Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 20, 2020

Life is normal in Gaza during the worldwide pandemic

As Israel haters continue to warn about how Gaza is about to become a disaster area due to the coronavirus - which they have been warning about for two months now - Gazans seem to be doing OK.

They are shopping like normal, buying clothing and food for Ramadan, going to restaurants, with no social distancing, no face masks and seemingly no worries.

A new mall was opened in Gaza last week, and this is what it looked like:

Here is what the souk looks like.

The incomparable Imshin shows more of life in Gaza nowadays, and it sure seems more normal than life in the US.

And here is a video of the grand opening of the new Al-Danaf Hyper Mall (Meat City) in Nusseirat, made by 2 teenage #Gaza YouTubers, Saja & Sujud. Upload date 15 April 2020. #TheGazaYouDontSee
Source: https://t.co/YSdaUvzLxW https://t.co/Ru3XXhW5rA pic.twitter.com/0hPNIzgCFS
— Imshin (@imshin) April 16, 2020

Nedaa takes Adam and Yazan out in #Gaza to buy new clothes for Ramadan. #TheGazaYouDontSee
Source: https://t.co/PP2KnpsqHu pic.twitter.com/2qH7CRbLIS
— Imshin (@imshin) April 19, 2020

Going to AlSaj restaurant in #Gaza City for lunch. #TheGazaYouDontSee
Uploaded to YouTube on 18 April 2020.
1
Source: https://t.co/N1wiSLAaj2 https://t.co/mYCY4Fwh21 pic.twitter.com/KkV2T08IDW
— Imshin (@imshin) April 20, 2020

What about life in the "refugee camps"? Well, you can buy this apartment in the Jabalia camp:

Apartment for sale in Jabalia "refugee" Camp #Gaza #TheGazaYouDontSee
Source: https://t.co/y30fZKdyUX pic.twitter.com/QHiArqH4nL
— Imshin (@imshin) April 16, 2020

This is the sort of thing that journalists seem to miss - every day of every year.

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More Palestinian men are beating their wives while stuck at home for COVID-19

CARE Palestine WBG reports:

According to SAWA Organization, there has been a 20% increase in calls regarding mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) and abuse/violence cases, online violence and digital stalking, as well as information requests regarding COVID-19. Specifically, from young men and adolescent boys that are calling the helpline to speak about abuse they are facing from their fathers, mothers and siblings at home. Women are calling less, possibly due to skewed gender roles, as mothers are bearing most of the domestic work and maintaining the family. For this reason, there is a lack of privacy, which allows very little time for some women to communicate with SAWA and other help lines during the day. It is worth noting that the highest number of calls are from Gaza.

Similarly, the Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development reported that there has been an increase in calls from people seeking support, especially from Gaza. The support needed centered around GBV related consultations, counseling and GBV (gender-based violence) related counseling.

In Gaza, Women’s Affairs Center states that the presence of men and children inside the house has created a new wave of violence against women, including verbal, physical, psychological, and sexual violence. This has increased the fear, tension, grievance and psychological stresses on women placing them under high risk as women are confined with their abusers in non-accepting households.

Palestinian women also noted that the police and justice systems do not consider GBV as a priority during the pandemic.

Similarly, the Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) for Palestinians is concerned for women's susceptibility to gender-based violence (GBV) during the pandemic. Things were already bad for women before.

Even though this is a strictly domestic issue, even WCLAC can't stop themselves from blaming Israel for Palestinian women being beaten by their husbands:

The Israeli Military Occupation and Palestinian patriarchal society are a dual oppression which already leaves Palestinian women susceptible to many forms of GBV. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a third element that intensifies the threat of violence due to a lockdown forcing families to stay at home.

You have to dig deep to understand how, exactly, the "Israeli Military Occupation" leaves women susceptible to GBV, and the answer is that the existence of Israel frustrates Palestinian men who take their anger out on their wives. “Structural violence initiated and perpetuated by militarism enhances violence in all its forms.”

By that logic, if a football team that Palestinians root for loses and the men hit their wives in frustration, it is the football team's fault.

