Israel Active

Israel is to build 150km of interurban bicycle lanes connecting the cities of Ra'anana, Herzliya, Ramat Hasharon, Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan, Givat Shmuel, Yehud, Or Yehuda, Rishon LeZion, Yehud, Holon and Bat Yam. The tracks will contain electric charging stations.

Israel unveiled a plan to give Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Iraq access to the Mediterranean through Israel’s ports in Haifa and Ashdod, in a plan called “Tracks for Peace.” The Haifa to Beit She’an railway would link to the PA at Jenin and extend through Jordan, into Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

The Facebook group Israeli Women Entrepreneurs' Network (IWEN) has 700 members and helps Anglo female entrepreneurs in Israel. It recently organized a retreat for 43 members. They announced an Israeli first – a women's cooperative in Jerusalem for tourists’ gift shopping.

Muslim women in Israel are doctors, pharmacists, entrepreneurs, bus drivers, judges, IDF soldiers, etc. (see and ). Now Israel gets its first Muslim, female diplomat, when Rasha Atamny from Baqa al-Gharbiya becomes first secretary at the Israeli embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

I reported previously about Israel’s Champions of the Flyway bird race, that raises funds to stop illegal trapping of song birds in the Middle East. This year’s race raised over $60,000 to end the illegal practice of hunting and trapping songbirds in southern Turkey.

This article lists just some of the work of Israel’s overseas development agency MASHAV last year. Countries benefitting from Israeli agro-tech included Kenya, India, 11 Latin American states, Paraguay, seven former Soviet states and five African states.

Thousands of marchers generated a sea of blue and white flags along New York City’s Fifth Avenue for the annual Celebrate Israel parade. Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan represented Israel. He also launched a new anti-BDS campaign called “4IL”.

The Israel-US relationship is a bilateral bond from which both sides derive considerable benefit.

Jerusalem has been formally recognized as the capital of Israel by the US Senate, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Vanuatu.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Liberia, where he was the first non-African head of state to be invited to speak to the members of ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States.