OECD: Israeli life expectancy among world’s highest
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Life expectancy in Israel ranks eighth among the world’s 36 most developed countries, according to a new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report released Tuesday. The report said the average life expectancy in Israel is 82, two years higher than the OECD average.
The report added that the Israeli economy is expected to grow this year by 3.2 percent and in 2015 by 3.5 percent.
“The [Israeli] economy will be buoyed by a gradually improving external environment, the benefit of which should be amplified by expanding gas production and persistently low interest rates,” stated the report.
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Abbas ‘did not agree to anything’ in 2011, PM’s office says after Peres interview
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “did not agree to anything” in 2011, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said after Tuesday’s airing of a television interview in which President Shimon Peres said he and Abbas had essentially reached a draft Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, but that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thwarted the initiative.
Peres told Israel’s Channel 2 News that three years ago, Abbas agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state. He also said Abbas agreed to the Arab League proposal on the issue of Palestinian refugees, “which called for the issue to be resolved in a just and agreed upon way,” namely, providing compensation to the displaced and allowing some family unification, but in essence forgoing what the Palestinians call “the right of return.”
“We reached an understanding on almost all issues,” Peres said. Yet the Peres-Abbas talks were stopped before a final accord could be reached, according to the Israeli president, who claimed Netanyahu “had the impression that there was a better deal to be brought by Middle East Quartet representative Tony Blair.”
The Prime Minister’s Office responded to the Peres interview by stating, “Abbas did not agree to anything. This time, too, all he wanted was to receive from Israel and give nothing in return. Abbas’s known strategy is to be ambiguous until he is pushed into a corner and then flees.”
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U.S. Reps. visit Alan Gross in Cuban jail
(JNS.org) U.S. Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Sam Farr and Barbara Lee of California, and Gregory Meeks of New York on Monday met with Alan Gross, the Jewish-American government subcontractor serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba.
It is time for the U.S. and Cuba to “make a serious commitment” to negotiate Gross’s release, Lee said, according to The Associated Press.
Gross, a subcontractor for the United States Agency for International Development who went to Cuba to help the Jewish community there access the Internet, was imprisoned in late 2009 for what the Cuban government called “crimes against the state.”
On Monday, the Congressional delegation also met with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
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Egypt’s El-Sisi promises to ‘finish’ Muslim Brotherhood if elected president
(JNS.org) Egyptian presidential hopeful Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the country’s former military chief, says the Muslim Brotherhood is “finished” if he is elected later this month.
In a wide-ranging interview with two private Egyptian TV stations, El-Sisi vowed to crush the Muslim Brotherhood while restoring stability and bringing development to Egypt.
“Any responsible Egyptian who is capable of stepping in to save the nation, must do so… the country is being targeted from inside and out,” El-Sisi said, Al-Ahram reported.
When asked whether or not people should vote for him for president on the basis that he would finish the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sisi replied, “Yes. Just like this.”
El-Sisi said it wasn’t his decision, but that all Egyptians “reject reconciliation with the Brotherhood.”
He went on to blame the group, which was recently officially declared a terrorist organization by Egypt, for “arrogance in religion.”
“The thought structure of these groups says that we are not true Muslims, and they believed conflict was inevitable because we are non-believers,” he said. “It will not work for there to be such thinking again.”
El-Sisi enjoys broad support within Egypt for his role in ousting former Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi last July. It is widely expected that he will win the May 26-27 election, since his only opponent is unknown leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi.
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Lebanese Catholic bishop defends upcoming visit to Israel
(JNS.org) The head of the Lebanese Maronite Catholic Church, Bishop Beshara al-Rahi, is being heavily criticized by Hezbollah supporters over his upcoming visit to Israel as part of a Catholic delegation with Pope Francis.
“I am the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, of regions expanding from Turkey to Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and to Iran,” Bishop al-Rahi said concerning his Israel trip, the Lebanese daily Naharnet reported.
“It is my duty to welcome the Pope in any country in these regions,” he said.
According to reports, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, has indirectly warned Bishop al-Rahi not to visit Israel.
“[Hezbollah] expressed wishes that the Patriarch would not visit the Holy Land,” a Lebanese Catholic Church official told the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar.
Additionally, op-eds in several pro-Hezbollah media outlets have criticized Bishop al-Rahi for his decision to step foot in Israel with Pope Francis, saying that it could have serious domestic repercussions on Christians and break the taboo on normalizing ties with Israel.
“Be loyal to the struggle of the Palestinian people who are crucified, like Christ, every day but who rise again every day and resist their enemy and boycott it,” stated an open letter to the bishop from the “Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon.”
Bishop al-Rahi would become the first Lebanese Catholic official to visit Israel since the Jewish state was created in 1948.
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Obama on Israeli Independence Day promises to continue push for peace
(JNS.org) Marking Israeli Independence Day, U.S. President Barack Obama promised to continue to work with the Jewish state to achieve peace, despite the recent collapse of the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations.
“I send my warmest wishes to the Israeli people as they celebrate their independence,” Obama said in a statement. “Generations of Jews dreamed of the day when the Jewish people would have their own state in their historic homeland, and 66 years ago today that dream came true.”
Pointing out that the U.S. was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948, Obama reiterated his support for a negotiated two-state solution.
“We will continue to work with Israel to support a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, one that ensures that the Israelis will live alongside their neighbors in peace and with security,” he said.
After nearly nine months of negotiations, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks fell apart last month. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has hinted that the U.S. might take a “pause” from the peace process and allow time reassess its role.
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