Saudi Arabia delegation meets with Netanyahu, report says
(JNS.org) A Saudi Arabian delegation recently flew to Israel for meetings with high-ranking Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Hayom reported, citing Iran’s Fars news agency.
Fars reported that Saudi representatives also recently met with Israeli officials in Monaco. The Iranian report cited an “Israeli radio” report that Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Salman bin Sultan visited Israel and toured an army base along with members of the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel did not respond to the Fars report. Israel and Saudi Arabia were among the staunchest international opponents to November’s interim Iran nuclear deal.
“Israel and Saudi Arabia agree on most things, they could almost have a silent partnership. They don’t have to acknowledge it,” Dr. Fouad Ajami, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, recently told JNS.org.
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Israel’s 2013 natural gas revenue to reach $153 million
(JNS.org) Israel’s revenue from natural gas sales in 2013 stands to reach 537 million shekels, or $153 million, according to a Monday presentation before the Knesset’s Economics Committee by National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom.
The projections of Shalom’s ministry say Israel’s natural gas revenue for 2015 is expected to exceed NIS 1 billion ($285 million).
“I have no doubt that these revenues, on top of the decreasing [industrial] production costs the move to natural gas entails, will lead to a decrease in the cost of living and translate into savings for every family in Israel,” Shalom said, Israel Hayom reported.
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Pixies, Soundgarden to perform in Israel in June
(JNS.org) American rock bands The Pixies and Soundgarden will both appear at an international music festival to be held at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium in June, Israel Hayom reported.
The festival will be produced by Shuki Weiss, who called the event “a dream come true” that has been in the works for years. Both The Pixies and Soundgarden will be performing in Israel for the first time. The Pixies were supposed to perform in Israel in 2010, but the concert was canceled in the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla incident.
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Lawyer: ‘Virtually no serious’ U.S. engagement with Cuba since Alan Gross imprisonment
(JNS.org) The lead attorney for Alan Gross said the recent freedom attained by Jacob Ostreicher, who was held for more than two years in Bolivia, does not shed any light on Gross’s case.
Dec. 3 marked the fourth anniversary of the incarceration of Gross, who is serving 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.
“I think that each of these cases has its own set of facts, including the country that’s holding these people, and that really helps to determine what happens,” Gross’s attorney, Scott Gilbert of Gilbert LLP, told JNS.org.
Gilbert said there has been “virtually no serious engagement with the Cuban government to attempt to negotiate Alan’s release” since his imprisonment.
“The Cuban government, at the highest levels, has made very clear to us both privately and publicly that they would sit down with the United States with no preconditions to discuss the conditions of Alan’s release and try to negotiate a resolution, and the United States has yet to sit down and do that,” he said.
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Israeli officials condemn reported spying on Israel by U.S. and U.K.
(JNS.org) Israeli officials condemned the reported American and British monitoring of email traffic of the offices of the Israeli prime minister and defense minister, revealed over the weekend through documents leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Reports in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel said the NSA and the United Kingdom’s Communications Headquarters in 2009 broke into the email accounts of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
“It’s quite embarrassing between countries who are allies,” Israeli Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said in reaction to the reports.
“We share everything with them,” Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio regarding intelligence cooperation between Israel and the U.S., the U.K., and Germany. “Under these conditions, it is unacceptable to behave this way.”
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Israel working ‘all the time’ to free Jonathan Pollard, Netanyahu says
(JNS.org) Israel is working “all the time” to convince the U.S. to free imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.
Netanyahu rejected the connection of advocacy for Pollard’s release to new reports that U.S. intelligence has been intercepting correspondence between high-ranking Israel officials.
“We don’t need any special event to spur us to action to free Pollard,” said Netanyahu, Israel Hayom reported. “We are busy with this all the time. There is no connection between reports stating that the U.S. collected data in Israel and the potential release of Pollard.”
Officials to call for Pollard’s release this month include Bill Richardson, former New Mexico governor and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and Angelo Codevilla, a senior staffer on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of Pollard’s 1985 arrest.
“You would hope that at this point and time, it would be enough people who know what went on [to call for Pollard’s release] that justice and humanitarian concerns for his health would dictate that he be free,” Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president emeritus of the National Council of Young Israel and a frequent visitor to Pollard in prison, told JNS.org.
