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Sunday, April 12, 2020

04/12 Links: Dr. Miriam Adelson: We shall shake off the dust and arise; Western Wall priestly blessing held with 10 worshipers, including US envoy

From Ian:
Dr. Miriam Adelson: We shall shake off the dust and arise
It is rare, at times like this, to begin the week – yet another week in the shadow of the coronavirus - on a note of joy and excitement. The crisis persists, and with it, heartrending stories of people lost, as well as of loneliness, of challenges to livelihood and of worries about what yet awaits us.

But it is precisely at such moments that the heart looks to the small stories, of individuals. And it is on one such story that I would like to embark – a story that heartens me in these dark days.

It is the story of Eli Beer, an esteemed friend of Sheldon and mine renowned for the fact that, at the age of 16, he founded "United Hatzalah" and runs it to this very day. Alas, Eli contracted the coronavirus during a visit to the United States and, last month, at the height of the attendant COVID-19 disease, his condition deteriorated and he was sedated and placed on a ventilator at a Miami hospital.

Three days ago, Eli's condition improved. He was taken off the ventilator and, with God's help, is on the path to a full recovery.

A person's convalescence is, in itself, excellent news. But here it is fitting to invoke the axiom of the Jewish sages which holds that every life is a world unto itself: For Eli is, to the fullest, the realization of this - a world unto himself who has been brought back to life, and to us.

Israel’s first 100 virus deaths: More men than women; nearly 1/4 from Jerusalem
Data released by the Health Ministry showed that a slight majority of Israel’s coronavirus fatalities were men, a statistic that appears in line with a global trend, and the city that saw the highest death rate was Jerusalem.

The Health Ministry figures are Israel’s official tally and only include deaths in hospitals or assisted living facilities. It is unknown whether there have been fatalities in private homes or other locations. As of Sunday, the ministry said 103 people have died of the virus.

According to the Health Ministry figures released Saturday, which are based on 96 fatalities and were collated last week, 51 men died in Israel from COVID-19, compared with 45 women. This appears to tally with statistics from Asia and Europe, where a slightly higher proportion of fatalities were male.

Globally, men are statistically more likely to smoke, which is thought to possibly play a role in susceptibility to COVID-19, and men are also more likely to have underlying problems that could act as a contributing factor, such as heart disease. In addition, there are some studies that suggest hormones may play a role in the severity of the disease.

Israel’s oldest victim was 98 years old and the youngest was 37 years old. The majority of those who died were over the age of 70, according to the figures. Almost all of those who have died from COVID-19 in Israel have suffered from preexisting conditions, according to hospital officials.
UN Watch: Amnesty International official gets Hamas to arrest peace activist
Amnesty International is being asked to fire a Gaza researcher after the New York Times reported that she got Hamas to arrest a Palestinian peace activist for holding a Zoom call with Israeli peace activists.

Gaza Youth Committee leader Rami Aman, 38, who organized the peace dialogue, has not been heard from since he surrendered Thursday morning at Hamas Internal Security headquarters in Gaza City, a family member said late Friday afternoon.

According to the Times, Hind Khoudary, who is described by the London-based human rights organization as an “Amnesty International Research Consultant” and “worker”, “posted angry denunciations on Facebook of Mr. Aman and others on the call, tagging three Hamas officials to ensure it got their attention.” Then Hamas arrested him for “betrayal of our people and their sacrifices.”

In wake of the controversy this weekend, at about 1:00 am Gaza time on April 12th Khoudary deleted the Facebook post where she had tagged the Hamas officials. Here is the screenshot:

See some of Khoudary’s numerous other Facebook posts from that day denouncing Aman here, here and here.

Even long-time Human Rights Watch official Peter Bouckaert, who always sided with Hamas in its wars with Israel, has condemned Amnesty International’s researcher, and removed her from a private Facebook group.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Bouckaert wrote to Khoudary.



