Friday, January 08, 2021
Pandemic has destroyed protest tourism
In Hebron, the heart of the activism, there has been fewer clashes, curfews and stabbing attacks since the pandemic. Are people tired of fighting during a health crisis? Or are there fewer flash points between Israelis, foreign activists and Palestinians?
It’s not clear. But what is clear is that Palestinians are not left worse off when Westerners in Arab headscarves stop exploiting their struggle.
Protest tourism mostly caters to a small, privileged group of middle-class Leftists. They use it as a way to burnish their radical credentials at home, or even make a profit for whatever “non-profit” they run. For the most part, it’s about a short tour and then a plane ride home.
The pandemic has taught us that activism can best be done locally. The funds wasted on air fares and fancy hotels, like the American Colony in Jerusalem, could better be directed towards local causes, or Palestinian NGOs that actually hire Palestinians.
Lockdown has given us a good opportunity to look in the mirror and ask what all these antics were about. Was it really just a way for people to have “fun” bashing Israel? Was it a kind of virtue-signalling on steroids – titillating to the foreigners at the expense of the Palestinians?
The activists may have planted trees or escorted people through checkpoints, but most of it was a charade. Palestinian lives haven’t changed. Radical westerners have simply sponged up resources that could have actually done some good.
In November 2020, filming began on Oslo: an adaptation of the revisionist history Broadway play about the fake peace process between Israel and the PLO terrorist organization.Melanie Phillips: A disaster and a tragedy for America, Jews and decent people everywhere
That same month, the man at the center of both the play and the movie, Terje Rød Larsen announced that he was stepping down as president and CEO of the International Peace Institute after it was revealed that he had taken a $130,000 personal loan from Jeffrey Epstein.
The International Peace Institute is closely linked to the United Nations and its honorary chair is usually the UN Secretary General. The notorious pedophile didn’t just give Larsen money, he also pumped $650,000 into the UN-linked group through his “foundations'' and the Norwegian paper that broke the story published emails showing that Larsen’s people were trying to move money from IPI back to Jeffrey Epstein. "For forms sake we should send it to Jeff, however I am sure we will get it back many fold!" Larsen appears to have written in one email.
It was 2016. The date on the original loan was in 2013. All of this took place years after the original Epstein case and his conviction. The ex-UN diplomat knew whom he was dealing with.
But the Epstein scandal didn’t stop Oslo from being produced by Steven Spielberg anyway. Or HBO from moving forward with plans to air a story about a disgraced Jeffrey Epstein associate.
Neither HBO nor Spielberg are strangers to revisionist history or anti-Israel propaganda.
Tragically, though, as so often in Jewish history, there are Jews who are actively helping this onslaught against truth, justice and decency. Liberal American Jews have supported Warnock with the Jewish Democratic Council of America circulating a petition claiming that he was the victim of “baseless claims and attacks.”Netanyahu: Everyone Over 16 Will Be Vaccinated By End of March
Such Jews have continued to support the Democrats regardless of Obama’s hostility to Israel or his empowerment of Iran. They continue to support them regardless of their embrace of the poisonous Jew-hater, Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan, and “The Squad” of Democrat Congresswomen who are given to anti-Israel or anti-Jewish statements.
And now, with the Democrats unconstrained, we will all be forced to watch as the arguably criminal conspiracy to destroy a president is buried; as the anti-white, anti-West, anti-Jew Black Lives Matter movement is invited to set the social agenda; as the Palestinian Arabs are again empowered and incentivized to resume their campaign to exterminate Israel; and as America allows two of the most lethal threats to the free world—Iran and China—to walk all over it.
The moral case against the Democrats had been solid and overwhelming. But now, with Trump having betrayed the rule of law and constitutional order, those trying to defend these principles against the left have been grievously undermined.
What a disaster. What a tragedy—for America, for the West and for decent people everywhere.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday night in a televised address that by the end of March, every Israeli over the age of 16 will have been inoculated against the novel coronavirus.
“Our agreement with Pfizer ensures there will be enough doses of vaccine to vaccinate all Israeli citizens over age 16 by the end of March, and perhaps even before that,” Netanyahu said.
“The first plane will arrive on Sunday, and there will be more after that. Israel will be a model country for rapid vaccination.
“This year, on the night of the Pesach seder, we will sit around the seder table with our grandparents, and the rest of our families. When we ask ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ we will be able to answer, ‘Everything has changed. Everything is different.’ We will all be vaccinated, together.”
