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5766: A Turbulent Year for Israel
by Leslie Susser
- The Jewish year 5766 was one of the most dramatic in Israel’s history. It saw a sitting prime minister dismantle his ruling party and then suffer a massive stroke that left him comatose.
- A terrorist group that refused to recognize Israel’s existence elected to the pinnacle of Palestinian power, and a war with another terrorist group in which more than 100 rockets slammed into Israeli cities and towns nearly every day for more than a month.
- Overall, 5766 generally was a good year for the Israeli economy, though the war in the north led to an estimated one per cent loss in economic growth, which had been projected at more than four per cent for the second year running.
- The fiscal challenge is to meet the military and social needs without creating inflationary pressure. (JTA/Canadian Jewish News)
Face the Facts
by Pinchas Landau
- This was, by far, the best year in the country's economic history.
- The balance of payment on current account - the summary of our real relations with the rest of the world, as opposed to the babble of the media and the United Nations - is in a state of steady and growing surplus.
- The surplus for the first half of 2006 reached 5 percent of GDP - historically unprecedented, globally rare and with huge positive implications for the future of the country.
- The Israeli economy as it existed in the first 50 years of the state, and as generations of Jews in Israel and abroad were trained to think about it - as a nebbisch, living on schnorr - is no more. This is a rich country, getting rapidly richer. (Jerusalem Post)
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The Year Israel Returned to Lebanon
by Yaakov Lappin
- It was a year that saw the breaking apart of an old political order, and the ambitious rise to power of a new, center party, formed by Ariel Sharon.
- Israelis who believe in a greater Land of Israel, and in Jewish settlement from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, the orange camp, felt alienated and fractured from the rest of society, and Gaza evacuees uprooted from their homes struggled to adjust, and to build new homes within Israel.
- As Israel weighed how it would retrieve its kidnapped soldiers, a full-scale war developed, following Hizballah Katyusha rocket attacks across the north. For the first time in its history, the northern port city of Haifa came under deadly missile attack.
- 5766 will be remembered for its surprising and unpredictable fast turn of events, as the Israeli people hope for a calmer and more peaceful new year, while at the same time preparing for possible future conflicts. (Ynet News)
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