Israeli researchers at Hebrew U develop faster, cheaper COVID-19 test
Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced on Sunday that they have developed a new method of testing for COVID-19 which is not only 4-10 times faster than the tests most commonly used today, but also significantly cheaper, while supplying the same level of accuracy.

Moreover, most of the materials required to perform the new test are already available in Israel, easing significantly both the country's dire shortage of testing materials and its heavy economic dependence on foreign commercial markets.

The method was developed in the labs of Prof. Nir Friedman of the Institute of Life Sciences and the School of Engineering and Computer Sciences and Dr. Naomi Haviv of Hebrew University's Neuroscience Research Center, and is based on materials which are not affected by global shortages and can even be recycled for repeated used on future tests.

The method commonly used today for COVID-19 testing involves extracting RNA molecules from a patient's sample to determine if they have viral RNA within them, which confirms the presence of the coronavirus.

The new test developed by the researchers performs the same action, but is made from more commonly attainable materials, that produce results at a much higher speed.

Haviv said that, "We have an efficient RNA extraction method, 4-10 times faster than the current method. It is based on magnetic beads and can be performed both robotically and manually."
Israeli anti-terror tech to facially recognize mask-wearing health staff
Commonly deployed by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, advanced facial recognition technology developed by Tel Aviv-based Corsight primarily targets individuals seeking to avoid capture by any means possible.

Now, faced with new realities emerging from the coronavirus pandemic, the artificial intelligence-powered solution of Corsight is being deployed for another purpose: to recognize and protect individuals wearing medical face masks, including key hospital staff.

"The strong capabilities that we built for government use and to fight terror, enabling us to recognize a person from just part of their face, now provides a solution to recognize people during the coronavirus crisis," said Ofer Ronen, head of homeland security at Corsight's parent company Cortica.

"The idea is that face recognition will replace many surfaces that require physical touch. For example, opening doors in offices, fingerprint timestamps, or for doctors wearing masks who touch door handles when they need to go from room to room, which we now understand is one of the main ways to transfer disease."

The technology developed by the company requires less than 50% of the face to be exposed to ensure accurate recognition, solving issues posed by increasing preferences and even requirements for citizens to wear face masks.

The solution, Ronen said, is capable of recognizing an individual's face from an elevation of up to 60 degrees, and up to a 100 degree profile. Individuals can also be recognized in very low-level light - just two to three lumens.


Can Muslims Ever Accept a Jewish State?
To understand any potential agreement between Israel and its neighbors, it is essential to understand how Islam understands it relationships with non-Muslims. Only then can we address the question of whether Muslims can ever accept a Jewish state on land they believe is theirs.

Many years ago, I taught Middle East history at the University of Delaware. The classes included a significant number of Muslim students from Iran, Turkey, and the Arab lands. When we came to the French conquest of North Africa in the 19th century, I asked the students what they thought about the French imposing their culture and language on the locals. Both the American and Muslim students were outraged by French colonialism.

I then referred to the Muslim conquest of these lands in the 7th century, asking whether what the Muslims conquerors had done was any different from what the French had done. The Americans quickly got the point. But the gut reaction of the Muslim students was to shout out that the Muslims brought Islam to the locals which improved/elevated their lives.

No Muslim would publicly admit that what the Arab Muslims coming out of Arabia had done was imperialism. Better to be ruled by Muslim autocrats/tyrants than by non-Muslim infidels who had no right to rule over Muslims, no matter how much freedom or prosperity their governance might bring.

In 1979, Anwar Sadat signed an agreement with Israel supposedly ending 30 years of conflict between overwhelmingly Muslim Egypt and Jewish Israel. Interestingly, the Arabic word most often used in the Egyptian press to describe the agreement was tafahhum - best translated as "mutual understanding," not a peace agreement. There is, in fact, no way in Arabic to express the Western concept of letting bygones be bygones.
Why Do Liberals Dismiss President Trump's Peace Plan Out of Hand?
While it is morally right to help any community or individual unjustly persecuted or forced to live in squalor, the historical record shows that Israel did not launch the wars against it, nor inspire terrorism, nor perpetuate the multi-generational refugee crisis, nor force Palestinians to remain in camps without citizenship in Lebanon, Syria, or (partly) in Jordan.

