Livni: Obama’s remarks on Israel’s best interests ‘need to wake up every Israeli citizen’
(JNS.org) Reacting to the report that President Barack Obama repeatedly said “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are,” Tzipi Livni—chairwoman of Israel’s new Hatnuah party—said the remarks “need to wake up every Israeli citizen.”
“One can love or not love the U.S. president, but we are speaking about our greatest friend and about Israel’s security,” she said.
A senior Likud official said the president’s remarks represent “a blatant meddling by the U.S. president in Israeli elections,” Israel Hayom reported.
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement to Politico on Tuesday, did not confirm or deny Obama’s comments, as reported by Jeffrey Goldberg for Bloomberg View.
“The president has been clear in stating what he believes is a realistic basis for successful negotiations, and we will continue to base our efforts on that approach,” Vietor said. “He has also consistently stated that the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is unwavering, and he has backed up this commitment with tangible action.”
British journalist Nile Gardiner, in a blog post for The Daily Telegraph, wrote Obama’s reported comments “take the U.S. president’s hostility against Netanyahu to new heights, and are a major diplomatic faux pas ahead of next week’s Israeli election, which Netanyahu is widely expected to win… They also reveal a remarkable degree of antipathy towards America’s closest friend and ally in the Middle East, and an unhealthy willingness to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation state.”
Israeli life expectancy among the highest in the world
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israelis have among the highest life expectancies in the world, with an overall life expectancy of 81.7 years, according to a new study released by the Jewish state’s Central Bureau for Statistics.
The study, which covered Israeli demographic trends from 2011, found that although Israeli men can expect to live shorter lives than Israeli women, when compared to other men around the world they come in second only to Switzerland.
According to the study, the overall Israeli life expectancy of 81.7 years puts Israel in fifth place out of all 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and is two years more than the average OECD life expectancy of 79.7.
The OECD data, Israeli men have an average life expectancy of 79.9 years, coming in second only to Swiss men, who have an average life expectancy of 80.6. Men in Japan, Sweden, Iceland and Australia have similar life expectancies to Israeli men.
Amid storm, IDF conducts daring rescue of Arab villagers
(JNS.org) Amid one of the worst storms to hit Israel in decades, the Israel Defense Forces was busy helping both Israelis and Arabs stranded by the extreme weather.
In the Arab village of Baka al-Gharbiya near Haifa on Jan. 8, the Air Force’s special search and rescue division, Unit 669, conducted a dramatic helicopter rescue of 15 villagers who were trapped on a rooftop, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Rapidly rising waters had prevented ambulances from Magen David Adom (the Israeli Red Cross) from reaching the trapped villagers.
Meanwhile, the same IDF unit also conducted another rescue of a family in the nearby Arab village of Tayibe.
“The soldiers reached the family and reported via radio that they were with eight people, including children. One by one we cast down more ropes and started pulling people up into the helicopter. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get everyone into the helicopter. From there we flew directly to Beilinson (Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva),” said the helicopter pilot, according to Ynet.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org