shaped like pens and toys,” according to the latest report from Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) uncovering the demonization of the Jewish state.
Recently asked by a PA TV interviewer what types of explosives Israeli soldiers leave behind following training, Mustafa Fuqaha—mayor of the Palestinian village of Ein Al-Bayda in the Jordan Valley—responded: “Some [explosives] are in different shapes. Some are shaped like pens, and some look like toys. Some are in different shapes to tempt children to touch them or pick them up. This is a real danger and real proof that the Israeli army targets children and young ones.”
PA TV made a similar claim in 2003, according to PMW, broadcasting that Israel drops “bombs and mines designed as toys” from jet planes to lure Palestinian children into playing with them. Additionally, in 2001, the PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida said Israeli soldiers “threw large quantities of poisoned candies” in front of Palestinian schools.
Initiative for Israelis with disabilities gets $12.5 million boost
(JNS.org) The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Israeli government will each match a $4 million grant from the Ruderman Family Foundation to expand work on improving the inclusion of adults with disabilities in Israeli society, JDC announced.
Started three years ago with those three parties’ $6 million investment, the Israel Unlimited Partnership will now receive a $12.5 million boost to focus on employing the disabled as well as “ensuring accessible housing and services that promote independent living; expanding person-centered services and focusing on new groups like Haredim (Ultra Orthodox Jews) with disabilities; and developing projects that help adults with disabilities cope with loneliness,” according to JDC.
“We want Israel to be second to none in its inclusion of people with disabilities throughout society, said Jay Ruderman, President of the Ruderman Family Foundation, said in a statement. “Our strategic effort has enabled the implementation of nation-wide change through innovative programs that ensure, above all, that people with disabilities are full members of Israel’s national tapestry.”
Israeli high-tech startups sold for combined $5.5 billion in 2012
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli high-tech startup companies were bought out for a total of $5.5 billion in 2012, according to a report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers Israel. The report showed that the 50 buy-out deals for Israeli high-tech startups in 2012 averaged $111 million in size, an all-time high.
In 2006, Israeli high-tech start-ups were acquired for a record $10 billion, but the average total per deal was smaller than in 2012, showing that buy-out deals have become fewer, but larger, in the Israeli high-tech sector in recent years.
Rubi Suliman, the head of PwC’s high-tech practice, was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying that the 2012 numbers reflected a maturing Israeli market. “There is a long discussion about whether exits are good for Israel or should we build larger multinational companies,” Suliman was quoted as saying.
“Recently, we are seeing Israeli companies grow, and become world leaders in their areas. We are seeing companies with revenues of over $100 million. We did not see these in the past. They were being sold much earlier, often pre-revenue.”
EJC calls out German journalist for anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism
(JNS.org) A journalist for the German news magazine Der Spiegel was accused of providing a platform for hatred against Jews and Israel by the head of the European Jewish Congress (EJC).
Dr. Moshe Kantor said journalists like Jakob Augstein “over the last few years have used their columns to promote hate and fear of the Jewish State and the Jewish People,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
“Obviously they are not the same thing,” he added, “but when the age-old canards that were used against Jews for hundreds of years appear to be directly replicated against the Jewish State this should tell us something about the dangerous lines which these people are treading. If these people are using the same unoriginal attacks against the Jewish State as were used against the Jewish People then we have a right to defend ourselves in exactly the same way and call this hatred for what it is.”
Augstein was recently featured in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of the top 10 anti-Semitic or anti-Israel slurs of 2012 for writing that “with backing from the U.S., where the president must secure the support of Jewish lobby groups, and in Germany, where coping with history, in the meantime, has a military component, the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government keeps the world on a leash with an ever-swelling war chant.”
Al-Qaeda affiliated jihadist group gaining power in Syria
(JNS.org) A new jihadist group with links to al-Qaeda is emerging as one of the most powerful groups within the Syrian rebellion and may have as many as 5,000 terrorists in Syria, according to a new study.
The group—called Jabhat al-Nusra—was designated as an al-Qaeda affiliate by the U.S. government last month and “has shown itself to be the principal force against Assad and the Shabiha [armed government gangs and militias],” according to a study by the London-based Quilliam Foundation obtained by CNN.
“The civil war in Syria is a gift from the sky for al-Nusra; they are coasting off its energy,” the lead author of the report, Noman Benotman, told CNN.
According to a report put out by the U.S. State Department in December 2012, al-Nusra is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a group founded by slain terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
“Al-Nusra has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purpose,” the State Department statement read.
The confirmation of al-Qaeda affiliated groups within the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is likely to stir further anxiety in the West. The U.S. and other Western allies have been reluctant to provide support to the rebellion out of fears of empowering jihadists.
At a cabinet meeting on Jan. 6, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also mentioned “global jihadist forces” within the Syrian rebellion and announced plans to erect a security fence along the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan Heights.
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Iranian minister: Sanctions are hurting us
(JNS.org) Iran’s oil minister has acknowledged that international sanctions in reaction to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program have led to a decline in oil exports, contradicting previous denials by the government.
“There has been a 40 percent decrease in oil sales and a 45 percent decrease in repatriating oil money,” the Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted Iran’s oil minister, Rostam Qasemi, as saying to lawmakers, the New York Times reported. Iran’s decline in oil exports has been known for some time by experts.
“It’s common knowledge in Iran that oil exports have fallen,” Djavad Salehi Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech, told the Times. “I don’t know if the oil minister had been in denial.”
According to figures from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), Iran’s crude oil exports fell by a million barrels a day by the end of 2012.
As a result of the decline, the value of Iran’s currency, the Rial, has dropped dramatically in recent months, leading to government budget issues and the cost of imports to rise, hurting Iranians.
Additional American sanctions signed into law recently by President Obama targeting Iran’s financial and industrial sectors are scheduled to take effect soon.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org