Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 23, 2020

"Pro-Israel" J-Street endorses 3 of the same politicians that anti-Zionist "Jewish Voice for Peace" does (Daled Amos)

Jewish Voice for Peace recently came out with a list of 6 congressional candidates that it will endorse in this year's elections:

That's:

o  Rashida Tlaib
o  Ilhan Omar
o  Mark Pocan
o  Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
o  Betty McCollum
o Pramila Jayapal

Canary Mission has a detailed outline of Jewish Voice for Peace and its activities. It describes how JVP tries to create division between American Jews and Israel and reduce US social, economic and diplomatic support for Israel.

To achieve their goals, JVP staunchly supports and promotes Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement initiatives in academic, social, and economic institutions. The group provides “a façade of Jewish legitimacy” to BDS campaigns and other initiatives that seek to demonize and delegitimize Israel, and reportedly views itself as the “‘Jewish wing’ of the Palestinian solidarity movement.”

...In 2013, an ADL report claimed that JVP consistently co-sponsors “rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

In 2017, JVP honored convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh at the 2017 JVP National Membership Meeting.

The group is also known for disrupting and trying to shut down pro-Israel events.

Canary Mission also has a run-down on the leadership of JVP:

Led by Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson, JVP consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies.”

Vilkomerson is one of the leading promoters of BDS in the United States. In 2016, Vilkomerson wrote a Washington Post opinion article titled “I’m Jewish and I want people to boycott Israel.” She has also targeted LGBTQ Jews for harassment in order to push JVP’s anti-Israel agenda.

Sarah Schulman, a member of JVP’s advisory board, is a Professor and faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island (CUNY CSI). In a 2013 interview, Schulman declared that Jews "should all move" to New York City “and forget about Israel."

Judith Butler, a professor at UC Berkeley and a leading proponent of BDS, is also on JVP’s advisory board and has called terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah “progressive.”

Daniel Boyarin, a professor at UC Berkeley and a member of JVP’s advisory board, has compared Israelis to Nazis, referred to himself as an “anti-Zionist" and has a sticker on his office door at UC Berkeley calling to “End U.S. Aid to Israel."

You get the picture.

Considering the strong anti-Israel stand of JVP, it is interesting that on the day it announced their list of the candidates it was supporting, Anarcho-Zionist made the following observation:

Those 3 congressmen -- endorsed by both Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street -- are:

o Mark Pocan
o Pramila Jayapal
o Betty McCollum

Just how does that work?
How can "pro-Israel" J Street support the same candidates as anti-Israel JVP?

First, here is how J Street, itself, describes the virtues of each of these three congressmen:

Pramila Jayapal

Rep. Jayapal is a champion of progressive issues, and her stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is consistent with this profile. The Congresswoman supports the Iran nuclear deal and believes the United States has a constructive diplomatic role to play in the Middle East. She also supports a two-state solution. Her upbringing in India, against the backdrop of the Indian-Pakistani conflict, has informed her strong pro-peace perspective. Since being elected to Congress, Rep. Jayapal has been a consistent supporter of J Street’s legislative priorities, and she was an early cosponsor of House Resolution 326, which reaffirms Congress’s commitment to two-state solution and opposes settlement expansion and annexation.

Betty McCollum

Congresswoman McCollum has been a JStreetPAC endorsee since 2008 and is one of J Street’s most vocal allies on the Hill. Last session, she supported the entire J Street legislative agenda, and this session she was an early cosponsor of H.Res. 326, which gets Congress on the record reaffirming support for the two-state solution and opposing annexation and settlement expansion.

Mark Pocan

Throughout his time in Congress, Rep. Pocan has been one of the most steadfast supporters of J Street issues. He has consistently voted with J Street’s entire legislative agenda. Rep. Pocan has traveled to Israel and the Palestinian Territories and is a strong advocate for US leadership towards a two state solution. He was one of the earliest cosponsors of House Resolution 326, which reaffirms Congress’s commitment to two-state solution and opposes settlement expansion and annexation.

Notice what J Street doesn't say about any of them:
Not one of them is described as a friend, let alone a strong supporter, of Israel.

But they are all supporters of J Street and its agenda -- and that, of course, is what matters, isn't it?

Here is how JVP describes those same 3 candidates:

BETTY MCCOLLUM MN-04

Betty McCollum is the representative of Minnesota’s 4th district. She is a St. Paul native and was the second Minnesota woman elected to Congress. First elected in 2000, Congresswoman McCollum is a champion for Palestinian rights, including leading the fight to protect Palestinian children from Israeli military detention and abuse by introducing the first legislation for Palestinian rights in the House of Representatives. Throughout her career, she has also championed public education, protecting the environment, and foreign policy centered on human rights.