Palestinian misogyny is generally not reported by the media, in another example where what they choose to ignore is at least as telling as what they do choose to report on.

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Hamas replaces their normal masks with medical masks

Hamas is proud that its terrorists are continuing training during the pandemic.

But don't they usually wear masks anyway?

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04/19 Links: Corona death toll hits 172 amid drop in number of severe cases; ICRC Displays Bias on the Covid-19 Crisis in the Middle East; Iran shows off drones that can reach Israel

From Ian:

Corona death toll hits 172 amid drop in number of severe cases

The Health Ministry reported on Sunday morning that the death toll from the coronavirus was now 172 people, with 13,362 confirmed cases in the country.

As of 9 a.m. Sunday, the number of patients in mild condition was 9,378, and the number of patients in moderate condition was 140. The Health Ministry also noted that 156 people were in critical condition, a 6.6% drop compared to 24 hours ago. Additionally, 109 patients were on ventilators, a 7.6% decline from the previous day's figures.

The Ministry also presented its figures on the morbidity rates per town in Israel. Bnei Brak, with 2,307 confirmed cases, tops the list, followed by the Arab village of Deir el-Asad with 89 confirmed cases out of just 12,435 residents and then Kohav Ya'akov in Judea and Samaria, with 59 confirmed cases out of just 8,602 residents.

Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem said in a statement on Sunday that two female corona patients died overnight Saturday, including the youngest patient to date to succumb to the coronavirus in Israel, a 29-year-old woman who was already suffering from terminal cancer.

The medical staff was in continuous contact with her relatives, who were prohibited from visiting the hospital to bid her farewell. After her passing, her family members said the Kadish prayer – traditionally recited in memory of the dead – via a video call facilitated by the medical staff.

We're working to support the Ministry of Health & local authorities in responding to the #COVID19 pandemic.

These are the latest numbers: pic.twitter.com/9UbxRCrVSa
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 19, 2020

Israeli scientist: Two-thirds of the way toward COVID-19 vaccine

Prof. Jonathan Gershoni from Tel Aviv University's (TAU) School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday afternoon that the work his laboratory is doing on the corona family of viruses is "two-thirds of the way" through the process of developing a vaccine for COVID-19.

Gershoni, who was recently granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for his vaccine design for the coronavirus – after studying the family of viruses for 15 years – explained that the vaccine intends to target the virus's Receptor Binding Motif (RBM), a critical weak point which allows the virus to attach itself and infect a target cell.

The RBM is a small feature of the virus's "spike" protein, meaning that the virus uses many different proteins to replicate and invade cells, but the "spike" protein is the "major surface protein that it uses to bind to a receptor – another protein that acts like a doorway into a human cell," according to TAU.

Once this protein binds to the cell receptor of a human cell, the viral membrane fuses with that of the human cell, which allows the genome, or genetic blueprint of the virus to enter human cells and begin infection.

"The idea is to recreate, to reconstitute, to construct an RBM of COVID-19 virus and use it as the vaccine," he told the Post. "That is to say, you would inject a small 50 amino-acid sequence and it would allow our immune system to focus on it and create antibodies that would directly target the virus at its weak spot."

New method of testing for coronavirus in under a minute, by Israeli tech

Experimentation of a new method using a breathing device that could potentially diagnose the coronavirus in under a minute has been approved by Institutional Review Board, otherwise known as the Helsinki committee.

The new method is based off a breathing machine developed by Israeli companies Next-Gen and Scentech Medical, and is similar to the breathalyzer machine that police use to find ethanol contained in the blood. Using a similar method to that of the breathalyzer, patients breath into the device, which should be able to distinguish between thousands of gas compounds in the breath, isolating that associated with the virus, allowing for a quick and simple diagnosis.

"A quick and simple diagnostic test can be done anywhere, from airports, hotels, tourist sites, and soccer stadiums," said Shulam Lapidot, chairman of Next-Gen. "Our success will help the community and the economy get back to full activity and to their normal routines as quickly as possible."

