Israel in the News Apr/May 1995
Facts & Figures
(from The Jewish Free Press)
The 500,000 immigrants who have made aliyah from the FSU [Former Soviet Union] since 1989 constitute more than ten percent of Israel’s population. In addition:
*53 percent of them are female.
*More than half (393,000) of the olim are over the age of 15, including 66,000 who are over 64.
*25.9 percent chose Tel Aviv as the site of their first residence in Israel; 22 percent selected Central Israel outside the major cities; for 6.9 percent, it was Jerusalem, and 0.9 percent opted for Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
*52.4 percent of adult immigrants have completed 13 or more years of education (more than twice the percentage of native born Israelis that have done so).
*Among these half-million olim are 57,400 engineers and architects; more than 12,600 doctors and dentists; 12,200 artists, composers, writers and journalists; 12,000 health-care workers, and 25,000 teachers.
Jerusalem’s Arab population is up (from The Jerusalem Exponent)
Jerusalem’s Arab population continues to grow faster than its Jewish one, according to a recent municipality report.
Non-Jews, mainly Arabs, made up some 28.3 percent of Jerusalem residents at the end of 1993, the report stated. In 1992, the figure for non-Jews was 27.9 percent.
The Arab population has grown slowly but steadily in relation to the Jewish population since the city’s reunification. In 1967, 74.2 percent of the population was Jewish and 25.8 percent non-Jewish, compared to 71.7 percent and 28.3 percent in 1993.
Israel will launch advanced satellite
(from The Jewish Exponent)
Israel will launch an advanced communications satellite next November, officials with Israel Aircraft Industries announced recently.
The Amos-1 satellite, which is being built by IAI in cooperation with Deutsche Aerospace of Germany and the French Alcatel Aerospace company, will be launched by a French-made Ariane rocket from Guinea, in West Africa. The satellite is expected to remain in orbit for some 11 years.
Amos-1 will be able to relay video, voice and data transmission across an area extending from Iran to Libya, and from Ukraine in the north to as far south as Sudan, Africa.
Missing Country
(from The Jerusalem Report)
Israel does not appear on maps distributed by an official Egyptian agency at the recent Casablanca economic summit, the daily Ma’ariv reported recently. The publication leaves out the name of Israel, and fails to mark its borders.
Iran may be making long range missiles
(from The Jerusalem Post)
Iran may be co-producing long range missiles with North Korea that can reach Israel, Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur said recently.
“We know the Iranians are in contact with North Korea to purchase and produce together a missile that can reach the range of 1,300 km, maybe a little farther … We assume the enemy they see in their minds is the State of Israel. Maybe not only Israel, but the fact is with that range they can reach us and in the last year we have taken many steps in this context”
18 Arab countries “waiting for peace”
(from The Jerusalem Post)
The US has received signals from 18 Arab states that they will make peace with Israel once it and Syria have struck an accord, sources in the Clinton administration and outside it have told the Post.
Furthermore, Syria has informed the US that it will establish diplomatic relations with Israel, but only upon the conclusion of full withdrawal from the Golan, the sources said. Syria has promised the US that other Arab countries will join in establishing ties with Israel after full withdrawal.