PRAMILA JAYAPAL WA-07

Pramila Jayapal is the representative for Washington’s 7th district and is the first South Asian American woman elected to Congress. First elected in 2016, Congresswoman Jayapal is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a leader on immigrant rights, labor rights, Medicare for All, College for All, fighting white nationalism, and more. She is a stalwart supporter of Palestinian rights in Congress, including standing up against Israel’s military detention of Palestinian children and Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes, as well as for a resumption of aid to Gaza, and more.

MARK POCAN WI-02

Mark Pocan is the representative of Wisconsin’s 2nd district. First elected in 2012, Congressman Pocan is Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has long been a leader in promoting economic and social justice initiatives. He is a consistent and leading voice for Palestinian rights in the House of Representatives, including breaking the silence around the Israeli military blockade and humanitarian crisis affecting Palestinians in Gaza and protecting Palestinian children.

JVP seems as reticent to brag about how anti-Israel these three are as J Street is silent as to how anti-Israel their stances are.

Let's take a closer look at each of the three.

Pramila Jayapal is a good friend of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar -- such a good friend in fact that when the 2 were criticized a year ago for their attacks on Israel, Jayapal jumped to their defense on Twitter:

Jayapal opposed anti-BDS legislation last year in Congress, saying that she had "unresolved concerns about First Amendment free speech and protest protections."

She also wants to see opposition to the Israeli "occupation" as part of the Democratic platform, and in 2018 was part of a press release, along with Mark Pocan, condemning Israel's handling to the Hamas "March of Return" riots.

Betty McCollum goes further.

In October 2018, Betty McCollum was the first US lawmaker to ever publicly accuse Israel of apartheid, when, at at the annual national conference of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights she said in reference to Israel:

Friends, the world has a name of that form of government that’s codified in the Nation State Law, and it’s called apartheid.

At the time, Elder of Ziyon took a snapshot from the J Street site of their endorsement McCollum:

Rep. McCollum has been 'a strong ally of the pro-Israel community'?

Seriously?

Is it any wonder that J Street has been forced to repurpose their endorsements of candidates to reference their support for J Street instead and expunge any claim of support of Israel?

More recently, in 2019, Rep. McCollum introduced the ‘‘Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act’’ (HR 2407), which she claims

is expressly intended to end U.S. support and funding for Israel’s systematic military detention, interrogation, abuse, torture, and prosecution of Palestinian children. This bill not only highlights actions by the Government of Israel that violate international humanitarian law by their treatment of Palestinian children in detention, it affirmatively declares that equality, human rights, and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis are the values the American people expect the U.S. government to advance.

NGO Monitor has analysis of McCollum's bill.
Among the problems it finds with it:

o The bill is based largely on the lobbying efforts and accusations of Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P). DCI-P is closely tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.

o  Citibank, Arab Bank and Global Giving have closed DCI-P accounts due to these PFLP connections.
o  Many of the citations to UN and other reports in turn simply copy lines from DCI-P publications.
o  The new legislation includes several inaccurate factual claims and distortions of international law.
o  The bill applies standards to Israel that are not applied in the US in general, or in McCollum’s state of Minnesota in particular.
o  The bill misquotes a number of State Department reports

This is someone that J Street supports -- but not so enthusiastically that they can publicly boast of her as a friend and supporter of Israel.

The fact that J Street supports someone like McCollum should not be all that surprising. After all, J Street at one point supported Rashida Tlaib

J Street had no problem endorsing Tlaib, despite the fact that Tlaib

o supported Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh
o supported Islamic Relief, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
o criticized California’s Kamala Harris for discussing cooperation between California and Israel on water management, agriculture, and cyber security
o accused Harris of “racism” for meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
o retweeted a post from Linda Sarsour supporting Ahed Tamimi, who was jailed for incitement and assaulting an IDF soldier -- and upon release voiced support for suicide bombing.

In their statement about withdrawing support for Tlaib, entitled "J Street Will Not Endorse Candidates Who Do Not Endorse a Two-State Solution," J Street makes clear what their priorities are:

While we have long championed the value of a wide range of voices in discussion of the conflict and related issues, we cannot endorse candidates who conclude that they can no longer publicly express unequivocal support for a two-state solution and other core principles to which our organization is dedicated.