Next-Gen using the technology of Scentech Medical, which deals with the identification of volatile compounds, teamed up with Meir Medical Center in order to conduct the experiment, testing the new coronavirus-detecting breathing device. The trial will be conducted on coronavirus patients who have varying severity levels of the disease.

The companies explain that this type of examination has several benefits, including facing several difficulties that current medical teams face in diagnosing the virus. One of such examples being the possibility to quickly identify and diagnose asymptomatic patients, along with patients in the early stages disease, so as to enable more efficient quarantine methods.

Furthermore, the new breathing device can significantly reduce the amount of time to achieve results, being able to give a diagnosis in minutes in comparison to the current method which takes up to two days, allowing for an increase in the reliability of results.

My latest live EoZTV webstream is up on YouTube. I interview Adam Levick, of CAMERA's UK Media Watch, on various issues in UK media and politics, as well as more general media topics around the Israel and Palestinian issues - plus he has exciting news about UKMediaWatch and BBCWatch merging into one website!

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Financial Times more anti-Israel than Arab media

Here was an absurd headline from the Financial Times last week:

The article's bias is truly insane:

Arabs make up only a fifth of Israel’s population, but represent half the country’s pharmacists, a quarter of its nurses and just under a fifth of its doctors, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. Some of the nation’s largest hospitals have Arab doctors heading major departments, and the country’s leading virologist is Arab.
...
In Kafra Qara, an Arab town south of Haifa with so many medical professionals that residents call it the city of doctors, Jameel Mohsen was more critical.

“As an Arab, other jobs are closed off to us, so we became doctors,” he said, peeling off layers of protective equipment after setting up a Covid-19 ward at the Hillel Yeffe Medical Center, where he is head of infectious diseases.

If anyone can find any minority group complaining that they are over-represented in the medical professions as evidence of discrimination, I'd love to see it.

Of course, there are no professions in Israel where Arabs are not allowed. There are lots of Arab police officers. There are many Arab engineers and programmers and research scientists. Once, the acting president of Israel was a Druze Arab.

While FT claims that the over-representation of Arabs in the health sector somehow shows how Israel is discriminatory, Gulf365 has a very good article for its Arabic-speaking audience about how Arab doctors are essential in battling the coronavirus in Israel. The article bullet points are:

* Coronavirus placed Arab doctors on the social and political map of Israel
* Dr. Shukri Awawdeh: The Arabs constitute a great professional force within the health system in Israel, where they constitute 20% of its employees.
* The Corona crisis faces the Israeli public, Jews and Arabs alike, with a higher common goal: eliminating the epidemic and saving lives
* Hundreds of Arab doctors hold high positions in the hospitals of the Hebrew state ... and the state of emergency confirms that there is no room for racism and exclusion, but for solidarity
* Since the virus outbreak, Arab doctors have turned into the most prominent segment of Israeli society
* Without medical and health employees from among the Arab community and without cooperation between them and the Jewish community, the endeavors to save lives in Israel would have received a fatal blow.
* Arab medical staff serving professionally and with dedication the general public are able to enhance the confidence and cooperation of the Jewish public towards the Arab public.
* Arab physician Heba Ziad: She saved 16 Coronavirus patients who arrived at the hospital in a critical condition

When European media is more anti-Israel than Arab media, there is a big problem.

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Israel-haters who pretend to care about Gaza hurt tens of millions of Arabs

I've seen lots of articles, retweeted hundreds of times by people who pretend to be humanitarian, about how Israeli prisons are going to be hotbeds of coronavirus because of crowding and lack of medical aid - both of which aren't true. Indeed, there are still no cases of COVID-19 in Israeli prisons with Palestinian prisoners.

But the prisons in the rest of the Arab and Muslim world? Practically no one cares:

Egyptian authorities have rejected pleas to free up overcrowded jails, continuing to imprison dissidents even as COVID-19 infections in the country rise.

One former detainee, who preferred not to be identified out of fear of repercussions, said there was a "catastrophe brewing in prisons" in the country because of unsanitary conditions and overcrowding.