Edgar Bronfman, prominent Jewish philanthropist and communal leader, dies at 84
(JNS.org) Edgar Bronfman—a prominent Jewish philanthropist, communal leader, and businessman—died at home Saturday, a family spokesman said. He was 84.
Bronfman, heir to the Seagram alcoholic beverage company, took the helm of the company after his father’s death in 1971. He stepped down as CEO in 1994 and focused his energies on his foundation, The Samuel Bronfman Foundation.
Among the initiatives supported by Bronfman was Hillel: The Foundation For Jewish Campus Life, which he helped to revive in the 1990s. Bronfman also focused on Jewish education and identity, establishing the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel and the website MyJewishLearning.com.
“Edgar was deeply committed to the Jewish future,” said Michael Siegal, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America board. “He helped shape the Jewish world with his support for Hillel, Jewish camping, accessible Jewish learning and so much more.”
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Iran threatens to increase uranium enrichment to 60 percent
(JNS.org) Following the proposal of a new Iran sanctions bill in Congress, Mehdi Moussavinejad, a senior member of the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, threatened that Iran would increase its uranium enrichment to 60 percent. In November’s interim nuclear deal, Iran agreed to dilute its 20-percent-enriched uranium stockpiles down to 5 percent.
“Given the method that the other negotiating side—the U.S. in particular—has adopted during the nuclear negotiations, the legislators are working on a bill that will require the government to increase the level of uranium to over 60 percent,” Moussavinejad told the Iranian Republic News Agency. Moussavinejad said that level of enrichment is needed “to supply fuel for our ships.”
The new U.S. sanctions bill—sponsored by 26 senators—includes “prospective sanctions” that expand economic and financial restrictions on Iran’s energy and banking sections if Iran violates the interim deal.
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Academic boycotts of Israel need to be fought by Congress, says Michael Oren
(JNS.org) Responding to the American Studies Association boycott of Israel, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren called on Congress to legislate a bill against academic boycotts of the Jewish state.
Oren wrote in a Dec. 20 op-ed for Politico that “merely protesting this abhorrent decision will not succeed in reversing it or discouraging other similarly bigoted organizations from following suit.”
“What’s needed is a way to fight back, and Congress can do it,” Oren wrote.
Oren cited laws passed by Congress under President Jimmy Carter that imposed economic penalties on U.S. companies who cooperated with boycotts of Israel.
“In signing the legislation, President Jimmy Carter, though a frequent critic of Israel, pledged to ‘end the divisive effects on American life of foreign boycotts aimed at Jewish members of our society,’” Oren wrote.
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Bipartisan bill passed by Senate committee seeks to grow U.S.-Israel energy ties
(JNS.org) A bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee seeks the growth of U.S.-Israel energy ties.
The bill seeks to strengthen collaboration between the U.S. and Israel on energy development by encouraging increased cooperation in the two countries’ academic, business, and governmental sectors, among other areas.
“Today’s Senate vote is a huge step forward in our work to enhance the partnership between Israel and the US on energy production,” said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). “With the Gulf Coast’s unparalleled expertise in offshore oil and gas development, we are in a prime position to help our critical ally develop this resource.”
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Nasrallah vows to ‘punish’ Israel over death of top operative
(JNS.org) Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, blamed Israel for the assassination of his top operative Hassan al-Laqqis last month and vowed to “punish” Israel for the killing.
“All evidence indicates that Israel is behind the assassination,” Nasrallah said Friday in a televised tribute to al-Laqqis, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“If the Israelis think… that Hezbollah is busy and that Israel will not pay the price, I say to them today, ‘You are wrong,’” Nasrallah added.
A jihadist group called “The Free Sunnis of Baalbek Battalion” took responsibility for the assassination earlier this month, and Israel has denied any involvement. Israel has also hinted that the motive behind the killing may lie with Hezbollah’s backing for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the Sunni Muslim rebels.
“It’s an astonishing phenomenon to be honest with you. If you can just look historically, the fight over Syria has ignited it [the Sunni/Shi’a divide] like never before,” Dr. Fouad Ajami, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, recently told JNS.org.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org