Fortunately for McCollum, accusing Isreal of apartheid does not contradict any of those "core principles" that J Street is dedicated to!

J Street is OK with Mark Pocan too.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2017 that Representative Mark Pocan anonymously reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum organized by organizations that support boycotts. In the end, Pocan did not attend the anti-Israel forum he sponsored. A senior Congressional official was quoted as saying

[Pocan] chose to facilitate a pro-BDS smear campaign using taxpayer dollars without even showing his face at the event...As millions of Jews and non-Jews alike celebrate the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, Congressman Pocan and his J-Street lackeys are spending their time working to undermine the state of Israel.

In 2016, Pocan was one of a handful of Democratic congressmen who met an Arab terrorist affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

During the trip, the five met with Shawan Jabarin, whom the itinerary described as the General Director of Al-Haq, for a discussion on “Palestinian political prisoners”.

What the AGI itinerary failed to note, however, are Jabarin’s ties to terrorism.

A member of the PFLP, Jabarin was convicted for his efforts to enlist support abroad for attacks on Israel. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but was released after nine months due to respiratory difficulties.

It is obvious why Jewish Voice for Peace would want to support Jayapal, McCollum and Pocan -- that group and these 3 congressmen are clearly a good fit.

J Street obviously thinks they are a good fit with these 3 too.

According to its profile on GuideStar:

It is worth noting that J Street does not need to convince those who strongly disagree with our positions within the American Jewish community or the political sphere. The majority of American Jews and many politicians already broadly agree with us; they just need a movement to validate, organize and amplify their voices. [emphasis added]

The fact that J Street deliberately makes a point of validating and amplifying the views of these 3 politicians demonstrates how badly J Street has stumbled.

Or how cynical J Street really is.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

So how did Oxfam end up selling multiple editions of "The Protocols"?

Earlier this month:

Oxfam has pulled from its online shop two editions of a forged antisemitic pamphlet purporting a Jewish plot for world domination.

The virulently antisemitic tract first published in Czarist Russia at the turn of the century, inspired countless conspiracy theories and was invoked by Adolf Hitler.

The Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev took to social media on Friday after noticing editions of the Protocols of the learned elders of Zion donated to the charity appear on the global poverty charity’s online shop.

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A 1936 edition described as being in very good condition was marketed online for £100, while a 2002 reprint was being advertised for £12.99.

The books, both translated into English from Russian, appear to have been priced, photographed and online by volunteers.

The Board of Deputies vice president Amanda Bowman said on Friday: “It is unthinkable that a charity such as Oxfam would knowingly by offering for sale a book notorious for being an antisemitic forgery.

“Now that it has been removed, we urge Oxfam to ensure that procedures are in place to make sure this does not happen again.”

An Oxfam spokesperson said: “As soon as the books were brought to our attention we removed them from sale and they are being destroyed.

“They should not have been listed. We provide guidance to our staff on items that are not acceptable for sale. We apologise for the error and offence caused. We will look at steps to take to prevent it happening again.”

How did Oxfam come to sell antisemitic books?

The Oxfam shop accepts donations from Oxfam supporters. A team of Oxfam volunteers goes through the donations, photographs them and writes up descriptions of the products and prices them.

Here is the description of one of the books:

An entire chain of people who consider themselves supporters of human rights - the donor, the person who decided it was worth reselling, the person who photographed the book, the person who wrote up the description and set the price - every single one of these Oxfam supporters thought that this was okay.

And today Oxfam continues to offer problematic books. For example, this book that tries to exonerate Nazi war criminal Albert Speer:

Or this notorious book by Lenni Brenner, a key part of the hoax that Zionists colluded with Nazis during the Holocaust:

The problem is not simply that Oxfam accidentally is selling some antisemitic books. The problem is that these books are what Oxfam members are reading and recommending to others.

Meaning that many of the people who consider themselves in the vanguard of human rights cannot recognize, or worse, actively promote, antisemitism.

Too many British leftists, after decades of anti-Israel indoctrination from "human rights organizations" like Oxfam, have embraced mainstream antisemitism as normative.

Oxfam's problems are very, very deep.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

EoZTV: A decade of Hamas and the PA playing with Gazans' lives with medicine and medical facilities

My latest livestream is about how Palestinian Arab leaders have consistently and cynically used the Gazans as political/medical pawns.

A quick roundup of what they have done:

The video has been remove from YouTube for reasons that aren't clear. I do not have a backup. I'm trying to recover it. Moreover, YouTube says they don't have enough people to review appeals.