We must ask why so many secular liberals, Christians, and a minority of Jews do not grasp that negotiations based on... Islamic law can never play any role in current international law and can never bring peace to the Middle East. This longing to replace Western law with Islamic law inspires not just Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamic State, and, as we have seen, the entire Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

It is the Jews, not the Arabs, who have been for 3,000 years, the indigenous people on that land, and it has been the Arabs, not the Jews, who are the settler-colonialists in the territory. Arabs first entered Palestine in and after the year 634, when it was invaded by Muslim conquerors -- a fact recognized by every Islamic history down the centuries.

"Other stateless peoples can only dream of being offered independence and $50bn by the US president... offers of a kind that Chechens, Kurds, Baluchis, Tibetans and dozens of other stateless people would have jumped at." — Tom Gross, journalist, Mideast Dispatch Archive, January 30, 2020.
FDR, the Saudis, and the Jews
On February 14, 1945, on the deck of the USS Quincy in Egypt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. U.S. ambassador to Riyadh William Eddy wrote down the two leaders' remarks in a "Memorandum of Conversation," which both leaders signed.

Ibn Saud said he opposed "continued Jewish immigration and the purchase of land [in Palestine] by the Jews." The king insisted that "the Arabs and the Jews could never cooperate, neither in Palestine, nor in any other country." Roosevelt "replied that he wished to assure his majesty that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people."

Roosevelt asked Ibn Saud for his view of "the problem of Jewish refugees driven from their homes in Europe." The king asserted that the Jews should be "given living space in the Axis countries which oppressed them." In response, "The president remarked that Poland might be considered a case in point. The Germans appear to have killed three million Polish Jews, by which count there should be space in Poland for the resettlement of many homeless Jews." The writer is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington
UK’s Johnson out of the hospital, says staff saved his life
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was discharged from a London hospital, where he was treated in intensive care for the coronavirus, ahead of the release of government figures Sunday in which the UK is expected to surpass 10,000 virus-related deaths.

Johnson’s office said he left St. Thomas’ Hospital and will continue his recovery at Chequers, the prime minister’s country house.

“On the advice of his medical team, the PM will not be immediately returning to work,” the statement said. “He wishes to thank everybody at St. Thomas’ for the brilliant care he has received.”

Johnson had been in the hospital for a week and had spent three nights in the intensive care unit. Earlier he said he owed his life to the National Health Service staff who treated him. “I can’t thank them enough,” Johnson said in his first public statement since he was moved out of intensive care Thursday night. “I owe them my life.”

In a video statement released on social media after his discharge Sunday, Johnson, dressed in a suit and looking and sounding assured, said he did not have the words to properly thank the staff in the National Health Service for “saving my life.”

He listed a number of the frontline staff who cared for him over a week at St. Thomas’ Hospital but singled out two nurses who stood by his bedside for 48 hours “when things could have gone either way.”

He said Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal were the reason “in the end my body did start to get enough oxygen.”

Johnson said there are “hundreds of thousands of NHS staff who are acting with the same care and thought and precision as Jenny and Luis.”

He asserted that Britain “will defeat this coronavirus and defeat it together.”


‘Antisemitic’ union leader: I'd 'throw a party' if British PM dies
The British Rail, Maritime and Transport trade union suspended its No. 2 leader on Friday after he said he would "throw a party" if UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson dies of coronavirus.

The Evening Standard reported the comments of the now suspended union official, Steve Hedley.

Hedley's euphoria about celebrating Johnson's death comes after the prime minister was admitted into an intensive care unit as he fought the deadly coronavirus.