The vaccine distribution companies in Israel have received an update to prepare for the arrival of Pfizer vaccine doses on Sunday at around 4:30 pm, the prime minister said. An agreement was made with Pfizer to increase the number and speed of the vaccine arrivals in Israel, he said, transforming Israel into a “model nation” for how to exit the coronavirus pandemic.
“This . . . will take us out of the coronavirus crisis, and return us to life,” the prime minister said.
In addition, the shipping company that delivers Moderna’s vaccine doses to Israel – which also arrived this week – has also received a notification to prepare for another shipment that may arrive as early as next week as well, according to Channel 20 TV.
Another shipment of at least 100,000 Moderna vaccines is expected to arrive to supplement the Pfizer vaccines.
Netanyahu on Pfizer shipments - whole country will be vaccinated by end of March. We will have a normal Seder night for Passover. We will share all our data with Pfizer
— David Hazony (@davidhazony) January 7, 2021
First in the world! 🌍 🇮🇱
— Magen David Adom (@Mdais) January 7, 2021
MDA is proud to have completed the 1st round of vaccinations in ALL elderly care facilities and sheltered accommodation, making Israel the first country in the world to vaccinate all elderly care facilities in the first phase pic.twitter.com/FVsbwn9rjo
There's no vaccine against ineptitude
In April 2020, I wrote an article accusing political leaders in Europe and USA of prioritising ideology over epidemiology – of callously sacrificing lives not just to Covid-19 but, needlessly, to the Moloch of partisan dogma.UK Article Blaming Israel for Not Vaccinating Palestinians Is ‘Journalistic Crime,’ Says Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief in Interview
What happened since then can be adequately described with just one word: ineptitude.
On the positive side -- one societal engine did fire up: science delivered a solution – it did so assuredly, in just a few short months. It developed vaccines, tested them on tens of thousands of people and found them to work better than anticipated. All our esteemed leaders have to do now is make sure those vaccines are manufactured, distributed and administered with rocket speed, as befits a once-in-a-century emergency.
For once, money is no object: in the UK, each day of lockdown costs nearly £2 billion. That’s 10% of the entire annual NHS budget, gone to the drain every goddam week! And that’s before one factors in the long term and indirect effects of the economic slump… Oh, and there’s also the small detail of 1,000 people currently dying of Covid every day. So any conceivable expenditure needed to shorten the ordeal is, almost by definition, justified – not just financially, but in moral terms, too!
And yet, in more than 3 weeks of ‘vaccination drive’ (i.e., by 6 January 2021), the UK managed to give the first jab (i.e. to ‘half-vaccinate’) to a paltry 1.3 million people; that’s just 10% of what the government itself defined as the ‘top priority’ group – those over 70, people with severe clinical vulnerabilities, as well as frontline health and social care staff. It is just 2% of the population.
On average, just over 56,000 vaccines were given every day in the UK – the world’s fifth-largest economy, boasting almost 7,000 GP surgeries, staffed by circa 45,000 doctors and 16,000 nurses.
In Israel (the world’s 30th-largest economy, where vaccinations started a week later than in the UK), circa 1.5 million people already got the first jab. That’s 50% of those over 60 (plus most clinically vulnerable, as well as frontline health and social care staff ) and almost 17% of the entire population. The country’s GP surgeries are staffed by c. 5,000 doctors…
The European Union is performing even more poorly: just 250,000 jabs in Germany and 150,000 in Italy – two countries with strong healthcare assets and capable pharmaceutical industry. As for France (population 67 million), it is yet to achieve 500 jabs. No, this is not a typo: I mean 500; not 500,000!
So what’s the problem? Well, the problem is that… nobody seems to know what the problem is. Our ‘leaders’ are unable or unwilling to deliver plans and time schedules – beyond ‘targets’ for mid-February and (at a stretch) March. What’s more, the media seems utterly unable to extract or surmise such information.
A British newspaper claiming that Israel is denying the COVID-19 vaccine to Palestinians is “completely dishonest from start to finish,” the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said during a Wednesday appearance on i24 News.
“It seems that all manner of journalistic principle and ethics go out of the window when it comes to coverage of Israel,” Dovid Efune told “Global Eye” host Natasha Kirtchuk, about a Jan. 3 article published in The Guardian that blamed the Jewish state for denying the COVID-19 vaccine to Palestinians.