I'm a bit upset.

UPDATE: YouTube restored it:

Here was my recovery video - lower quality but should be good enough. The second half is a soundless duplicate of the video, I have no idea why - so only watch 21 minutes of this.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

"Apartheid Week" poster: Farah Raslan, Christian Lebanese chef in Israel

"Israel Apartheid Week" might be a bust this year, but that doesn't mean I can't keep ripping it "apart."

(h/t Irene)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The spokesman for the Gaza ministry of economy, Abdel-Fattah Abu Moussa, assured Gazans that there are plenty of supplies of basic commodities in the markets of Gaza.

In an interview with Felesteen, Abu Moussa said, "The goods are still flowing in their usual manner from the Kerem Shalom crossing."

He stressed that there is no reason to panic, as there are plenty of goods available in all governorates of the Gaza Strip, saying that the ministry conducted an inventory of all foodstuffs in the governorates and confirmed the availability of stock.

"Bakeries continue to operate and fuel is available. We have dealt with crises before, such as the three Israeli wars on Gaza, during which we did not witness any food crisis."

In short, this Hamas spokesperson is assuring Gazans that Israel has been a reliable partner for providing their needs even during wartime and certainly that applies now.

Someone should tell the "pro-Palestinian activists" that they can celebrate that they are worried for nothing.

Oh, that's right, they want there to be a crisis in Gaza to justify their hate for Israel.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/22 Links: Israel can escape Italy's fate; Israel's "Social Isolation Until Herd Immunity" Strategy; Israel named world's 14th happiest country in annual UN report

From Ian:

945 Israelis test positive for coronavirus, 20 in critical condition

Some 945 Israelis have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, SAR-CoV-2, on Sunday morning, as numbers continue to increase.

The Ministry of Health reported that the majority of cases - 863 - are mild, 24 are moderate and 20 critical. One person died from coronavirus over the weekend. The 88-year-old Holocaust survivor was the first Israeli to die from the disease.

So far, 37 people have recovered.

The number of coronavirus patients in the country is expected to climb by even hundreds each day, according to Health Ministry director general Moshe Bar Siman Tov, as Israel expands the number of tests it takes each day.

When coronavirus first came to Israel, the Health Ministry tested around 750 people per day. That number climbed to 2,200 over the weekend. Some 3,000 people are expected to be tested on Sunday.

Bar Siman Tov said that Israel will likely test as many as 10,000 people per day in the coming days.

Israel can escape Italy's fate

The important question, however, is until when? How long will we have to live in such extreme quarantine conditions? The answer is complicated and depends on several factors. First, we will have to examine the morbidity rate in the coming weeks and determine whether the spread is fast or slow, and whether it's possible to start taking calculated risks.

We should not expect life to return to the way it was a month ago. Social distancing, on-line school and medical appointments will just be a part of our lives in the months ahead. But significantly expanding the scope of testing for the virus, including blood tests to determine morbidity or recovery, will provide us an "exit window" from complete quarantine.

This strategy will be predicated on the timely detection of as many infected people as possible in their early stages and putting them in quarantine. And on releasing those who have recovered from quarantine. All this will happen gradually, and it all depends on the public's ability to sufficiently heed the quarantine instructions.

To this end, what is required now is the complete and total separation of family units, to prevent chain infection and stop the spread of the virus in its tracks. This is the duty of each and every one of us, and this is the meaning of mutual responsibility at this time – if even just a few people engage in risky behavior the collateral damage will be immense.

We must not make light of the safety instructions handed down, not even a little. If the entire public adheres to them, we will traverse these coming weeks in one piece.

Israel's "Social Isolation Until Herd Immunity" Strategy

I reported last Wednesday that Palestinian leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, Mohamed Shtayyeh and Saeb Erekat, were going to international bodies demanding pressure for Israel to unilaterally release Palestinian prisoners and terrorists, falsely claiming that Israel is negligent towards their medical needs and does not provide prisoners with cleaning supplies.

Now Ma'an quotes an Israeli broadcast saying that the Israeli Prison Service has a comprehensive plan to address the threat of infection in the prisons and is fully aware of the dangers of having a population in prison.

Strict sterilization and disinfection is being done in all prison cells, prison departments and shared places.

Sterilization, cleaning and disinfection materials are being distributed to prisoners in all departments, and members of the IPS are overseeing sterilization, disinfection and cleaning activities.

A team has also been established in each prison, whose specific mission is to maintain frequent cleansing.