He spent around two years in a cramped cell with some 25 other men in the Borg al-Arab prison, near the northern city of Alexandria, and recounted how a hole in the ground functioned as a rudimentary bathroom for showering and as a latrine.
"We had a tattered blanket that we used as a door for privacy, and the little running water we had... would wash away all the filth on an already dirty cement floor," said the former inmate, who was released in late 2015.

"We slept on our 'swords', meaning we lay on the floor next to each other on our sides. You couldn't sleep on your back, that was out of the question because of the lack of space," he added.

In war-torn Syria, the pandemic has put a spotlight back on the plight of political prisoners and long-term detainees.

In Iran, Reza Khandan, husband of jailed human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, described on Facebook the situation in Tehran's Evin prison, where family phone calls have been limited.

"The crowded meeting room is an ideal place for the virus to spread," he wrote, since many families have been forced to visit in person.

Because so many reporters are covering a non-existent crisis in Israel, there is no oxygen for real issues in the Arab world to be publicized.

And prisons aren't the only issue. There have been scores of articles about how the water shortage in Gaza will inevitably bring an out-of-control epidemic - even though as of yet all cases in Gaza have been contained and there haven't been new cases in weeks.

But meanwhile:

Some 74 million people in the water-scarce Arab region are at greater risk of catching the novel coronavirus because they lack a sink or soap at home, the United Nations said Wednesday.

This includes 31 million people in Sudan, more than 14 million in war-torn Yemen and 9.9 million in Egypt, a UN report said.

An estimated 26 million refugees and displaced people are at greater risk of contracting the illness region-wide, as they lack adequate access to water and hygiene services, ESCWA said.

Why are there so many articles about 2 million Gazans who don't have adequate water and so few about the other 72 million people in the region who have the exact same (or worse) problem?

The answer, as always, is that if Israel cannot be blamed, the news media is not interested. And when they are not interested, there are far fewer stories being filed, and those stories get ignored by editors who prefer the "blame Israel" stories that fit the anti-Israel narrative.

So we see yet another op-ed, this one in the Washington Post, from a well-known anti-Israel liar, falsely claiming that Israel doesn't allow medical aid to Gaza, when no one can point to even a bandage that has not been allowed in:

If Israeli authorities do not act to immediately lift the siege and allow in more urgently-needed medical and other supplies, the virus will ravage not just Gaza, but Israel and other countries in the region as well. After all, viruses do not respect checkpoints or national boundaries. How can you put out a fire when gasoline is pouring on it from one side?

Israel must immediately lift restrictions on supplies and equipment entering Gaza and ensure Palestinian doctors and nurses have the resources they need to ensure the health and safety of their patients.

The massive coverage over the past five weeks of a crisis that never happened crowds out coverage for the actual crises in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and other Arab and Muslim countries who have far more people at risk than the total number of Palestinians. Limited aid dollars are disproportionately sent to the one place where people aren't dying of COVID-19 and not sent to NGOs that can actually help millions of other Arabs.

Anti-Israel propaganda helps people die.

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04/18 Links: Israel’s death toll rises to 164; PM declares eased lockdown: ‘We’re starting to release personal, economic space’; Biden welcomes J Street endorsement

From Ian:

Israel’s death toll rises to 164 with 13 new fatalities Saturday

Israel’s coronavirus death toll climbed to 164, with 13 confirmed fatalities by Saturday evening.

There were 149 new virus cases, bringing the country’s infection figures to 13,256, with 164 in serious condition and 113 of those on ventilators. The number of people in moderate condition was at 145, while 3,456 Israelis have recovered.

Saturday’s fatalities included two residents of nursing homes, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths at elderly living centers to 61, Hebrew media reported, nearly 40 percent of all deaths in the country.

The Health Ministry said Saturday it had tested 9,950 people for the virus on Friday. On Thursday a record 11,908 coronavirus tests were carried out. Test numbers have been hovering at around 7,000-10,000 a day over the past week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to get to 30,000 tests a day, though that goal seems far off.

Increased testing is seen as vital to being able to slowly reopen the economy and ease social distancing restrictions on the population.

