The recent earthquake which struck Nepal was one of the most powerful quakes recorded in decades, measuring in at 7.9 on the Richter scale. Those who lived through this terrifying natural disaster watched as the world’s mightiest mountains were shaken like rag dolls. This has been a tremendous setback for a nation that was already extremely remote and very poor. Now as the international community has stepped in to help Nepal recover, no country has responded more generously than Israel. In fact, Israel has sent the largest team of medical and relief workers to Nepal, and the Israeli army’s field hospital is the largest of its kind to be set up in the disaster area. They’re treating the wounded, finding people still trapped in the rubble, and bringing badly-needed emergency aid to the battered country. So why has Israel responded so quickly and extensively to the tragic earthquake in Nepal? What are the Israelis providing to this battered mountain nation? How has it impacted the relief efforts? And has Israel responded the same way to other natural disasters in recent years? Israel to the Rescue! That’s our focus this week here on Front Page Jerusalem. We’ll feature a report on what Israel has been doing to help the nation of Nepal recover from the recent devastating earthquake. We’ll speak about these generous and heroic efforts with Emanuel Nachshon, the Spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Today, our feature report is on what Israel has been doing to help the small, remote nation of Nepal recover from the recent massive earthquake which struck that poor mountain kingdom. In the wake of this huge natural disaster, Israel has sent the largest medical and relief team of any foreign country to Nepal. To find out why Israel was so generous and what these Israeli rescuers are doing, we spoke this week to Mr. Emanuel Nachshon, the spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So let’s go over to Jerusalem
and Front Page senior producer David Parsons, who has this week’s main story on “Israel to the Rescue!”
ICEJ Report
On this week’s ICEJ Report , we’ll tell you what the Christian Embassy is doing right now to try to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Here again is Front Pagesenior producer David Parsons with more.
Join hosts Earl Cox, Ben Kinchlow and David Parsons for this week’s Front Page Jerusalem, on a radio station near you or visit our website to download the MP3 and to subscribe to program podcasts
This week, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu finally pulled together a new ruling coalition just ahead of the deadline for forming a government. And the results of this process were just as surprising as his strong election victory only six weeks earlier. After winning by a much wider margin than anyone expected, the coalition building process has now left Netanyahu in a very weakened position as head of a razor-thin majority of only 61 seats in the Knesset. Now normally, winning 30 seats for the Likud party would have given Netanyahu a strong hand in coalition bargaining. But each one of the parties he was trying to bring into his newest government all had reasons to want to get back at him. And this week, the result was Netanyahu having to cave in to all the demands made by his coalition partners in order to beat the clock for forming a new government. So how did Benjamin Netanyahu go from a surprisingly strong election victory in March to such a weakened position as head of a narrow government? Who was out for payback against Netanyahu? How stable a government does he now have, and what will its priorities be? Will he try to add other parties from the center/left? And what has been the reaction from the United States and other countries? The New Israeli Government! That’s our focus next week here on Front Page Jerusalem. We’ll have insights and analysis on Israel’s new government from our special guest Gil Hoffman, the chief political correspondent for The Jerusalem Post. He’ll give us the inside story on why Netanyahu went from such a big winner on election day to the head of a very precarious coalition today.
