Israel's Gross National Product grew by 4.5% in 2010, compared with only 2.7% in the other 33 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Israel became an OECD member this past September.
Israel’s unemployment rate, at 6.7%, is also lower than other OECD countries.
More details at Arutz Sheva.
The natural gas reserves in the Leviathan field total 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, based on preliminary results of the production tests. The find could turn Israel into an exporter of natural gas and serve the country’s own needs for decades to come.
More about this important development at the Jerusalem Post, Globes and The Wall Street Journal.
The find, combined with an earlier discovery in the Tamar field, could impact Israel’s project to convert 100% to electric cars with Israeli company Better Place by providing the resources necessary to increase electricity generation without importing the fuel to do so.
UNESCO has called Rachel’s tomb a mosque. The Palestinian Authority is denying that the Western Wall is part of our Temple Mount. ARZA has issued the following statement on these subjects:
"If there is ever to be true peace in the Middle East, the shrines of each of the three Abrahamic religions must be respected by the political bodies in the region and by the United Nations. Referring to Rachel's tomb as a "mosque" is both factually and historically inaccurate. Similarly statements by the Palestinian Authority that the Western Wall in Jerusalem is not the retaining wall of our Temple Mount ignores established historical fact. Both of these references are disrespectful of Judaism and of the generations of Jews who have consistently venerated these sites; one from the time of Genesis and the second from before the Christian era to the present. Accordingly, we call upon UNESCO, the Palestinian Authority and upon all people and all nations of good will to cease referring to Rachel's tomb as a mosque or the Western Wall as anything other than a treasure of the Jewish people.”
There is an excellent article in The New York Jewish Week titled "Rachel’s Tomb Is Now A Mosque — Who Cares?"