Jewish groups last week condemned the article for mistakenly claiming that Israel, rather than the Palestinian Authority, bears the responsibility and authority to distribute vaccines in the Palestinian territories.
Efune noted that the PA has its own medical infrastructure and independent processes to manage the COVID-19 crisis, which has at times been an area of cooperation with the Israeli government.
“To make the suggestion that there’s any form of racial or ethnic prejudice taking place here is just ludicrous,” said Efune in the interview. “And it’s really a journalistic crime to insinuate the way that The Guardian has that Israel is engaged in propagating disease among the Palestinian population, or at least not doing enough to stop it.”
Israelis flock to Dubai, fleeing impending lockdown
Israelis have flocked Ben Gurion Airport preparing to fly abroad in an effort to flee the full nationwide lockdown set to go into effect midnight Friday, with majority of tickets seemingly booked for the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and TwitterScotland lists Jerusalem separately from Israel on COVID-19 travel advisory
The government earlier this week voted to tighten the current closure, including a ban on travel abroad. A loophole in the outline, however, allows those who had purchased tickets before January 8 to still be able to fly abroad.
"I decided to fly because of the lockdown," said Samer Shatz, who is preparing to board a flight to Dubai. “I’m going away with friends, we will travel a bit and get some air. We haven’t left the house in almost a year because of the pandemic.”
According to Shatz's friend, Azam, the increasing infection rate in the Gulf state shouldn't affect their trip. “There is nothing we can really do but get used to living with the virus. We will get to Dubai and see how it goes over there,” said Azam.
Linoy is also flying to Dubai with a friend ahead of the full lockdown. "We booked a deal through Israir for next week so that we will have time to take a coronavirus test when we enter Dubai,” explained Linoy. “We know we'll have to go into a two week isolation when we get back, but we've decided that we are willing to sacrifice those two weeks to escape the closure and recharge elsewhere else.”
The Scottish government posted a foreign travel advisory warning for the Jewish State amid the coronavirus pandemic, with an interesting caveat of distinguishing Jerusalem and Israel as being two separate entities.
The advisory was published on Thursday in light of the recent spike of infections in Israel, which has sent the country into its third lockdown.
Those traveling from Israel to Scotland will now be required to self-isolate for 10 days upon arrival, as per the new public health rules. "Travelers arriving in Scotland from Israel and Jerusalem must now quarantine on arrival for 10 days," the advisory read, noting Israel and Jerusalem separately.
"A significant increase in cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in these countries as well as a rise in the numbers of cases testing positive, and the associated risk of importation into Scotland has led to the decisions to remove exemption status," Scotland's government added.
Another piece of Antisemitic blood libel, that completely negates Palestinian responsibility, international law or the facts. https://t.co/08NEWnsLR4
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 8, 2021
Jewish Groups Warmly Endorse New EU Handbook on Combating Antisemitism
Jewish groups around the world on Friday warmly endorsed the publication of a new handbook on combating antisemitism by the European Commission (EC), the executive branch of the European Union.Top UK Jewish Organization Slams ‘Disturbing’ Letter From Lawyers Attacking IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
The handbook provides practical illustrations of the implementation of the working definition of antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Dozens of civic institutions and governments around the world, including the US, have adopted the definition as the first step in countering the threat of antisemitic agitation and violence. The definition includes both traditional expressions of antisemitism and the more recent mutations that are centered on enmity toward Zionism.
Katharina von Schnurbein — European Commission coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life — said that the publication of the handbook would “in a very practical way…help state authorities and civil society to prevent and address antisemitic incidents, support victims, improve data collection of incidents, and increase awareness.”
Von Schnurbein emphasized that the IHRA definition — which is not legally binding — “serves as a basis for recognizing and addressing all forms of contemporary antisemitism.”
“Antisemitism constitutes a threat to the Jewish community and to democratic values,” she said.
The handbook explains that “a statement or action is antisemitic if it targets Jews, Jewish institutions, persons and institutions perceived as Jewish, or entities seen as allied with Jews. It is antisemitic to hold Jews responsible for social problems, conflicts and crises that do not result from the behavior of Jews but are only perceived as being associated with them. Antisemitism can also manifest itself as hatred against Israel as the ‘collective Jew’ in the context of real or alleged behavior.”
