Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 02, 2020

04/02 Links Pt1: Israeli scientists: Coronavirus vaccine to be tested on humans by June; All Israelis must wear face masks; Pakistan Commutes Death Sentence of Main Suspect in Daniel Pearl Murder

From Ian:

Israel’s coronavirus deaths jump to 33, after 7 succumb in a single day

Israel’s coronavirus death toll rose to 33 on Thursday afternoon as patients in Ashkelon and Tel Aviv succumbed to COVID-19, sustaining an increase in the fatality rate over the last several days.

The deaths were the sixth and seventh announced on Thursday, bringing the toll over just the last day and a half to 13.

Barzilai Medical Center said one fatality was a 77-year-old man who suffered from several preexisting medical conditions.

The medical center said the man, whose name has not yet been released, had been brought to the hospital on March 22.

“His condition deteriorated and he was transferred a few days ago to the intensive care unit. In the past two days, his situation got much worse, and despite treatments with all possible equipment, the patient passed away,” the hospital said.
Medical personnel after evacuating a suspected COVID-19 patient at Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, March 31, 2020. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

A second man, 90, died of the virus at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, the medical center said. It said the victim had preexisting conditions.

All of Thursday’s victims have been men over 72 years old, and five of them had underlying conditions, according to hospitals announcing their deaths.

The death toll has more than doubled from 16 since Monday, and the number of people on ventilators or in serious condition has also nearly doubled in the last week.

Israeli scientists: Coronavirus vaccine to be tested on humans by June 1

A team of Israeli researchers says that they are days away from completing the production of the active component of a coronavirus vaccine that could be tested on humans as early as June 1.

“We are in the final stages and within a few days we will hold the proteins – the active component of the vaccine,” Dr. Chen Katz, group leader of MIGAL’s biotechnology group, told The Jerusalem Post.

In late February, MIGAL [The Galilee Research Institute] committed to completing production of its vaccine within three weeks and having it on the market in 90 days. Katz said they were slightly delayed because it took longer than expected to receive the genetic construct that they ordered from China due to the airways being closed and it having to be rerouted.

As a reminder, for the past four years, researchers at MIGAL scientists have been developing a vaccine against infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), which causes a bronchial disease affecting poultry. The effectiveness of the vaccine has been proven in preclinical trials carried out at the Veterinary Institute.

“Our basic concept was to develop the technology and not specifically a vaccine for this kind or that kind of virus,” said Katz. “The scientific framework for the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a chimeric soluble protein that delivers the viral antigen into mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis, causing the body to form antibodies against the virus.”

Corona Victims in Israel Had Pre-Existing Conditions

At the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, a 67-year-old patient who had been in an induced coma and on a ventilator for two weeks was taken off the ventilator on Tuesday night and is breathing on her own. Her condition has been upgraded to moderate. The patients contracted the virus while visiting Egypt with her partner.

The director of the corona ICU at Wolfson called the woman's case "encouraging."

"Of course, we are continuing to monitor the patient's condition closely, and hope that we will soon be able to report more improvement," he noted.

Israel Hayom has elected to take a closer look at the "pre-existing conditions" that have been reported for all the corona fatalities in the country thus far and discovered that while the term might imply that the victims were already critically ill, in at least some cases the "pre-existing conditions" were common medical conditions that in approximately one-third of the Israeli population over 40 have: diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.

Israel Hayom identified the "pre-existing conditions" from which 18 of the 21 victims suffered and discovered that eight were diabetics; eight had high blood pressure; and seven suffered from heart and vascular disease. Five of the patients were in varying states of dementia or had suffered strokes or a loss of cognitive functioning. Another four had respiratory illnesses. One patient who succumbed to coronavirus already had liver disease, an autoimmune condition, and cancer.

J Street seems to make it a point to find ever-innovative ways to lower the bar on what passes for pro-Israel.

