Israel Active

Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has been  elected Vice President of the UN General Assembly.  As part of this role, Ambassador Erdan will chair General Assembly meetings and take part in setting the agenda for General Assembly deliberations.

The Paris Conference “Israel Back in Africa? Challenges and Opportunities,” hosted diplomats from Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, and Somaliland. There were entrepreneurs from Nigeria and Cameroon and Nigeria’s Releaf signed an agreement with Israeli NGO VIP (see ).

70 Israeli and 70 British disabled veterans competed against each other in the fourth annual Veteran Games in Tel Aviv. As part of the program, the participants also went on tours of Israel, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Dead Sea.

I don’t often include blogs in my newsletter, but the positive messages in this interview by Jonny Gould with Mohammad Tawhidi are well worth reading.

Artists 4 Israel (see previously) sponsored an event in a National Day of Action against hate and anti-Semitism, inspired by the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Artists all over the world spread messages of tolerance and love using just chalk and stencils.

On World Oceans Day, the European Union delegation to the State of Israel, the French Embassy, the Municipality of Bat Yam, and hundreds of Israeli volunteers performed an official clean-up of Bat Yam beach, south of Tel Aviv, as part of the annual #EUBeachCleanup campaign.

20-year-old Eden is making history as the first-ever woman to work as a mine clearer in the Jewish state. “My boyfriend and I saw a job opening for mine clearers, applied, and were accepted,” she explained. She had extensive previous experience in the IDF’s engineering corps.

31 members of the national service from Israel’s Arab community have completed the course to become assistant firefighters and will now serve at fire stations throughout Israel. A ceremony held in their honor was attended by Israel’s Minister of Internal Security and the Fire and Rescue Commissioner.

Israel’s Energy Ministry Director-General Lior Schillat said the European Union is negotiating to import Israeli natural gas via Egypt’s two gas liquefaction facilities. He said that Israel’s exploration for new natural gas fields will continue until Europe’s gas crisis is over.

Israel is again hosting the OECD International Education Innovation Conference (see previously) – this time in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. 15,000 participants are expected from 48 countries including leading educational professionals from around the world.