The head of a top UK Jewish organization condemned an open letter from a group of lawyers and former judges that attacked the Secretary of State for Education’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism, calling the letter’s claims “quite disturbing.”CAA submits complaint to Bar Standards Board against barrister over tweet asserting “Zionism is a kind of racism”
The letter, published in The Guardian, criticized Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s instruction to English universities to adopt the IHRA definition when setting policy.
It asserted that those who reject the instruction should “be supported in so doing,” calling Williamson’s move both “legally and morally wrong.”
Marie van der Zyl, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told The Algemeiner in response to the letter, “Many of the arguments against adoption of the IHRA definition are based on a total misreading — willful or otherwise — of the definition itself. This latest letter published by The Guardian is no exception, managing to spuriously claim that ‘the majority’ of examples provided by the IHRA definition ‘do not refer to Jews as such, but to Israel.’ In reality, nine out of the 11 examples given specifically reference Jews.”
“It is quite disturbing that half a dozen upstanding legal minds agreed to have their name associated with a claim which can be debunked by taking five minutes to actually read the document in question,” she said.
The letter attacks the IHRA definition’s inclusion of antisemitic hatred of Israel, saying, “The IHRA added to the definition illustrative examples of statements that could be antisemitic ‘taking into account the overall context.’ The majority of these examples do not refer to Jews as such, but to Israel.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted a complaint to the Bar Standards Board against a barrister over a tweet asserting that “Zionism is a kind of racism”.Labour Party fulfils first task under Action Plan with discrete Antisemitism Complaints holding page on website, but CAA to seek clarification over apparent error
Franck Magennis is a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London.
At 21:35 on 17th December 2020, Mr Magennis apparently tweeted from the Twitter handle @FranckMagennis that: “Zionism is a kind of racism. It is essentially colonial. It has manifested in an apartheid regime calling itself ‘the Jewish state’ that dominates non-Jews, and particularly Palestinians. You can’t practice anti-racism at the same time as identifying with, or supporting, Zionism.”
His profile on the Chambers’ website describes him as “an expert on the Palestinian struggle for emancipation from Israeli apartheid and occupation”.
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.
Under the Action Plan published by the Labour Party in December 2020, the Party had pledged that “A new antisemitism complaints handling webpage will be uploaded by 31 December 2020”. The Party has fulfilled this requirement by publishing a discrete Antisemitism Complaints holding page on its website.Team Israel Start-Up Nation to open 2021 season with Girona training camp
The Action Plan was produced in response to the devastating report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that found that the Labour Party had broken the law in its discrimination against Jewish people.
The new webpage serves two functions. The first is as a holding page, reiterating that “the Labour Party is committed to implementing the recommendations [of the EHRC] as quickly as possible” and explaining that “This webpage will continue to be updated regularly throughout 2021, including for: [a] Further guidance for antisemitism complaints procedures [and b] Code of conduct against Antisemitism.”
The second function is to provide a portal to a “summary of statistics of disciplinary cases determined by the Labour Party’s NEC [National Executive Committee] in 2019,” although the document itself appears to be designed to showcase the disciplinary action that Labour has taken since May 2020, shortly after Sir Keir became leader, and the reference to 2019 in the title is an error. That being said, the document makes reference to case numbers in 2014-2018 but makes no reference to 2019 whatsoever. We are therefore writing to the Labour Party to clarify what this document is showing.
Campaign Against Antisemitism will continue to monitor Labour’s progress in fulfilling its Action Plan, implementing the recommendations of the EHRC and, above all, making the Party safe for Britain’s Jews.
Team Israel Start-Up Nation (ISN) will open the 2021 season at a 10-day intensive training camp near Girona, Spain, starting on January 12.‘I Still Owe Israel My Entire Existence:’ Jewish Olympian AJ Edelman on Representing Country, Arab Teammates, Giving Back
The training camp will provide the first opportunity for the team, which has brought on nine new riders, including cycling legend Chris Froome, to meet and train together for the upcoming season. Some members of the squad will travel straight from the camp to the season’s first series of European races, beginning in Mallorca in late January.
While ISN had originally planned to continue its tradition of holding the season’s opening training camp in Israel, the country has entered its third coronavirus lockdown, forcing a change of plans. The team still intends to visit Israel as soon as late February or March, when the situation allows. Israel has become the world’s leading country by vaccination rate (with over one million people, more than 10 percent of the total population already vaccinated), giving real cause for optimism that the ISN squad will soon be able to visit the country.