Israel can expect no thanks from the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, who apparently would prefer that an outbreak occur for public relations purposes.

Last week, a rumor was spread by social media, Palestinian NGOs and then Hamas that four prisoners had contracted the virus, and Israel had to announce - together with the Palestinian Authority - that it wasn't true. In fact, four prisoners were suspected of being in contact with someone who became ill so the four, who have no symptoms, have been quarantined.

This doesn't stop haters from spreading ridiculous rumors, like the IPS is telling prisoners to use socks for masks.

The US State Department mentioned in a press briefing that the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem noted that "the Palestinians and the Israelis are having excellent cooperation and exchanges on COVID-19." There was an article about this cooperation in Al Monitor last week as well.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, rejected any US medical aid to his country this morning.

His reason? The US might be sending them more of the Covid-19 virus under the guise of medicine.

"The US government has declared a few times that they are ready to help #Iran with medicines to fight the #CoronaOutbreak. That's strange. Firstly, based on the words of your own officials, you face shortages in the US. So use what you have for your own patients," he tweeted.

"[Secondly ]you're accused of having created #Coronavirus. I don't know how true it is. But when there's such an allegation, can a wise man trust you? You could be giving medicines that spread the virus or cause it to remain. Experience shows you can’t be trusted and you do such things," he continued.

For some reason no one thinks it is strange that Khamenei is spreading absurd conspiracy theories that the US is infecting the world with Covid-19.

By his logic, it was certainly very stupid for the US to ever make an agreement with Iran over nuclear weapons - because experience shows that they do not adhere to agreements and wise people can never trust Iran since there were (more than) rumors that they seek nuclear weapons capabilities and have tried to hide them.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Iran's enriched uranium now at 5X JCPOA limits

With all the other news, this AP story from March 3 didn't receive enough attention:

The head of the UN's atomic watchdog on Tuesday sounded the alarm at Iran's cooperation with the agency and demanded "clarifications" over an undeclared site in Tehran where uranium particles were found late last year.

It comes on the same day as the IAEA issued two reports, one on Iran's current nuclear programme and the other detailing its denial of access to two sites the agency wanted to visit.

The IAEA has for months been pressing Tehran for information about the kind of activities being carried out at the undeclared site where the uranium particles were found.

While the IAEA has not identified the site in question, diplomatic sources told AFP the agency asked Iran about a site in the Turquzabad district of Tehran, where Israel has alleged secret atomic activity in the past.

In addition, according to a report issued by the IAEA on Tuesday, "the Agency identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three locations in Iran".

At one of them the report said the IAEA had from early July 2019 observed "activities... consistent with effort to sanitize part of the location".

A diplomatic source said that the three locations were separate to Turquzabad.

The source also said that the agency's queries were thought to relate to Iran's historic nuclear activities and not to its compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The IAEA report says the agency first raised questions about the sites last year and that Iran refused access to two of them that the agency wished to visit in late January.

The second report from the agency detailed Iran's current breaches of several parts of a landmark 2015 international deal on scaling back its nuclear programme.

The report showed Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium now stands at more than five times the limit fixed under the accord.

It said that as of February 19, 2020 the Iranian stockpile stood at the equivalent of 1,510 kilogrammes, as opposed to the 300 kg limit set under the agreement.

Some experts consider this amount to provide sufficient material to produce a nuclear weapon, depending on its exact level of purity.

However, it would still need several more steps, including further enrichment, to make it suitable for use in a weapon.

Isn't it funny that the people who are using the coronavirus as a means to pressure the West to lift sanctions don't mention this?

(h/t Irene)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/21 Links: Israel’s first virus fatality named as 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even; Over 20 vaccines, multiple treatments currently in development for coronavirus

From Ian:

Israel’s first virus fatality named as 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even

Israel’s first fatality in the coronavirus pandemic was on Saturday named as 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even.

In a statement, Even’s family said they regretted that they were unable to be by his side for his final moments.

“He was a dear and beloved man, living a full life, devoted to his family, a strong man until the end. We are sorry to have passed his last days and moments at a time when his family members were prevented from being by his side.”

Even immigrated to Israel alone from Hungary in 1949. He is survived by four children, 18 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center said late Friday that Even had been admitted in very serious condition with multiple preexisting conditions. Despite intensive treatment, including being resuscitated from heart failure, his state deteriorated rapidly and he died, the hospital said.

Even was among several residents of the Nofim Tower senior home in Jerusalem who have contracted the virus.