The union official faced accusations of antisemitism last year for telling a British activist who combats Jew hatred, "You are a modern-day Nazi.”

A 2011 video showed Hedley’s anti-Jewish comment at a pro-Palestinian meeting. His rant targeted the prominent British activist and defender of the Jewish state, Richard Millet.

According to a transcript of Hedley’s diatribe, he said to Millet, “You're an absolute disgrace to the Jewish people. You are a modern-day fascist, you are a modern-day Nazi, by supporting those policies that oppress a… minority in your own state.”

Hedley continued that “What the Nazis did to you, you're doing to the Palestinians.”

According to The Daily Mail, Millet responded: “Feel better?”
UK’s stand-in PM lost his great-grandparents in Holocaust, studied in West Bank
With British Prime Minister Boris Johnson currently recovering after a three-day stint in intensive care with COVID-19, the United Kingdom – for the moment at least – has a stand-in leader of half-Jewish origin.

Dominic Raab, 46, is the son of a Czech Jewish refugee who came to England on the Kindertransport in 1938 as a six-year-old and a mother who raised him in the Church of England.

The foreign secretary has in the past brought up the subject of his Jewish origins on several occasions including in a May, 2019 article in the Daily Mail, in which he shared with the paper photos of his father, Peter.

While Peter Raab made it to England on the Kindertransport, in which some 10,000 Jewish children were brought to England from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the free city of Danzig, the majority of Peter’s family, including his grandparents, were left behind and murdered by the Nazis.

In a video, Raab invoked the memory of his father to slam Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for his “inaction” on anti-Semitism and failing to stand up for the kind of “free and tolerant democracy” that had welcomed Peter Raab.

He added that his father never forgot what happened to his family, who, he said, “had been systematically murdered for no other reason that they were Jews.”

In a speech at the Conservative party’s conference the previous year, Raab also brought up his father’s past, accusing Labour of “intimidation, fanaticism, and scapegoating, especially against Jews.”

His Jewish origins notwithstanding, Raab has in the past been critical of Israel and especially the settlement enterprise.

In 2018, following an incident in which dozens of Palestinians were killed when they stormed Israel’s border with Gaza as the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Raab said Israel had been guilty of a “totally disproportionate use of force,” even suggesting the possible use of “sanctions” against Israel.

However, he has also rejected a call to recognize a Palestinian state, arguing in 2011 that, “voting for a Palestinian state at the United Nations risks entrenching intransigence on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peace requires political leadership, not a legal mirage.”

The Oxford and Cambridge trained lawyer started out his foreign office career after the summer of 1998 at Birzeit University, where he worked with a former PLO negotiator on the Oslo Accords, assessing World Bank projects in the West Bank.
Just in time for Easter: Jordan River baptismal site is mine-free after 53 years
Like many churches around the world this Easter Sunday, the eight churches at the site where Jesus is believed to have been baptized on the Jordan River will be empty of worshipers on one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar.

But after a massive explosion that triggered more than 500 landmines in a controlled, daisy-chain explosion last month, the Qasr al-Yahud site is free of landmines for the first time in 53 years.

The last bomb sappers left the site on April 9.

There are eight monasteries, as well as additional churches and chapels, at the site, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Jericho. Nearly all of the major sects of Christianity from around the world have a building at Qasr al-Yahud, which is located on the banks of the Jordan River.

In 1968, after the Six Day War, Israel blocked access to the churches and enfolded the site in the closed military zone along the border with Jordan, fearing terrorists could use the churches as a staging ground for attacks on Israeli settlements. The Jordan River is only a few meters wide at that point and easily crossable on foot.

The Israeli army seeded the area with more than 6,500 landmines and set booby traps inside the church buildings in the late 1960s and ’70s. For decades, the bullet-pocked monasteries stood shuttered, yellow signs warning of landmines flapping in the wind.

