Natan Sharansky a possible candidate for Israeli president
(JNS.org) Natan Sharansky, chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel, is a possible candidate to run for Israeli president in June 2014, Israel Hayom reported.
Habayit Hayehudi party Chairman Naftali Bennett has reportedly thrown his support behind Sharansky’s candidacy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have not ruled out the possibility of supporting Sharansky, but have yet to consider the matter closely.
Sharansky has overseen the Jewish Agency’s strategic shift in attention from aliyah to building global Jewish identity.
“Many Jews in the world are spending time in ‘repairing the world activities,’ or tikkun olam activities. But unfortunately, for many of them, that is a way for them to abandon their Jewishness, to abandon their identity. We believe that it has to be absolutely the opposite. It is very important that they understand that the source of the energy, the motivation to make the world better, all comes from your connection to your identity and to your family,” Sharansky told JNS.org in a 2012 interview.
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Israelis in poll: Pollard’s release should be condition for Palestinian prisoner release
(JNS.org) More than half of Israeli Jews—52.4 percent—believe Israel should condition the release of Palestinian prisoners on the U.S. freeing imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, according to a new Israel Hayom poll.
In the same poll, 79 percent of respondents said Israel should not go ahead with the third stage of the Palestinian prisoner release next week due to the recent spate of Palestinian terror attacks. Additionally, 85.8 percent said the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations would not lead to a peace agreement.
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Dore Gold to serve as Netanyahu’s political adviser
(JNS.org) Dore Gold, the head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, will serve as an external political consultant to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2014, Israel Hayom reported.
Gold replaces Netanyahu’s former political adviser, Ron Dermer, the new Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Gold will not be considered a state employee of Israel and will therefore be able to maintain his post at the JCPA.
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Gaza rockets hit Ashkleon as wave of Palestinian terrorism continues
(JNS.org) The uptick in Palestinian terrorism continued Thursday when two rockets from Gaza were fired into the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. The rockets landed in open areas and caused no injuries. The Israel Defense Forces responded by striking a weapons-manufacturing facility and a weapons-storage facility in Gaza.
“Israel sees Hamas as responsible,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, Israel Hayom reported. “We will strike both those who attack us and those who harbor them. No one will be immune.”
Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas promised on their websites to avenge the Israeli airstrike.
“We cannot tolerate pre-meditated attacks against Israelis anywhere, be it individual or organized Islamic Jihad violence and terrorism,” Gilead Sher, former chief of staff and policy coordinator to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, told JNS.org.
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Israel’s Christian population continues to grow in 2013
(JNS.org) Israel’s Christian population continued to grow in 2013, increasing by 3,000 people over the last year.
According to recent figures released by Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, there are roughly 161,000 Christians living in Israel, equaling about 2 percent of the population and up from 158,000 in 2012.
Nearly 80 percent of these Christians are Arab, while the majority of the remaining 20 percent are largely from the former Soviet Union.
The cities with the largest Christian populations were Nazareth with 22,400 Christians, Haifa with 14,600 and Jerusalem with 11,900.
However, Israeli Christian women also had fewer children than Jews or Muslims, with only 2.2 children per Christian woman compared to 3.5 for Muslim women and 3.0 for Jewish women.
Israel has one of the few Christian communities left in the Middle East that is still growing. According to the Pew Research Center, just 0.6 percent of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4 percent of the region’s total inhabitants, drastically down from 20 percent a century ago, making Middle East Christians the smallest regional Christian minority in the world.
Warren Weinstein, Jewish contractor jailed in Pakistan, releases new video message
(JNS.org) Kidnapped Jewish U.S, government contractor Warren Weinstein said he feels “totally abandoned and forgotten” by the U.S. government and urged U.S. Presidenst Barack Obama to negotiate his freedom in a 13-minute video message released on Christmas by al Qaeda.
Weinstein, 72, was abducted in Lahore, Pakistan in 2011. According to police reports at the time, eight to 10 men approached Weinstein’s house on a ploy, tied up Weinstein’s three guards, and took him away. At the time of his capture, Weinstein had been working in Pakistan for several years as a director of J.E. Austin Associates, a U.S.-based development contractor that advises different Pakistani business and government sectors.
“Nine years ago, I came to Pakistan to help my government and I did so at a time when most Americans would not come here,” he said on this latest of a string of video messages released since his kidnapping, CNN reported. “And now, when I need my government, it seems I have been totally abandoned and forgotten…Needless to say, I’ve been suffering deep anxiety every part of everyday, not knowing what is happening to my family and not knowing how they are and because I am not with them.”
U.S. officials have have continued to indicate that the U.S. government does not plan to bargain with al Qaeda. “At least they show he is alive, and that must give us hope,” Mike Redwood, a leather industry expert who worked with Weinstein in Pakistan, wrote to JNS.org in 2012. “Despite his age Warren is one of the cleverest and most resourceful people I know, but his capture has come at the most dreadful moment to hope for much cooperation between the governments of Pakistan and the USA.”
Netanyahu to hail Israeli cyber industry at World Economic Forum
(Israel Hayom/exclusive to JNS.org) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Wednesday. Netanyahu will make a speech at a special session titled “Israel’s Economy.” The prime minister is expected, among other subjects, to discuss Israel’s cyber industry, which is among the world’s most advanced.
The Davos forum is considered one of the most important stages for global economic issues. Netanyahu is also expected to hold a series of meetings with other heads of state and CEOs of global companies to encourage investment in the Israeli high-tech industry, and in other fields as well. The invitation letter sent to Netanyahu states that Israel is a key to positive developments in the global and regional economy and that presenting the government’s economic policies one year into its current term would provide an opportunity to be widely influential.
“The Israeli economy is successfully dealing with the global economic crisis and is showing high growth along with small unemployment percentages,” Netanyahu said. “Participation in the forum will allow us to present the achievements of Israel’s economy to the world. I believe the attention that Israel’s cyber and high-tech industries will receive at the forum will help strengthen their status as world leaders.”
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Iranian lawmakers propose bill increasing uranium enrichment to 60% despite Geneva deal
(JNS.org) Iranian lawmakers have proposed a bill that will force the government to enrich uranium up to 60 percent “in order to provide fuel for submarine engines if the sanctions are tightened and Iran’s nuclear rights are ignored,” said hardline lawmaker Mehdi Mousavinejad, Reuters reported.
If passed, the bill would conflict with the recent deal, brokered by world powers in Geneva, which stipulated that Iran must stop enriching uranium beyond 3.5 percent and dilute all existing stockpiles already enriched to 20 percent down to 5 percent.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported that 100 lawmakers introduced the new bill. “The bill is aimed at giving an upper hand to our government and the negotiating team… It will allow the government to continue our nuclear program if the Geneva deal fails,” said Hossein Taghavi Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs committee.
After the Geneva deal with Iran was brokered in November, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told JNS.org that Iran’s history “is one of deception, manipulation, [and] lying” and that there is “every reason to be skeptical when you’re dealing with the Iranians.”
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Preceding provided by JNS.org