The virus generally only shows mild symptoms in the young and healthy, but can cause serious respiratory issues and death in older adults and those with underlying conditions.

883 Israelis diagnosed with coronavirus, 15 in serious condition

The Health Ministry announced on Saturday that 883 Israelis have tested positive for the coronavirus, 15 of whom are in serious condition.

Among those in critical condition are mostly older adults or those with pre-exisiting conditions. However, according to the ministry, one person is in his 40s and was healthy before contracting the virus.

Moreover, more than 3,000 medical professionals are in isolation, including 814 doctors and 893 nurses.

The 178-person increase represents the largest jump in numbers Israel has seen to date.The ministry added that 274 of those diagnosed are currently hospitalized.

Over 20 vaccines, multiple treatments currently in development for coronavirus

The World Health Organization has said at least 20 vaccines for coronavirus are in development around the world — though the process is likely to take many long months, as the medical world races to find both preventive measures and treatments for those infected.

“At least 20 vaccines are in development for COVID-19. Their first clinic trials are already starting,” Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging and infectious diseases unit, said Friday.

She cautioned that “We are still some time away before we would have a vaccine that could be used, and they still need to go through the trials for efficacy, but this work is under way.”

The head of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, Dr. Mike Ryan, stressed that “There is only one thing more dangerous than a bad virus, and that’s a bad vaccine.

“We have to be very, very careful in developing any product that we are going to inject into potentially most of the world’s population.”

He added that China’s work on sequencing the genome of the virus before it became a global pandemic, and its sharing of that data, had helped work on vaccines around the world move much faster.

On Wednesday, The Times of Israel spoke with Dr. Ofer Levy, of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Precision Vaccines Program, whose team is one of the groups working on developing a vaccine, with a unique focus on a solution for the elderly.

Currently, there is no medicine specifically approved for treating COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which has infected nearly 300,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 13,000 people.

03/20 Links Pt2: Israel’s first coronavirus death; Blood Libels, Conspiracy Theories, and Coronaviruses; Heartwarming Applause for Israeli Doctors During Coronavirus

From Ian:

Man, 88, dies in Jerusalem hospital, Israel’s first coronavirus death

An 88-year-old man died in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital on Friday night from the coronavirus, Israel’s first fatality in the global pandemic, while several other patients were in a critical condition.

The hospital said the patient had been admitted in a very serious condition with multiple preexisting conditions. Despite intensive treatment, including being resuscitated from heart failure, he had deteriorated rapidly in recent hours and died, the hospital said.

The condition of three other Israelis being treated at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon for COVID-19 deteriorated Friday, with all of them in serious to critical condition.

The three patients include a 67-year-old woman with a preexisting medical condition, a 91-year-old woman and 45-year-old man with no past health problems, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

Another 10 people infected with the virus are receiving treatment at the hospital, three of them in moderate condition.

Global virus death toll tops 10,000 as epicenter shifts west

The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 10,000 on Thursday, as the scourge extended its march across the West, where the United States and other countries increasingly enlisted the military to prepare for an onslaught of patients and California’s governor ordered people in the most-populous U.S. state to stay home.

Worldwide the death toll surpassed 10,000 and infections topped 240,000, including 86,000 people who have recovered.

Italy’s deaths from the coronavirus pandemic eclipsed China’s on Thursday, infections across the globe passed the 240,000 mark, including some 86,000 people who have recovered.

In Israel, the number of cases jumped to 677, a single day increase of nearly 200, and a Jerusalem woman, 89, was fighting rapid respiratory deterioration to avoid becoming the country’s first fatality from the COVID-19 disease.

The virus has infected at least one European head of state: Monaco’s 62-year-old Prince Albert II, who continued to work from his office. And it appeared to be opening an alarming new front in Africa, where health care in many countries is already in sorry shape.

Record 627 deaths in Italy; military vehicles said used to transport bodies

Italy on Friday reported a record 627 new deaths from the novel coronavirus and saw its world-leading toll surpass 4,000 despite government efforts to stem the pandemic’s spread.

The Mediterranean country’s daily death rate is now higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan’s Hubei province.

Italy’s previous one-day record death toll was 475 on Wednesday. Italy has seen more than 1,500 fatalities from COVID-19 in the past three days alone.

It has now recorded the five highest one-day tolls officially registered around the world.

Italian media broadcast pictures it said was military vehicles brought into the Bergamo area to transport away the hundreds of coffins.

Italy’s total number of deaths now stands and 4,032. Infections rose by nearly 6,000 to 47,021.