Officials have blamed shortages in test components on their difficulty in raising test numbers.

Efforts to hit the target received a boost with the Foreign Ministry saying it had signed a deal with Chinese company BGI that will see the firm send lab equipment to Israel by the end of next week, allowing a significant increase to the number of daily tests.

In addition, a ministerial committee on Friday decided to declare the Arab Israeli communities of Deir al-Asad and Bi’ina as “restricted areas” amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak there.

The two adjacent towns in northern Israel, which are a single municipality, were locked down Saturday morning for seven days.

Tel Aviv hospital spares rare protective gear to allow visits to dying relatives

Elisheva Stern wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her ailing father, who was succumbing to the coronavirus in an Israeli hospital.

But knowing countless others around the world are not given the chance to say their last farewells to sick relatives, she decided to enter the virus ward and be by her father’s bedside, even if only for a brief moment, before he died.

Stern’s father, Simha Benshai, 75, died at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, which offers the next of kin of dying coronavirus patients the rare opportunity to say goodbye in person.

“None of us want to say bye to the people who we love. But I’m actually happy that they gave me the opportunity to say bye to my father,” said Stern. “I was able to see him and to tell him I’m sorry and I love him.”

The practice is in contrast to many hospitals around the world that don’t allow final family visits as a precaution against spreading the highly contagious virus. That leaves patients to die alone and forces families to grieve from afar.

Recognizing this peculiar tragedy wrought by the virus, Sourasky Medical Center officials opted to spare much-needed protective gear, take careful measures to ward off infection and offer grieving families a chance to say goodbye.

“The stories of patients dying alone are horrifying,” said Ronni Gamzu, the hospital’s chief executive. “This is our moral duty as medical staff and as human beings. No one shall be allowed to die alone.”

The hospital provides immediate next of kin who want to visit a patient with head-to-toe protective wear — gear in demand around the world and often reserved for health care workers — and allows them about 15 minutes to say goodbye. It then assists them in removing the mask, cap, robe, gloves and boots with the utmost caution needed to prevent infection.

PM declares eased lockdown: ‘We’re starting to release personal, economic space’

In a press conference with leaders of the health and economic sectors, Netanyahu said Israel’s mortality rates were among the lowest in OECD countries, while its testing numbers were among the highest.

“Until today we took measures to restrict movement… to reduce the number of people at work… to track confirmed cases,” he said. “These measures have proven themselves… these positive results enable us to ease the restrictions gradually.”

However, he and other officials warned that the success of the new phase of managing the crisis was wholly dependent on the public continuing to behave responsibly and to take all precautions to avoid spreading the virus.

Netanyahu said the situation would be reassessed in two weeks’ time and if the situation continued to improve there would be a further easing of restrictions, but if there is another outbreak they would be reimposed.

Netanyahu set out the general steps now to be introduced:
1. Raising the proportion of workers allowed at their workplaces from 15% to 30%;
2. Allowing high-tech and certain other workplaces to return more of their workforce;
3. Introducing a new “Purple Seal” certification which workplaces will have to adhere to in order to operate — certification will not require outside approval by any state body but will be mandatory. It will include demands for face masks, daily temperature checks for all employees and regular sterilization of surfaces;
4. Reopening some stores — including those selling electrical goods, household goods, opticians, and others — limited to two clients at any one time, and stipulating that a physical buffer must be installed at registers. Malls and markets will remain closed;
5. Prioritizing staffing of government offices that assist the private sector;
6. Restarting special education programs for groups of up to three children, and allowing kids from three families to be looked after by a single day-carer;
7. Adjusting and increasing public transportation as appropriate;
8. Allowing sports in fixed pairs, up to 500 meters from home;
9. Allowing outdoor prayers of up to 10 — “a minyan” — with two meters between worshipers, wearing masks;
10. Introducing a plan to deal strategically with elderly care homes and facilities, which have been particularly hard hit by the virus.

