Category: Israel

Israel To Set Up $80 Billion Sovereign Wealth Fund


Israel will begin using revenues from its newly-found natural gas fields to establish a sovereign wealth fund, said the Israeli Prime Minister’s office on Sunday during a draft law presented to the cabinet.

The fund is expected to have at least $80 billion under its management by 2040, and will be tasked to protect the country’s financial stability during times of national emergency, as well as to provide a stable income stream for government-approved education and defence projects.

Israel Approves $160 Million Plan To Stop Illegal Immigration From Africa


Israeli will spend $160 million in the upcoming months to secure its borders from African migrants who enter the country illegally, announced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.

A large portion of the money will go toward the construction of a security fence along Israel’s border with Egypt, where nearly 2,000 African migrants are smuggled through every month.

Huge Israel Natural Gas Find: Many-Sided Implications


For decades, Israelis have taken perverse pride in what they lacked — oil and gas deposits.

Few countries had looked so hard with so little result.

Obliged to live off their wits, Israelis turned their country into a high-tech haven.

But enormous deposits of natural gas have been detected off the country’s northern coast.

Last year, the United States Geological Survey estimated that

US Tax-Exempt Funds Support Israel West Bank Settlements


Many groups in the United States are using tax-exempt donations to help Jews establish permanence in the Israeli-occupied territories —

effectively obstructing the creation of a Palestinian state, widely seen as a necessary condition for Middle East peace.

The result is a surprising juxtaposition:

As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank,

Israel Joins OECD Just Before Intercepting Gaza-Bound Flotilla


The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a 31-country group often seen as an exclusive club of rich countries,

voted unanimously in early May to admit Israel, which was formally finalized on May 27.

Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, and its war in Gaza in late 2008, had drawn strong criticisms from a number of European members,