The nation of 60 million currently accounts for 36.6 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths after surpassing China’s total on Thursday.

The Daily Beast has an article about the charge we've been hearing for weeks that says that US sanctions on Iran is causing life-threatening supply issues.

Parsing the article, however, shows that the "experts" are all speaking about a theoretical threat, and can't point to any actual issues.

The Trump administration’s policy of crippling Iran economically through “Maximum Pressure” is exacerbating the novel coronavirus outbreak in one of the epicenters of the global pandemic, according to sanctions experts.

While U.S. sanctions formally exempt humanitarian supplies, sanctions-watchers say the reality is more complex. The breadth of the Maximum Pressure sanctions is extensive enough to dissuade firms, foreign governments, and banks from participating in the transfer of life-saving medical supplies, for fear of incurring secondary or third-degree sanctions from Washington. Reports of medical shortages followed very shortly after the Trump administration reimposed sanctions in 2018, long before a global medical crisis arrived.

But have the sanctions actually stopped any world government or company that wants to help Iran from doing so?

In October, the Trump administration established a channel, through Switzerland, to ease payments for Iran’s importation of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies. That operation began in late January, coincidentally around the time the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global public health emergency. “A big part of our Iran strategy from the very beginning is standing with the Iranian people instead of standing with the regime,” the State Department’s Iran special representative, Brian Hook, said at the time.

Asked about the sanctions’ impact on the Iranian coronavirus outbreak, a Treasury Department official said the administration “encourage[s] companies to use the recently established humanitarian channel in Switzerland.”

But those who follow the Iran sanctions closely say that the Swiss channel isn’t going to be sufficient. Sanctions make it difficult for Iran to access its foreign currency reserves held in banks in countries that purchased Iranian oil. “You can have a channel, but no foreign currency to pay through it,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of Bourse & Bazaar, which tracks the Iranian economy.

“The Swiss channel is a good development, but because it funnels payments through a single Swiss bank, BCP [Banque de Commerce et de Placements], it isn't useful to companies that don't maintain accounts at that bank. Moreover, the Swiss channel has probably the most onerous due diligence and disclosure requirements of any payment channel ever created for Iran. So setting up to work through the channel, though possible, isn't going to cut it at this time of emergency,” Batmanghelidj explained.

Ah, the bolded sentence in the last paragraph explains it all. It is certainly more difficult for Iran to get supplies, because the US wants to make sure that any aid is used specifically for helping people and not going towards nuclear research, missile development or funding Hezbollah. So there are a few more hoops to jump through. For saving people's lives, the hoops are worth jumping through. And, frankly, who isn't jumping through hoops to get what they need nowadays?

These "experts" are really against sanctions altogether, so instead of pointing out that Iran can get what it needs, they are saying flatly "it isn't going to cut it."

I see little to nothing that stops Iran from getting needed medical supplies. I do see people who were always against any sanctions on Iran using the coronavirus as an excuse to pressure the US to lift them.

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For Palestinian leaders, everything has to be about them. They try to hijack every issue from the environment to feminism to water.

It is hard to hijack a worldwide crisis. But they are still trying, as this video shows.

NEW VIDEO| As countries worldwide focus on combating the #coronavirus pandemic, for Israel it's occupation as usual. pic.twitter.com/UcaoMiymZS
— PLO Department of Public Diplomacy & Policy (@PalestinePDP) March 19, 2020

This video was made by the PLO Department of Public Diplomacy, headed by Hanan Ashrawi, the person responsible for lots of antisemitic propaganda through her Miftah NGO. (It seems funny to call it an NGO when it is headed by a PLO operative.)

There are two themes to this video:

1) Israel is still oppressing Palestinians even during the coronavirus crisis, by doing everything it has been doing for decades.

Yes, Israel is still defending itself from terror attacks. Here the Palestinians are trying to grab the spotlight from and hijack the coronavirus story, because, like children, they hate not being the center of attention.

2) Israel is actively stopping Palestinians from fighting the virus.

This was a cynical provocation by the Palestinian Authority. They sent their "medics" into Jerusalem to pretend that they were the official health authorities for the city, putting up notices and saying they were spraying disinfectant. Israel properly arrested them because there can only be one municipal authority and one unified plan of action, and the Palestinians were engaged in a political maneuver disguised as humanitarian - a game they have played before.

As the world combats Covid-19 -the PLO is making anti-Israel propaganda videos.

