International Monetary Fund: Israel’s economy will grow 3.5% in 2015
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Israeli economy will grow by 3.5 percent in 2015, up from 3.2 percent in 2014 and 3.4 percent in 2013, the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook mid-year report.
The IMF’s outlook is more optimistic than that of the Bank of Israel, which is predicting growth of 3 percent in 2015, or 2.8 percent without production from the Tamar natural gas reserve.
But the IMF is pessimistic about the rate of unemployment in Israel, predicting that the unemployment rate will rise from 6.2 percent in 2013 to 6.7 percent this year, and then fall to 6.5 percent in 2015. The Bank of Israel, on the other hand, predicts that the unemployment rate will rise more moderately, to 6.2 percent in 2015.
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Shimon Peres: China has ‘central role’ in preventing a nuclear Iran
(JNS.org) During his state visit to China, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Tuesday that China is a key to preventing a nuclear Iran.
“China has a central role in the efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Iran is the center of terror in the world. Iran funds terrorism and exports it across the entire Middle East and beyond,” said Peres, whose trip was the first to China by an Israeli president in 10 years.
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Netanyahu orders Israeli ministers to halt cooperation with Palestinians
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Amid the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday ordered Israeli government ministries to cut off high-level contacts with the Palestinian Authority on non-security related issues.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the move was a response to the recent Palestinian decision to submit applications to join 15 international organizations and conventions. The order does not apply to the Israeli Defense Ministry or to Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s meetings with Palestinian negotiators in the U.S.-brokered peace talks, which have an upcoming April 29 deadline for an agreement.
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Kerry focuses on Israeli moves in explanation of peace talks impasse
(JNS.org) During a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry focused heavily on Israeli moves in his explanation of what he believes has cause the current impasse in the American-brokered peace talks.
“Both sides, whether advertently or inadvertently, wound up in positions where things happened that were unhelpful,” Kerry said.
Continuing his remarks, Kerry cited Israel’s refusal to proceed with the fourth scheduled release of Palestinian terrorist prisoners on March 29 as leading to the stalling of negotiations.
“Unfortunately, prisoners were not released on the Saturday (March 29) they were supposed to be released. And so day went by, day two went by, day three went by. And then in the afternoon, when they were about to maybe get there, 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem and, poof, that was sort of the moment. We find ourselves where we are,” Kerry said.
Kerry said that the Palestinian move to join 15 international conventions and treaties also hurt negotiations.
“Clearly, going to these treaties is not helpful, and we have made that crystal-clear,” he said.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) slammed Kerry’s testimony for its singling out of Israel.
“After almost nine months of negotiations, during which Israel took concrete steps to advance the process, including the release of 78 prisoners—many of them terrorists—it is outrageous for Secretary Kerry to blame the Jewish state for the apparent failure of the diplomatic process undertaken at his insistence,” RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said.
The U.S. State Department attempted to clarify Kerry’s remarks, explaining that Kerry blamed both the Israelis and Palestinians for the impasse in the peace talks.
“As has been the case throughout this impasse, today, Secretary Kerry was again crystal clear that both sides have taken unhelpful steps and at no point has he engaged in a blame game,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
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American-Jewish prisoner Alan Gross goes on hunger strike in Cuba
(JNS.org) American-Jewish prisoner Alan Gross, who has been held in Cuba since late 2009, said he is going on a hunger strike to protest his treatment by both the Cuban and American governments.
“I began a fast on April 3rd in protest of the treatment to which I am subjected by the governments of Cuba and the United States,” Gross said in a statement to his legal team on Tuesday.
“I am fasting to object to mistruths, deceptions, and inaction by both governments, not only regarding their shared responsibility for my arbitrary detention, but also because of the lack of any reasonable or valid effort to resolve this shameful ordeal,” he said. “Once again, I am calling on President Obama to get personally involved in ending this stand-off so that I can return home to my wife and daughters.”
Gross, whose work as a subcontractor for the United States Agency for International Development entailed helping the Cuban Jewish community access the Internet, is serving a 15-year prison term for what Cuba called “crimes against the state.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to the Gross family on Tuesday.
“We are very, very focused on trying to get Alan Gross out of there; his treatment is inhumane,” Kerry said in testimony to Congress.
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