Alan Gross asks for Obama’s involvement in securing release from Cuban prison
(JNS.org) Alan Gross, who is serving a 15-year prison term in Cuba for helping the Cuban Jewish community access the Internet while he was a subcontractor for the United States Agency for International Development, asked for President Barack Obama’s “personal involvement” in helping to secure his release.
Dec. 3 marked the fourth anniversary of the imprisonment of Gross, who says he was working to promote democracy but was convicted by Cuba of “crimes against the state.”
“It is clear to me, Mr. President, that only with your personal involvement can my release be secured,” Gross wrote in a letter to Obama that was published by the Washington Post. “I know that your administration and prior administrations have taken extraordinary steps to obtain the release of other U.S. citizens imprisoned abroad—even citizens who were not arrested for their work on behalf of their country. I ask that you also take action to secure my release, for my sake and for the sake of my family.”
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‘Reverse’ Gaza flotilla passes without confrontation
(JNS.org) A “reverse flotilla” that left Gaza on Monday returned without confronting the Israeli Navy, Israel Hayom reported. About 150 Palestinian and European activists set out on 19 boats traveling from the Gaza shore toward Israeli Navy vessels in an effort to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.
Hamas personnel escorted the flotilla, which was organized by a group called Shabaab al-Intifada, to prevent an altercation between activists and the navy. The Israel Defense Forces’ naval blockade is enforced at a six-mile distance from the Gaza shoreline, and prior to last year’s IDF Operation Pillar of Defense, the blockade had been set at three miles from the shore. The activists approached the five-mile line, and from there they threw plastic bottles with protest letters into the water.
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Pope Francis and Netanyahu discuss Iran, Pope’s expected trip to Israel
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday with Pope Francis in the Vatican, telling the pontiff, “Iran aspires to attain a nuclear bomb. It would thus threaten not only Israel but also Italy, Europe, and the entire world.”
Netanyahu’s wife Sara accompanied him to the meeting with Pope Francis. The couple told the pope about their son, Avner, who won Israel’s National Bible Quiz, and the connection between Jewish sources and the foundations of Christianity. Netanyahu asked Pope Francis, who is expected to visit Israel in May 2014, to stay in the Jewish state for a duration of five days in order to have time to visit sites that are holy to Christianity. “Come to the synagogue in Chorazin, Jesus visited there,” Netanyahu said, Israel Hayom reported.
The prime minister gave Pope Francis a copy of a book that his father, Professor Benzion Netanyahu, wrote about the Spanish Inquisition, as well as a large silver menorah. The pope gave Netanyahu a medallion bearing the figure of Paul—Jesus’s most important disciple. Netanyahu also met with Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
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Report: Shimon Peres secretly speaks to Arab nations
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres gave a secret speech to 29 representatives from Arab nations in November via livestream as part of the Gulf States Security Summit in Abu Dhabi, Yedioth Ahronoth reported. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman attended the meeting and first revealed Peres’s appearance.
Participating nations included Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Yemen, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia. Peres’s appearance was contingent on his comments remaining confidential, but it has been revealed that he spoke about how Israeli-Arab dialogue could take place regarding the common ground of struggles against a nuclear Iran and radical Islam.
“Everyone understood that this is something historic: The president of the Jewish State is sitting in his office in Jerusalem with an Israeli flag, and they’re sitting in the Persian Gulf talking about security, war on terror and peace,” said a representative involved with the event.
Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes told JNS.org, “That a leading Israeli figure addresses and, apparently, is well received by Muslim foreign ministers is itself an encouraging development.” Yet the secret nature of Peres’s appearance is indicative of the Israeli president’s “reputation for underhanded dealings, diminishing from the utility of the event,” Pipes said.
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Birthright Israel winter program to have its largest number of participants
(JNS.org) More than 17,000 Jewish young adults will participate in the Taglit-Birthright Israel free 10-day tours this season, the largest number of winter participants for Birthright since the program was founded in 2000.
Over the past 13 years, more than 350,000 participants have attended Birthright trips to Israel. The program is expected to reach 50 percent of Jewish young adults worldwide over the next five years.
“Each year, Taglit-Birthright Israel strives to reach new heights and surpass our own goals and expectations and this year, we’ve gone way above and beyond those expectations,” said Gidi Mark, Birthright’s CEO.
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Anti-Israel ads in Boston, Denver, Portland countered by StandWithUs
(JNS.org) A new billboard campaign by the pro-Israel education group StandWithUs (SWU) counters anti-Israel advertisements in Boston, Denver, and Portland, Ore.
SWU’s ads, which went up in Portland on Monday and go up in Boston and Denver on Dec. 9, counter campaigns featuring maps depicting a “disappearing Palestine” and a growing Israel, blaming Israel for the Palestinian refugee problem, and accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing.”
The anti-Israel ads “presume there once was an Arab country called ‘Palestine,’ when in fact no such country ever existed prior to the one being considered today,” while neglecting that “there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel for three millennia,” said StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein.
“The anti-Israel ads also leave out the context such as the chronic wars and terrorism unleashed against Israel that first created the refugee problem,” Rothstein said.
The pro-Israel ads from SWU depict Jewish loss of land over time, highlight Israeli innovation, and direct viewers to thewholestory.org, a website listing the “Top 10 Things Palestinian Leaders Don’t Want You To Know” about Israel.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org