Schools, kindergartens to gradually reopen from Sunday, deaths rise to 203
Schools and kindergartens will gradually reopen from Sunday in a combined format of in-class and remote learning, ministers decided Monday as they move to return the economy to normal operations. The decision is conditional on the continued decline of infection rates, with full approval due on Friday.Efraim Karsh: The San Remo Conference — 100 Years On
Approving plans presented by the Education Ministry at the meeting, the return of pupils to school will vary according to age group. Children aged 0-6 will return to kindergarten in small groups and attend on different days.
First to third graders will learn in school from Sunday to Thursday, but in groups limited to no more than 15 pupils. Break times will be staggered to ensure that groups do not meet each other. Pupils in fourth to twelfth grade will continue learning remotely at this stage.
The decision to reopen schools follows a significant slowdown in infections across the country. A total of 203 Israelis have died from the coronavirus and 15,466 cases have been confirmed to date. Currently, 129 patients are in serious condition, including 96 requiring ventilation.
Some 6,796 patients have recovered so far, leaving a total of 8,760 active cases.
There is probably no more understated event in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict than the San Remo Conference of April 1920.
Convened for a mere week as part of the post-World War I peace conferences that created a new international order on the basis of indigenous self-rule and national self-determination, the San Remo conference appointed Britain as the mandatory for Palestine with the specific task of “putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government [i.e., the Balfour Declaration], and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
This mandate was then ratified on July 24, 1922 by the Council of the League of Nations — the post-war world organization and the UN’s predecessor.
The importance of the Palestine mandate cannot be overstated. Though falling short of the proposed Zionist formula that “Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people,” it signified an unqualified recognition by the official representative of the will of the international community of the Jews as a national group — rather than a purely religious community — and the acknowledgement of “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” as “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in the country.”
It is a historical tragedy therefore that 100 years after this momentous event, the Palestinian leadership and its international champions remain entrenched in the rejection not only of the millennial Jewish attachment to Palestine, but of the very existence of a Jewish people (and by implication its right to statehood).
Rather than keep trying to turn the clock backward at the certain cost of prolonging their people’s statelessness and suffering, it is time for this leadership to shed its century-long recalcitrance and opt for peace and reconciliation with their Israeli neighbors.
Netanyahu: ‘A Century After San Remo, the Promise of Zionism is Being Realized’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address on Sunday that “the promise of Zionism” would be realized in just a few months, when Israel extends its sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and parts of Judea and Samaria under the aegis of the US “Peace to Prosperity” plan.
In a video message to the European Coalition for Israel, an evangelical Christian group, marking the 100th anniversary of the San Remo Resolution, in which the world powers recognized the national rights of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, Netanyahu said that soon Israel and its supporters would be celebrating “another historic moment in the history of Zionism.”
“President Trump pledged to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish communities there [Judea and Samaria] and in the Jordan Valley. A couple of months from now, I am confident that that pledge will be honored, that we will be able to celebrate another historic moment in the history of Zionism. A century after [the] San Remo [Resolution], the promise of Zionism is being realized, because we never stop fighting for our rights,” said Netanyahu.
He thanked the conference participants, saying, “Your efforts are part of that fight. Thank you for celebrating this historic occasion and securing the Jewish future.”
Under the Trump plan, the political component of which was published in January, Israel can extend its sovereignty to almost all Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, as well as to the Jordan Valley. Then, after four years, a Palestinian state would be established if the Palestinian leadership had met a set of conditions, chief among them renouncing terrorism and ensuring rule of law.
Here's the link to my speech for @IMTIzionism commemorating the centennial of the San Remo Conference.https://t.co/u8urHU2DEZ
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) April 26, 2020




