In 2016, HALO Trust, a UK-based demining group that operates in 27 countries and territories around the world, announced it would begin the process of clearing the landmines around Qasr al-Yahud. However, the actual demining work was delayed for two years due to funding issues.
Right-wing urges Rivlin to tap Netanyahu to form gov’t as Gantz’s time runs down
The right-wing religious bloc backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged President Reuven Rivlin to give the Likud leader a shot at forming a government, after Blue and White head Benny Gantz’s request for a two-week extension to form a government was rejected.

In a statement, the heads of the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Yamina parties called on Rivlin to “transfer the mandate to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has 59 recommendations, just like after the previous elections in September when you transferred the mandate to MK Benny Gantz when he had only 54 recommendations.”

The tally of 59 MKs includes the right-wing parties and Orly Levy-Abekasis, who last month defected from the left-wing Labor-Meretz-Gesher union and on Sunday declared that she would support Netanyahu for the premiership.

Rivlin had said earlier Sunday that he would leave it to the Knesset to pick a candidate for prime minister should the sides fail to come together in a unity government by Monday night, when Gantz’s mandate expires.

The religious right-wing Yamina Party, which found itself at odds with Blue and White during the now-stagnating coalition talks, urged Gantz to give up key coalition demands on the judiciary and sign on to a unity government.

In a statement, Yamina said Blue and White should drop its demand for the Justice Ministry, which Netanyahu had reportedly agreed to cede, as well as its demand for a say in judge selection, and “allow annexation of all settlements to begin immediately.”

“Gantz, there’s no shame in giving in. As someone who heads a faction of 17 seats against a bloc of 59, your demands are illogical and illegitimate by any democratic logic,” the six-seat Yamina said.

It is unclear if Rivlin would even be able to transfer the mandate to Netanyahu, given the Likud leader’s indictment in three corruption cases, and in light of a petition filed Sunday with the High Court of Justice against tasking him with forming a government.

The petition, filed by 117 high-tech, business, security and education professionals, came minutes after Rivlin announced he would not extend Gantz’s mandate to form a government and suggested he would not transfer the mandate to Netanyahu.
Is an Israeli air defense system shooting down Israeli drones in Libya?
The United Arab Emirates has reportedly supplied an Israeli air defense system to Libyan strongman Gen. Khalifa Haftar to counter Turkish drones supplied to his rival, as fighting to capture Tripoli intensifies.

According to a report in The New Arab, the system was supplied to counter Turkish drones as fighting around the capital picked up steam in recent days in an attempt to defeat the Government of National Accord, led by Fayez Sarraj.

The report alleges that the defense system was produced by an Israeli defense company and transferred to Egypt where fighters loyal to the warlord were trained on it before it was moved to Libya.

While it is unclear who had trained the Libyans, there have been multiple reports of Israelis training Haftar’s forces in street warfare, in territory under his control during August and September.

Though the UN Security Council has repeatedly renewed the arms embargo on Libya since 2011, both sides have received significant military aid by numerous countries. (h/t Zvi)
Abbas in phone call blitz to prevent Israeli annexation in West Bank
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a round of phone conversations with Middle East leaders to urge them to oppose Israel’s possible annexation of parts of the West Bank, senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat said on Saturday.

The extension of Israeli sovereignty to areas of the West Bank was included in the Trump administration peace plan rolled out on January 28 in Washington, and has been embraced by Israel. Last month, senior White House officials were quoted by Israeli TV news as saying that they intended to green-light the annexation within months if the Palestinians do not return to the negotiating table, which they have refused to do after entirely dismissing the peace plan.

In a tweet, Erakat said that Abbas spoke with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, the monarch of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa; the emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah; and the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss “the Israeli plan of annexation and the need to prevent it.”

The leaders also talked about the spread of the novel coronavirus and “other regional and international developments,” Erakat wrote.