Acknowledging the current challenges, team co-owner Sylvan Adams said: “We will hold a preliminary pre-season training camp in Spain, as it was impossible to confidently hold the camp in Israel, as we usually do, due to the COVID restrictions and with the borders closed to non-Israelis. So, we intend to do a second camp in Israel as soon as possible.
“We look forward to showcasing ISN’s home country to the riders, especially to our new signings who haven’t attended one of our Israeli training camps in the past. It will be a mixture of riding Israel’s diverse terrain, as well as visiting our world-class tourist and historical sites. These camps have been a big hit with the riders in the past, and we will maintain the tradition of introducing our riders and staff to the team’s home country.”
The Israeli bobsled team led by Jewish Olympian A.J. Edelman and his Israeli Arab teammates are vying for a chance to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics, a lofty ambition for a sun-drenched country that has never medaled in those games.
But for Edelman and his fellow athletes, the quest is about much more than a prize podium: it’s a chance to represent the nation they share together, and to give back to the next generation of Israeli hopefuls.
“The Olympics are not the goal,” Edelman, 29, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday from South Korea, where the team is training at the Olympic Sliding Center in Pyeongchang. “We have no relevance other than the fact that we wear the Israeli flag…and so because of that, it’s an honor unparalleled that you can never repay.”
Edelman’s squad is one of Israel’s two bobsled teams hoping for a spot in next year’s Olympic Games, which will take place in Beijing, China. The athlete, who is originally from Boston but made aliyah in 2016, retired from competitive sporting after racing in the 2018 Olympic contest in skeleton, which features a smaller sled. A former ice hockey goalie and speed skater, he was Israel’s first ever Olympic athlete in that sport, but retired from athletics after experiencing what he called a “disturbing” episode related to a helmet disqualification at the 2018 Games, and receiving emotional abuse from other athletes.
Turning to business, Edelman was accepted into the Yale School of Management, hoping to pursue an MBA. But he was soon back on the ice, this time as a bobsledder — because, as he put it, “I still owe Israel my entire existence and identity.”
He had his first exposure to bobsledding in 2014 as a breakman, responsible for stopping the sled, and was a bobsled driver in 2019. Edelman recruited his Druze teammates Moran Nijem and cousins Amir Fawarsy and Ward Fawarsy, who all play for Israel’s national rugby team. As bobsledders, they must run alongside the four-person carriage, pushing it to achieve maximum speed. When it builds momentum down a narrow, iced track, the riders jump in — Edelman the driver in front, followed by the brakeman in back.
Only last month, @sharakango brought to 🇮🇱 first ever delegation of civil leaders and activists from 🇦🇪 & 🇧🇭. In a difficult 2020, the Abraham Accords have been an incredible ray of light and hope for the future, and I am so privileged to be part of this incredible journey!
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 8, 2021
Unit 81: The Elite Military Unit That Caused a Big Bang in the Israeli Tech Scene
Every year, several months before their enlistment into the Israeli military, a group of young men, as well as some young women, enroll in an intensive intelligence course dedicated to learning offensive cyber techniques. Afterwards, they go on to join some of the IDF’s various intelligence and technological units. The best of them are selected to join a special unit, that was once referred to generically as the Intelligence Corp’s Technological Unit, but in recent years, after the military censor approved for it to be called by its official name, has been exposed as Unit 81. Once in the unit, they meet the officers that manage its array of departments and teams, mostly graduates of the Talpiot program that combines university studies with service in the prestigious technological unit. They serve in the unit for several years, often staying on beyond the three years mandatory service, and then depart to civilian life and begin to launch companies. Lots of companies.
A mapping of the industry carried out by Calcalist found that soldiers and officers who served in Unit 81 between 2003-2010 have, in the decade since, gone on to found a massive number of startups: roughly 100 veterans of the unit have founded 50 companies so far — an entrepreneurship ratio that even graduates of MIT can’t compete with. These are not just any companies either: the startups founded by Unit 81 vets have raised no less than $4 billion, with their accumulated valuations, prior to the latest funding rounds, surpassing $10 billion, with some of them reporting impressive earnings and some already boasting successful exits.
Looking back, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the unit’s veterans have changed the face of the Israeli tech scene over the past decade, or at the very least determined the direction it is headed in: young companies with high aspirations that focus on providing solutions to existing needs, generate income at a relatively early stage, and are in no rush to be sold .
This year and every year,
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 8, 2021
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