Year In
Review

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ISRAEL

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DETROIT
JEWISH NEW

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64 September 2 2010

FROM YOUR
FRIENDS AND
FAMILY AT
THE DETROIT
JEWISH NEWS

Israeli naval commandos inter-
cepted a cargo of more than 3,000
Iranian-made rockets destined
for Hezbollah on the Francop, an
Antigua and Barbuda-flagged ves-
sel sailing from the Iranian port of
Bandar Abbas.
In the face of the growing threat
from the Iranian axis — Iran,
Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas —
Israel significantly augmented its
missile and rocket defenses. In
January, the Iron Dome system,
designed to intercept short-range
projectiles, passed final tests, and
in June Israel launched the Ofek
9 spy satellite, enhancing intelli-
gence gathering over Iran.
Moreover, despite the politi-
cal differences, Israeli-American
defense ties remained strong and
intimate. For example, in late
October 2009, the two armies
jointly tested the interoperabil-
ity of their highly sophisticated
defense systems against incoming
ballistic missiles.
Despite its diplomatic difficul-
ties and strategic challenges,
Israel's economy prospered, with
the most dramatic development
the discovery in June of a huge
natural gas reserve off the Israeli
coast. The field, called Leviathan,
is estimated to contain about 15
trillion cubic feet of gas, nearly
twice as much as the adjacent
Tamar field discovered the year
before.
According to Infrastructure
Minister Uzi Landau, Israel now
has enough gas to supply all its
needs "for the next 50 to 70 years."
Experts have described the finds,
which could contain as much as
one-fifth of America's known gas
reserves or twice that of Britain's,
as a potential geopolitical game-
changer.
As a mark of its increasing
economic power, Israel was admit-
ted in May to the OECD, which
incorporates the world's most
developed nations. Netanyahu
described Israel's admittance as
a "seal of approval" that would
attract investors.
And despite the continued
aftershocks of the international
economic crisis, Israel's economic
performance remained robust,
with growth of 3.4 percent in the
first quarter of 2010, following
the 4.4 percent growth of the last
quarter of 2009. 7