Also Saturday, PA Social Affairs Minister Ahmad Majdalani raised his concerns that Israel would attempt to annex territory while global attention is focused on dealing with the pandemic, the Wafa news agency reported.
Coronavirus ‘extremely dangerous’ for Palestinian areas, UN envoy warns
The United Nations’ Middle East peace envoy on Sunday expressed grave concern over the situation in the Palestinian territories, urging Israel to do more to help contain the coronavirus pandemic in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

“The current situation is extremely dangerous and calls for bold action by all stakeholders,” Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement. “I am concerned about the socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 health crisis on the Palestinian people, particularly vulnerable communities in Gaza.”

Besides the medical consequences of the pandemic, “the negative shock to the Israeli and Palestinian economies will have profound implications for public welfare, employment, social cohesion, financial and institutional stability,” he added.

As of Sunday afternoon, 288 coronavirus cases were known to Ramallah authorities, according to Palestinian Authority government spokesperson Ibrahim Milhim.

“If current trends continue, the damage to the Palestinian economy will be substantial,” Mladenov said.

The PA’s economy, which relies to a great extent on tourism and trade, is suffering immensely from the current crisis, he added, with revenues at their lowest levels in two decades.






Will Turkey soon have more coronavirus cases than Iran?
Turkey’s pro-government media has been trying to spin the coronavirus as an Ankara victory for the last few months, even as the country’s cases rapidly increased to more than 50,000, making it the second worst outbreak in the Middle East after that of Iran. Just a month ago on March 8, Daily Sabah claimed that Turkey had special expertise in the fight against COVID-19 and the country was “virus-free.” It was not virus free, however – and the government’s attempt to pretend there were no cases have now come back to haunt it. Turkey put in place a two-day curfew over the weekend.

Turkey is an example of what happens when a country has almost no critical media; having muzzled or put in prison critical journalists over the last twenty years, the country’s media is dominated by state-run media or those connected to the ruling party. Ankara is among the largest jailor of journalists in the world according to Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists. There was little critical discussion of the government’s claims about the virus during key weeks in February and March when Ankara claimed the country was a model in the fight against the rising pandemic. Since the first of April the number of cases has risen from 15,000 to more than 52,000. Iran officially has 70,000 cases so it appears Turkey is on pace to have more cases than Iran in the next week. Turkey has more than 1,000 dead so far.

For Ankara’s leadership which is used to creating nationalist causes and wars over the last years to distract the public from problems at home the virus has proved a problem. Ankara is concerned about new bombing raids in Iraq, or sending more Syrian mercenaries to Libya, as it did in December, and does not want areas it occupies in northern Syria to become virus-hit or turn into a new conflict crisis.

How Ankara continues to try to distract from any criticism of its handling of the virus is to portray other countries as doing worse. It’s Anadolu media had twelve top stories on April 12, each of which focusing on failures of foreign countries. These included focus on India’s cases topping 8,000, Spain new deaths at 600, Iran having 4,500 deaths and a focus on new cases in Russia, China, the US, Italy and France. For Turkey the headlines were that there were less patients in intensive care and the army was handing out bread to the poor.
Review: Linda Sarsour’s ‘We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders’
During crises, it can be important to look to the past for reminders of normalcy. Linda Sarsour's new memoir, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, offers such an escape, reminding readers of the pre-pandemic era when people still talked about things like "white privilege" and the "liberation of Palestine." Published shortly before the coronavirus outbreak evolved into a pandemic and much of the United States shut down to confront a global health emergency, Sarsour's book offers a message that is now alien to the current moment.

Sarsour describes her memoir as a "social justice manifesto," documenting anecdotes from her childhood and career as a professional activist to push her political worldview—namely, that through "intersectional organizing," "marginalized communities" can bring about political change for their respective interests. There are groups of people in the United States, Sarsour writes, that are connected through their oppression by our country's institutions, like law enforcement, national security agencies, and public school systems.

