Jonathan Pollard enters 29th year in U.S. prison
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) On Thursday, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard entered his 29th year in American prison.
Pollard, now 59, was arrested in Washington on Nov. 21, 1985. He was later convicted of spying for Israel, and is the only person in U.S. history to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally.
On Wednesday, Pollard’s wife Esther appealed to U.S. President Barack Obama to free her husband out of humanitarian considerations. Ahead of Obama’s visit to Israel in March, more than 200,000 Israelis signed a petition to the American leader calling for Pollard’s release.
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said Wednesday, “It is our collective failure that Pollard is still in prison. It is unprecedented in the history of the U.S. that someone who spied for a friendly country served even half the time [that Pollard has] in prison.”
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange top index hits all-time high
(JNS.org) The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s flagship index, the Tel Aviv 25, hit an all-time record high Wednesday, closing at 1,344 points and passing the previous high closing level of 1,341.89 points set on April 21, 2011, Globes reported.
Similar to Wall Street’s Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Tel Aviv 25 index consists of the largest 25 companies within Israel’s stock market.
The record by the Tel Aviv 25 follows similar gains by the Dow Jones, which passed the 16,000-point mark for the first time in its 125-year history Monday.
Amb. Daniel Shapiro: U.S. will not agree to ‘bad deal’ on Iran nuclear program
(JNS.org) U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel B. Shapiro, speaking Wednesday at the inaugural event of the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa, said the U.S. “will not squander the leverage that sanctions have given us” in the negotiations on the Iran nuclear program in Geneva.
“No deal is better than a bad deal, and we will not agree to a bad deal,” Shapiro said.
Despite recent U.S.-Israel differences on the Iranian nuclear issue—with the Obama Administration urging a halt to new Iran sanctions while the diplomatic track persists, as opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for more sanctions—the ambassador said the two countries “share an identical objective” on the issue.
“Our coordination with Israel in support of this shared goal has been intensive, continuous and highly effective,” he said. “Together with many other nations, we have put in place the strongest sanctions regime in history, which has brought Iran to the negotiating table.”
The U.S. and its partners among the P5+1 countries are seeking “to test whether Iran is prepared to ensure that its nuclear program can only be used for peaceful purposes,” according to Shapiro.
“We are trying to first reach an agreement on an initial six-month phase that freezes and rolls back the Iranian program,” he said, describing the reported deal under which Iran would temporarily suspend high-grade (20 percent) uranium enrichment but would still be able to enrich to 3.5 percent. The deal reportedly does not require Iran to reduce its number of centrifuges, and lets Iran continue work on the plutonium-producing Arak heavy water reactor.
“Iran could get very limited sanctions relief during this period, while the main oil and banking sanctions that have brought them to the table would remain in place, and the pressure would increase,” Shapiro said. “With the time this gives us, we will seek to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that ensures Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon.”
“Our goal is clear: to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, through diplomacy and sanctions if possible, but using other means, including a military option, if necessary. We will not fail to achieve this goal,” he added.
Center urges Canada to recognize Jewish refugees from Arab nations
(JNS.org) The Canadian Center for Israel and Jewish affairs (CIJA) has called on the Canadian government to adopt the recommendations of the Canadian committee for foreign policy, which urges to “officially recognize” Jewish refugees from Arab nations and “to include all of the refugee populations as part of the overall and just arrangements relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israeli-Arab conflict.”
The committee presented its report to the Canadian parliament last week, detailing how 850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries, mainly after Israel was established in 1948 through the early 1970s. They were forced to leave behind assets worth $4.4 billion.
“I think the international community in general has completely overlooked the reality of the historical experience of Jews who had to flee from Arab countries in the period before, during, and after the establishment of the state of Israel. It’s a deficiency in Canadian policy just like it’s a deficiency in those of other countries who are formulating foreign policy positions on the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict and the region,” Shimon Fogel, CEO of CIJA, told JNS.org.
Yasser Arafat death involved U.S., claims PA leader
(JNS.org) Senior Palestinian Authority and Fatah leader Jibril Rajoub has claimed that the U.S. was involved in the death of former PA President Yasser Arafat.
“It’s obvious that Israel wasn’t alone [in poisoning Arafat]; the U.S. was there. That fool known as [George W.] Bush took away Yasser Arafat’s protection and gave [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon the green light to liquidate Yasser Arafat,” Rajoub recently said on a Palestinian Authority TV (PA TV) broadcast, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported Wednesday.
Arafat died in Paris in 2004 at age 75 from a massive stroke, according to French doctors. Yet many in the Arab world have claimed that Jews or Israelis poisoned Arafat, which according to PMW is a “libel” frequently featured on PA TV.
“It’s not surprising that the PA would like to present the U.S. as co-conspirator in the so-called poisoning of Arafat, because inciting hatred against the U.S. is a consistent PA policy over many years,” Itamar Marcus, director of PMW, told JNS.org.
Marcus pointed to several expressions of anti-American sentiment in the PA media that will be included in an upcoming PMW report, including an Oct. 31 op-ed in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, that stated, “The truth is that we hate America, but [we] treat it with friendship; we hate anyone who gets close to it, but we rush in to secretly knock on its doors; we burn its flag every time we are enraged, but apologize to it [America] for the actions of youth who are unaware of its stature; we call it ‘Satan’, but make pilgrimages to it; our blood boils when we hear it speak about human rights, but we ask it to treat us with patience.” Additionally, a PA TV broadcast this fall claimed the U.S. based its “fable of a ‘War on Terror'” on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which became “the excuse for Washington’s increasing interference in many of the world’s nations’ affairs.”
David’s Sling air defense system has successful test in Israel
(JNS.org) Israel has successfully tested “David’s Sling,” its new mid-range missile defense system. Developed in partnership with the U.S., the system can intercept missiles from ranges between 63 to 125 miles, possibly countering attacks from terror groups such as Hezbollah based in Lebanon.
David’s Sling is slated to become part of Israel’s new “multi-layered rocket and missile defense” system, joining the Arrow system, which defends against long-range ballistic missiles, and the highly successful Iron Dome system, which defends against short-range and medium-range rockets.
“The successful test is a major milestone in the development of the David’s Sling Weapon System and provides confidence in future Israeli capabilities to defeat the developing ballistic missile threat,” the Israeli Defense Ministry said.
White supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin put to death over synagogue shooting
(JNS.org) White supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin, who went on a nationwide killing spree in the late 1970s that targeted blacks and Jews, was put to death on Wednesday in Missouri.
Franklin, 63, was executed for the October 1977 sniper-style shooting of Gerald Gordon outside Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel Synagogue in suburban St. Louis as Gordon was leaving a bar mitzvah service.
Overall, Gordon was convicted of seven murders and claimed responsibility for 20 deaths, the Associated Press reported. He also bombed a Tennessee synagogue in July 1977. The execution was put forward after Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon rejected Franklin’s plea for clemency, saying in a statement that Franklin had committed “merciless acts of violence, fueled by hate.”
*
Preceding provided by JNS.org