PM Benyamin Netanyahu, speaking during a tour of the Jordan Valley, marked International Women’s Day with a tribute to Israel’s female soldiers serving in the IDF. While remarking that Israel is the only country in the region where women have equal rights, Mr. Netanyahu went on to describe the myriad contributions by women in the IDF:

“I am impressed by you,” said the Prime Minister. “There is a revolution in the IDF here.  One-third of the IDF’s personnel are women. We have Border Police fighters. We have women in the Air Force, including as pilots. This expresses the change in the status of women in the IDF and in the State of Israel as a whole.”

“We must especially salute the women soldiers and officers in the IDF.  I salute you.  May the sun shine on you every day, not just now.”

Contrasting the status of women in Israel with recent events taking place throughout the Middle East, Mr. Netanyahu said: “The most basic premise that everyone is talking about has to do with the upheaval in the Arab and Islamic world. One thing we do not see. We still do not see a revolution in the status of women in most of the countries around us. In at least one of them, women have been stoned; women are used like merchandise that passes from hand to hand, without any rights, fairness or ability to demand their rights in genuine courts of law.”

“While it stands out in many respects, it is especially prominent in that it is a democratic state in which women have equal rights. What we see here is also equal obligations, not just rights,” he said.

The Prime Minister, also spoke about Israel’s need to maintain security along the Jordan River in any peace agreement with the Palestinians.

“Our security border is here, on the Jordan River and our line of defense is here. If this was true before the major unrest now shaking the Middle East and the entire region, it is doubly true today,” the Prime Minister said.

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Photo: Kaveh Sardari, www.sardari.com

“[Other countries] sacrificed the future for the present and created large deficits. We decided that the long term is more important. According to economic philosophy, if you sacrifice the future, you in essence damage the present. Economics is mainly expectations for the future. Therefore, while the rest of the world lowered taxes, we raised indirect taxes. Now, as the rest of the world is raising taxes, we are in the midst of sharply lowering taxes for companies and individuals by 2016,” said Minister Steinitz.

He also pointed to the government’s use of a two-year or bi-annual budget, a system which Minister Steinitz points to as an important element to focus on the implementation, not the planning of the budget. “All governments are spending at least six months on planning and preparing the budgets, then they are spending six months focusing on implementing. Then they begin focusing on next year’s budget again. It is totally illogical,” Steinitz said. Earlier this year, the IMF even recommended the idea of a bi-annual budget, he said.

What Israel’s finance sector has done over the past few years has also received worldwide attention. Just today, Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel was awarded the prestigious title of “Best Bank Governor of the World” by industry-leading Euromoney.

“Israel’s resilience during its financial crisis and its aftermath prove that Stanley Fischer is worthy of the respect he commands at the top of the financial community,” according to the magazine. “His bold moves to raise interest rates in September 2009 – the first country to do so after the crisis, proved well guided and prescient. Further rises have also been well timed, allowing the economy to grow at a healthy rate of 4.7% in the second quarter of 2010 while keeping inflation in check around 1.8%. His innovative move towards an interventionist exchange rate policy, while controversial at the time, has bolstered Israel’s reserves while boosting the country’s exports, which are key to its economic performance. Despite Israel’s political and regional difficulties, Fischer’s policies contributed to Israel’s acceptance to the OECD in May this year.”

Here the full audio of Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz’s lecture at SAIS: http://www.sais-jhu.edu/news-and-events/index.htm

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In his first television interview as Israel’s new Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren sits down with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to discuss his prospects for peace in the Middle East and on Iran.

Watch the full CNN segment here.

Read Fareed Zakaria’s Q&A, “Surprising Progress in the Middle East,” here.

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The blog also discusses the different initiatives that the @IsraelConsulate and @DavidSaranga have taken in the field of new media.

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An excerpt:

Many failed to see what was new in Netanyahu’s vision. For decades, peace professionals and activists believed that when peace comes, Palestine will be demilitarized and Israel will be Jewish. Americans, Europeans and Israelis involved in the peace process took this premise to be self-evident.
But the Palestinians never accepted this premise. They did not agree to limit the sovereignty of their future state so that Israel’s security would be guaranteed. They did not recognize the existence of a Jewish people which expresses its right of self-determination in the Jewish nation-state. They did not go through the profound ideological conversion required so that a real two-state peace could be achieved and sustained.

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On June 17th, David Saranga (@DavidSaranga), Consul for Media and Public Affairs at the Consulate General of Israel in New York (@IsraelConsulate), addressed the 140 Character Conference (#140conf) about the use of twitter in Public Diplomacy.

Twitter “allows us to reach people and segments of society that usually we don’t reach,” @DavidSaranga explained at the conference. “There is a lot of room to include dialogue between people.”

To read more about Saranga’s speech at the #140conf, click here.

At the conference, @DavidSaranga announced the launch of twt4peace, a dialogue on twitter encouraging the discussion of topics that concern everyone: environment, minority rights, and education.

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The intent here is not to stifle disagreement, exclude key actors from the political process or suggest that democracy be uniform and disregard local cultures and values. The goal is to make clear that the democratic process is not a free pass — it is about responsibilities as well as rights.

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The Government of Israel expresses its hope that this important speech in Cairo will indeed lead to a new period of reconciliation between the Arab and Moslem world and Israel.

We share President Obama’s hope that the American effort heralds the beginning of a new era that will bring about an end to the conflict and lead to Arab recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, living in peace and security in the Middle East.

Israel is committed to peace and will make every effort to expand the circle of peace while protecting its interests, especially its national security.

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