Whatever this sounds like in theory, in practice, Sarsour's intersectional organizing has served to mainstream anti-Zionism on the activist left. A vocal proponent of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, Sarsour worked to link her personal project—the "liberation of Palestine"—to the Women’s March she cochaired. While feminism and anti-Zionism are seemingly separate causes, Sarsour writes that intersectionality requires feminists to also "stand up" for "Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza."

The dense layers of intersectionality don't end there. Back in 2015, Sarsour, who also worked with the Black Lives Matter movement, tied the Palestinian cause to the experience of African Americans, arguing that the "people who justify the massacres of Palestinian people and call it collateral damage are the same people who justify the murder of young black men and women." Five years later, Sarsour opts for subtler language, writing that the Palestinian American experience is "inextricably interwoven with the everyday reality of [her] Black and brown brothers and sisters."


NGOs should not be providing fiscal sponsorship to terrorist organizations
The coronavirus claimed another victim in recent days: the Gaza Return March. On Saturday, organizers postponed the return of these demonstrations, which began in 2018 but paused in recent months. The large crowds gathering along the border with Israel during these often-violent demonstrations would be a nightmare scenario for the transmission of the virus. While these gatherings have not been models of social distancing, they have provided ideal cover for terrorist groups to attack Israel’s border fence, fire rockets at Israeli communities and launch incendiary devices over the border. And yet, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), an American organization, has supported the march and the terrorist groups behind it, according to a pending lawsuit. The case will test the readiness of U.S. courts to block innovative means of financing terrorism.

A Washington, DC-based law firm filed suit in November 2019 on behalf of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and 12 American citizens living in Israel who were adversely affected by Palestinian rocket and incendiary attacks. The plaintiffs have endured bombardment and the constant threat of injury or death from Palestinian projectiles. The Rosenfelds, one of the families represented in the case, had their home seriously damaged by a Hamas rocket in July 2018. The lawsuit seeks to hold USCPR responsible for its role in promoting the attacks, alleging that USCPR “knowingly provides, distributes, and administers financial benefits, money, financial services and provides material support and encouragement” to terrorists.

Founded in 2001, USCPR serves as the coordinating body for American groups supporting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. USCPR has collected tax-deductible donations on behalf of the Ramallah-based BDS National Committee (BNC) since at least November 2017, serving as its fiscal sponsor. This role has brought USCPR into contact with terrorist groups.

The BNC, established in 2007 to steer and promote BDS, lists the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine (PNIF) first on its list of member organizations. Palestinian leaders formed the PNIF in 2000, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, to coordinate violent attacks against Israel. The PNIF is comprised of several U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In short, USCPR is collecting funds on behalf of terrorist groups and cannot plausibly claim that it was unaware of doing so.

The lawsuit identifies the PNIF as a “main pillar” within the BNC and a key promoter of the Gaza Return March. The 62-page complaint notes that the PNIF created the Gaza Return March’s Supreme National Committee (SNC) in March 2018 and that several PNIF members sit on this committee.
Did UK pharmacy publication’s Gaza story copy & paste from antisemitic site?
Last week we posted about a grossly misleading article at the London-based Phramafile.com blaming Israel for Gaza’s COVID-19 healthcare problems. Pharmafile.com describes itself as a leading portal for pharmaceutical professionals “with pharma news, pharma events, and pharma service company listings”.

You can read our full analysis here on the April 6th article, a piece which reads like a hatchet job you’d expect from an anti-Israel propaganda site, certainly not at a pharmaceutical industry publication. Following our post, we tweeted that the article was retracted by editors without explanation – and their tweet was deleted.

However, it turns out that they simply republished it with a different url, slightly different headline, and some largely superficial textual alternations. Though the headline was changed from “Israeli blockade has made COVID-19 a ‘death sentence’ in Gaza” to “Palestinians fear Israeli-Egyptian blockade may be a ‘death sentence’ for COVID-19 patients in Gaza”, some new sources were added, and a few paragraphs re-arranged, the new piece doesn’t represent a substantive departure from the original.