President Trump's Yom HaShoah proclamation

Proclamation on Days Of Remembrance Of Victims Of The Holocaust, 2020

Issued on: April 17, 2020

Our Nation’s annual observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, calls on all Americans to pause and reflect on the horrific atrocities committed by the Nazi regime against minority groups and other “undesirables” in the years leading up to and during World War II. Among those murdered in the Holocaust were 6 million Jewish men, women, and children who became victims of the Third Reich’s unthinkably evil “Final Solution.” As this year’s Yom HaShoah commences, let us remember the millions of lives extinguished in the Holocaust, including those of Jewish, Polish, and Slavic ancestry, Roma and Sinti, individuals with mental and physical disabilities, gays, political dissidents, and dozens of other groups, and let us reaffirm our commitment to preserving and carrying forward their stories so that such repugnant acts of evil never occur again.

This year’s observance is particularly meaningful as earlier in the year we observed the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe. We must never forget the abhorrent anti-Semitism, racial hatred, and discrimination stoked by the Nazi regime and its accomplices and enablers that sent countless people to ghettos, concentration camps, killing fields, and death camps — a monstrous system that resulted in the murder of two out of three Jews in Europe and the imprisonment and torture of millions more.

Tragically, far too many Americans of Jewish faith still face persecution. That is why I issued an Executive Order in December of 2019 to further expand and strengthen my Administration’s ongoing efforts to combat racist and anti-Semitic discrimination. We must always condemn and confront all forms of racial, religious, and ethnic prejudice, discrimination, and hatred and strengthen the mutual bonds of respect that unite us all as Americans.

During this time, as we mourn the millions of lives tragically lost during this dark stain on human history, we vow to ensure that future generations know the horrors of the Holocaust so that its crimes are never repeated. We also remember the powerful example that countless victims set through their remarkable determination, courage, and devotion. Together, let us resolve to build a society that always values the sanctity of every human life and the dignity of every faith. In doing so, we will make certain that freedom and liberty always triumph over evil and oppression.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, do hereby ask the people of the United States to observe the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, April 19 through April 26, 2020, and the solemn anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps, with appropriate study, prayers and commemoration, and to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution by remembering the lessons of this atrocity so that it is never repeated.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.

DONALD J. TRUMP

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04/17 Links Pt2: Google Algorithm Continues To Spread Antisemitism And Holocaust Denial; Congresswomen to Speak at Anti-Israel Group’s ‘Online Gala’

From Ian:

MEMRI: Google Algorithm Continues To Spread Antisemitism And Holocaust Denial – Contrary To Google's Claim That It Has Removed Such Material

On Google's image search (images.google.com), benign search terms relating to Jews or Yiddish phrases yield alarmingly hateful and inciting results. Antisemitic and racist caricatures appear among top search results leading to white supremacist and conspiracy websites. Moreover, Google's search algorithm, which suggests additional search terms for the user to click on in order to narrow the search, includes primarily white supremacist and antisemitic terminology, leading the user toward further misinformation and other hateful content.

The following report shows the terms suggested by Google image search after inputting the Yiddish exclamation of surprise "oy vey," along with the terms "Shoah" – Holocaust – and others.

"Oy Vey"

After searching images.google.com with the term "oy vey", the engine suggests numerous additional related search terms. The first suggestions include: "merchant," "shoah," "6 trillion," "shlomo," and "6 million." Many of the images yielded by the search originate on platforms that are popular with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, including 4Chan, 8Chan, Reddit, and others. Clicking on these images will direct the user to those websites.

One of the antisemitic images that appear among the first search results for the term "Oy Vey," originally from the online forum Reddit, shows popular white supremacist meme Pepe the Frog, here depicted as a Jewish caricature, with the text: "Knowing you would jew your own friends in a heartbeat."

The Happy Merchant

The first suggestion, "merchant," is paired with a thumbnail depicting a popular antisemitic caricature of a Jew, called the happy merchant, or simply the merchant. Clicking on the suggestion yields endless iterations of the antisemitic meme.

The results after clicking the suggested term "merchant."