(h/t Teresa)

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03/20 Links Pt1: 'Jerusalem stands with the world,' city walls declare; Teva to send US millions of malaria pills with potential to help COVID-19

From Ian:

'Jerusalem stands with the world,' city walls declare

The Israeli flag lit up Jerusalem's city walls Thursday night, carrying the slogan "Jerusalem stands with the world," in a move seeking to reflect solidarity with nations worldwide during the global coronavirus pandemic.

The move followed an initiative by Israel Hayom, which called on all Israelis to fly the blue and white flag at home in this time of crisis.

"Just as the coronavirus does not differentiate between the people it threatens, our flag does not differentiate between the people it safeguards. Look at the flag and remember, we are together, always," Boaz Bismuth, Israel Hayom's editor-in-chief, wrote in an opinion piece Thursday.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said in a statement, "Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, lit up the Old City walls with the Israeli flag this evening [Thursday] as a sign of the tremendous strength of our society.

"Even during the coronavirus outbreak that is spreading in Israel and around the world, we will stand firm and win, as the people of Israel have done throughout history," he said.

Boaz Bismuth, Israel Hayom's editor-in-chief, praised Lion's initiative, saying, "I am pleased and thankful for Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion's response and his decision to illuminate the Old City walls with the Israeli flag.

"There is nothing more symbolic and unifying for Israelis than the flag. These challenging times call for national pride and unity. "

Netanyahu tells Israelis: Now it’s an order — you must stay at home

Netanyahu said the mandatory regulations would come into effect immediately after their overnight Thursday-Friday approval and would remain in force for an initial period of seven days.

“The purpose of these instructions — to ensure as few people will be infected and will infect [others],” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu acknowledged the move was “unlike any since the founding of the State of Israel,” but said the country has never before faced anything like the coronavirus.

There was no immediate information on what the punishments would be for violators of the Health Ministry directives, which were originally announced Tuesday.
A man wearing a face mask cycles down Jaffa Street Jerusalem on March 19, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The regulations permit people to leave their homes only for the following activities:
1. Going to work and coming back;
2. Stocking up on food, medicine, necessary products and to receive essential services;
3. Receiving medical treatment;
4. Donating blood;
5. Participating in demonstrations;
6. Unorganized sports activity in groups no larger than five people;
7. Brief walks for a short time and to a place close to the person’s residence, without coming close to people they don’t live with;
8. Going to a wedding, funeral or for prayer;
9. Helping a person who due to their age, medical conditions or a disability, requires assistance;
10. Going out for a vital need that hasn’t been specified in articles 1-9.

During all those activities, people should maintain a distance of two meters, or six feet, from anyone, as much as possible. People staying in the same household do not need to keep that distance from one another.

Coronavirus: Infected Israelis hit 705 as emergency orders roll out

The Health Ministry guidelines to fight the spread of coronavirus will no longer be recommendations or requests. Rather, overnight Thursday the government signed existing restrictions into legally enforceable orders, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a national state of emergency.

Going forward, for the next seven days, whoever breaks these orders will be subject to fines.

"There has not been anything like this since the establishment of the state," the prime minister said. "There has actually been no such thing like this in the last 100 years."

“It is not going to be easy; I am asking for your cooperation.”

In general, the new orders include that Israelis are not allowed to leave their homes unless "absolutely necessary." Visiting parks, beaches, pools, libraries and museums is prohibited, as are all social interactions. Work that can be done from home should be.

Currently all “essential” services will remain open, including supermarkets, pharmacies and most medical services. In addition, while Israelis are encouraged to work from home, employees who need to travel to work will be able to do so.

The announcement came on the backdrop of the largest spike in the number of infected Israelis: 677, according to the Health Ministry. At press time Wednesday, 433 Israelis had been diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 - an increase of 244 patients in one day.

This comes from a comment in an article in a Moroccan news site.

According to the encyclopedic book Social Glimpses of Iraq's Modern History by Ali Al-Wardi, during a cholera pandemic in Iraq under Ottoman rule (possibly around 1852,) the Jews of Iraq locked themselves in homes by order of the rabbis - and they were saved from death.

When Muslims asked their clerics what to do, they were told to say the words, "Allah will not afflict us except for what he has already ordained."

Entire Muslim villages and cities were wiped out.

I am curious as to how true this is - I am not aware of any time before now that rabbis ruled that Jews should stay in their houses even at the expense of prayer with a quorum, but this story makes it sound like is did happen in the mid-19th century. I'd love to verify this - we definitely need more source materials on the lives of Jews in the Middle East throughout the ages.

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