But, upon further analysis, we’ve concluded that the article(s) share a curious degree of overlap with a piece published at Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), a virulently anti-Israel publication that often peddles antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories.
BBC News website amends Bnei Brak report
Last week we documented erroneous claims which were included in a BBC News website report published on April 3rd about the outbreak of Covid 19 in the Israeli town of Bnei Brak.

BBC News misleads on Covid 19 cases in Bnei Brak

As noted at the time, BBC Watch submitted a complaint relating to that report but in light of the fact that the BBC complaints procedure is currently once again functioning at less than optimal levels, we also contacted BBC Trending which had put out a request for members of the public to contact them in relation to “Coronavirus fake news”.

BBC Trending quickly responded and we subsequently received the following reply from BBC Complaints:
Estonian boy, 13, headed neo-Nazi group that plotted synagogue attack in US
He called himself “Commander” online. He was a leader of an international neo-Nazi group linked to plots to attack a Las Vegas synagogue and detonate a car bomb at a major US news network.

He was 13 years old.

The boy who led Feuerkrieg Division lived in Estonia and apparently cut ties with the group after authorities in that tiny Baltic state confronted him earlier this year, according to police and an Estonian newspaper report.

Harrys Puusepp, spokesman for the Estonian Internal Security Service, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the police agency “intervened in early January because of a suspicion of danger” and “suspended this person’s activities in” Feuerkrieg Division.

“As the case dealt with a child under the age of 14, this person cannot be prosecuted under the criminal law and instead other legal methods must be used to eliminate the risk. Cooperation between several authorities, and especially parents, is important to steer a child away from violent extremism,” said Puusepp, who didn’t specify the child’s age or elaborate on the case.

The police spokesman didn’t identify the child as a group leader but leaked archives of Feuerkrieg Division members’ online chats show “Commander” referred to himself as the founder of the group and alluded to being from Saaremaa, Estonia’s largest island.
Sea of Galilee about to fill up for 1st time since 1992; dam opening expected
Israel’s largest freshwater lake, the Sea of Galilee, rose by six centimeters (2.3 inches) over the rainy weekend, and after a particularly abundant winter is expected to become full for the first time in 28 years.

According to officials who measure the water level every day, the level was at 209.01 meters (685.73 feet) below sea level Sunday, just 21 centimeters (8.26 inches) below the “upper red line,” above which the lake would be in danger of overflowing.

Rain since early January has been so plentiful that the water level rose 3.12 meters (10.23 feet), and will continue to rise over the next few weeks as snow melts on peaks in the Golan Heights and steadily flows into the lake.

Another factor is the week-long Passover holiday currently being celebrated, during which water isn’t pumped from the Sea of Galilee — the water is considered not kosher for Passover since the lake could contain leavened wheat products, or hametz.

Experts cited by Hebrew-language media said the water level was expected to hit the upper red line of 208.8 meters below sea level in the first few days of May, for the first time since February 1992.


Western Wall priestly blessing held with 10 worshipers, including US envoy
The traditional priestly blessing of the Passover holiday was performed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday morning with just 10 worshipers present, due to restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus.

Tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims make their way twice a year to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, on the intermediate days of the Passover and Sukkot festivals, with crowds of men and women spilling out from the Wall’s plaza to surrounding areas.

This year, just a handful of people were allowed at the ceremony.

While Israel has barred group prayer as part of efforts to halt the spread of the virus, an exception was made for the Western Wall, where a quorum of 10 Jewish men pray three times a day.

David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, was among those taking part in Sunday’s prayer service.

“Last year I was among 100,000; this year, unfortunately, far less. I will pray that the world is spared further illness or sorrow from COVID-19 or otherwise,” he wrote on Twitter.


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