Some examples of the images include the merchant character being sprayed with a can marked with a Star of David and the text "Jew-B-Gone." The merchant is depicted as weeping and saying "Oy Vey! It's like second Shoah!" The text on the bottom of the image reads: "Exterminates 99.99% of pesky rodents!" This image appears twice in the first three rows of search results. When clicking on the image, the Google algorithm suggests similar images, including one titled "Backstabbing Jew", depicting the Merchant hugging another figure and brandishing a knife behind their back.

One of the first results yielded by adding the suggested term "merchant."

Another result in the search above is a comic strip depicting the merchant brokering a trade of African slaves to the U.S. Africans are also represented in the comic with a racist stereotype,

Another of the first results yielded by adding the suggested term "merchant" is a racist and antisemitic depiction of the Jew as slave trader.

"Shoah"
"Shoah," referring to the Jewish Holocaust, is accompanied by a thumbnail of the same merchant caricature rendered on a pizza in a reference to the conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate.[1] Clicking on the suggestion yields similarly antisemitic results.

One of the first images is a caricature of a grotesque Jewish figure, shown with a bag of money labeled "Your tax dollars," standing in a crematorium. The text around the image reads: "If you see this image while scrolling the first page you have been visited by the JEW OF OTHERWORLDLY GREED[;] Great riches and prosperity will come to you but only if you post 'Muh six million, it's a whole new shoah!' in this thread[.] Oy very, it's a whole new shoah!"

CAMERA Researchers Speak at National Religious Broadcasters Convention, on Podcast

CAMERA researchers Tricia Miller, Ph.D. and Dexter Van Zile recently spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. They spoke at Media Summit organized by Proclaiming Justice to the Nations led by Laurie Cardoza-Moore.

Miller spoke about how Palestinian Christians have offered a distorted view of the Arab-Israeli conflict and have promoted an anti-Jewish replacement theology in their campaign to delegitimize Israel. Van Zile spoke about how Christian peace organization such as the World Council of Churches and Churches for Middle East Peace have facilitated the spread of antisemitism in the United States and Europe. Other speakers included Sandra Alfonsi, Andrew Bostom, Rev. Jeffrey Jemison, Rabbi Jonathan Hausman, Jan Markell, and Carol Swain.

Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a Christian organization dedicated to countering the demonization of Israel has posted the videos of the talks from the media summit on its YouTube channel.

In addition to these talks, CAMERA researchers Sean Durns and Dexter Van Zile spoke recently about Rick Steves’ indifference toward the suffering of Baha’is in Iran.

Dexter Van Zile speaks about the role churches and Christian peacemaking organizations such as Churches for Middle East Peace and the World Council of Churches have helped mainstream Jew-hatred in a post-Holocaust world.

When Human Rights Supports Terrorism

Last week, the New York Times published an exposé on Hind Khoudary, a Palestinian researcher and journalist who informed Hamas about a peace activist's 'crime' of hosting Zoom calls with Israeli peace activists. The New York Times failed to mention that Khoudary was an employee of Amnesty International. This is not the first time employees of the "human rights" organization have supported terrorists. Context matters. Details matter. And the media owe the public all the facts.

Released prisoner gets shot and killed by celebratory gunfire

This has been going around. It is not apparently from a Palestinian prisoner but, from what I can see, perhaps Jordan.

You can see in the end that the man of the hour is shot, apparently in the head, by one of the people celebrating him.

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04/17 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Pandemics, Palestinian incitement and peace; 7 deaths take virus toll to 150, including 8th resident of J’lem nursing home

From Ian:

Caroline B. Glick: Pandemics, Palestinian incitement and peace

Since the onset of the pandemic, all democratically elected governments have made their share of mistakes in contending with it. But the struggles of the governments of Italy, Israel, Taiwan, the US, and all the rest share a common key feature: Their top priority is to protect the lives and wellbeing of their citizens.

In contrast, we see that like the Palestinian regimes, authoritarian regimes in China, Iran, and beyond have busied themselves with principally trying to exploit the pandemic for their own benefit.

China, the source of the coronavirus, is hiding much of what it knows about the origins of the pandemic and vastly underreporting their virus infection and death rates. The Chinese hide this vital information to present themselves as more competent in handling the virus than the "bungling democracies" struggling to contain it. And to build their conspiracy theory that the US is the source of the pandemic. At the same time, China has ratcheted up its threats against Taiwan and has allegedly tested another nuclear weapon.

Iran is also publishing false data about its coronavirus infection and death rates. Whereas the official numbers claim that 4,700 Iranians have died from the coronavirus, Iranian opposition forces allege that thirty thousand Iranians have died.

Like the Palestinians and the Chinese, the Iranians accuse Israel and the US of inventing and spreading the virus. After they rejected a US offer for humanitarian assistance to fight the coronavirus, the Iranians began using the pandemic as a fundraising tool.

They demand assistance from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union and exploit the political cleavages in the US to pressure the Trump administration to cancel the US economic sanctions on Iran. All the while, Iran is threatening US forces in Iraq and continuing its uranium enrichment activities.

Through their behavior, the Palestinians show that peace is a dead issue. Israel has permanent, vital interests in Judea and Samaria. It needs to secure those interests by applying its sovereign laws wherever it deems necessary, and bar the PA from operating in its territory.

More broadly, through their conduct, the Palestinians, like their authoritarian brethren in China, Iran and beyond, drive home the difference between democracies and dictatorships.

There are good guys and bad guys in this world. In the future, when we get confused about who is on which side, all we will need to do to figure out where justice lies is look back at how the each behaved during the coronavirus pandemic.

7 deaths take virus toll to 150, including 8th resident of J’lem nursing home

The death toll in Israel from the coronavirus rose to 150 Friday afternoon, an increase of seven from the previous evening.

One of the victims, a 96-year-old woman, was the eighth fatality from the Maon Horim assisted living facility in Jerusalem, the Walla news site reported.

Roughly one-third of the COVID-19 fatalities in Israel were residents of elderly living centers.

In addition, a 76-year-old woman succumbed to the coronavirus at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, the hospital said, adding that she had preexisting illnesses.

An 84-year-old woman died at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, the hospital announced, adding that she also suffered from preexisting medical conditions.

A 66-year-old man from Haifa died at the city’s Carmel Medical Center, the hospital’s first fatality from COVID-19.

A man, 70, died at the Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak and a 90-year-old woman died in the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan.

There were no further details given on the identities of the victims.

Test error: 14 nursing home residents in COVID-19 hospital wards never had virus

The positive coronavirus test results for 14 nursing home residents who have been in isolated hospital wards were mistaken, Hebrew-language media reported Friday, with second test results coming back negative.

The elderly residents of an old-age home in Ashdod had been tested at the Weizmann Institute, and the test results of 29 further residents of the “Beit Hadar” assisted living facility in the coastal city are now also being re-examined, Channel 13 news reported.

The Health Ministry told the broadcaster in a statement that an investigation has been opened and that the elderly residents have been isolated in the hospital to reduce the possibility of them becoming infected while a decision is made about their future care.

“There was a suspicion of a problem in one of the stages of the laboratory diagnostic process. The issue is currently undergoing a thorough investigation. Repeat tests on additional patients and caregivers will be made as needed,” the ministry said. “The patients who have been transferred to the hospitals are now in isolation, and the appropriate place for their continued care is being examined so that they do not become infected.”

Nine of the patients confirmed to not have COVID-19 were hospitalized at Assuta Medical Center in Ashdod and the rest at Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon and Kaplan hospital in Rehovot.

They were in special quarantined wards for coronavirus patients alongside confirmed carriers.

Israeli-Russian Philanthropist Donates 3 Million Surgical Masks to Israel

3 million surgical masks for Magen David Adom (MDA) and other essential institutions arrived in Israel on Thursday from China, donated by Israeli-Russian tech investor and philanthropist Yuri Milner and his wife Julia.

Now based in Silicon Valley, Milner made a fortune as an early investor in many giants of the tech industry.

Israel's Consul-General in San Francisco Shlomi Kofman said, "It is moving to see Israelis across the ocean supporting their country during this difficult period."