J Street Support For The Goldstone Report

In an October 23, 2009 piece for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami. In response to Goldberg's concern that there are those "who are glomming on to you guys as a cover, just using you to advance another agenda entirely," Ben-Ami replied:

I hope that we have a very strong left flank that attacks us, that Jewish Voice for Peace and other groups that are consistently upset with us for backing Howard Berman's sanctions plan and for refusing to embrace the Goldstone report and for standing up for the right of Israel to defend itself or for its military aid -- I hope we get attacked from the left because I would characterize J Street as the mainstream of the American Jewish community. [emphasis added]

The following week, October 30, The Standard's Michael Goldfarb posted J Street Adviser Morton Halperin Goes to Work for Goldstone. According to Goldfarb, in response to H.R. 867 -- condemning Goldstone's report claiming Israel committed war crimes in Operation Cast Lead -- a document authored by Judge Goldstone was being circulated on Capitol Hill.

Goldfarb notes that

it seems that certain elements of J Street have indeed embraced Goldstone and his report. Upon further inspection of the Goldstone letter, the actual author seems to be Morton H. Halperin [president of the Open Society Institute (OSI)], who serves on the J Street advisory council and is a senior adviser at George Soros's Open Society Institute.

...Individuals with official ties to J Street are not just embracing the Goldstone report, they are involved in efforts on behalf of Goldstone himself to scuttle opposition to the report in Congress. It's just another example of the disconnect between J Street's official positions and the actions of those who are connected to the organization. [emphasis added]

In an article for The Washington Times, Eli Lake revealed that

J Street — the self-described pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group — facilitated meetings between members of Congress and South African Judge Richard Goldstone, author of a U.N. report that accused the Jewish state of systematic war crimes in its three-week military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

Ben-Ami told The Washington Times that while “J Street did not host, arrange or facilitate any visit to Washington, D.C., by Judge Richard Goldstone,” but that “J Street staff spoke to colleagues at the organizations coordinating the meetings and, at their behest, reached out to a handful of congressional staff to inquire whether members would be interested in seeing Judge Goldstone.” Ben-Ami reiterated “We believed it to be a good idea for him and for members of Congress to meet personally, but we declined to play a role in hosting, convening or attending any of the meetings.”

When asked later how many congressional offices had been contacted, a J Street staffer told the Times that it was 2 or 3. Mr. Ben-Ami later said he did not remember reaching out to Congress. [emphasis added]

But Goldstone himself contradicted both the staffer and Ben-Ami:

Judge Goldstone said he remembers attending “10 or 12” meetings. J Street co-founder Daniel Levy, who accompanied the judge to several of the parleys, said that the New America Foundation (NAF) — whose Middle East Task Force he co-chairs — had also hosted a lunch with Judge Goldstone for “a group of analysts and Middle East wonks.” The judge, Mr. Levy, and J Street all declined to identify the members of Congress. [emphasis added]

As the article points out, all 3 of those organizations connected with Goldstone’s visit to Washington -- J Street, NAF and OSI -- are funded by Soros.

Contrary to J Street, most of the organized American Jewish community, across the spectrum from left to right was critical of the report.

In the end, the House passed a resolution condemning the Goldstone Report by a vote of 344-36. However, J Street said that it was unable to support the resolution as written.

J Street And Betty McCollum's Military Detention Bill HR 2407

In 2019, Congresswoman Betty McCollum introduced the Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act:

This bill prohibits the use of certain foreign-assistance funds to support the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill treatment of children in violation of international humanitarian law. The bill also prohibits such funds from being used to support certain practices against children, including torture, sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, and arbitrary detention.

The bill also authorizes the Department of State to provide funding to nongovernmental organizations to (1) monitor and assess incidents of Palestinian children being subjected to Israeli military detention, and (2) provide treatment and rehabilitation for Palestinians under 21 years of age who have been subject to military detention as children.

McCollum has the distinction for being the first US lawmaker to ever publicly accuse Israel of apartheid, in October 2018 during the annual national conference of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

McCollum is also endorsed by J Street -- one of 3 Democratic congressional Democrats that are endorsed by both J Street and the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace.

NGO Monitor gives the underlying claims of McCollum's bill a thorough debunking.
But what does J Street think of this bill?

Apparently, J Street is divided over H.R.2407 - according to Bill Harper, McCollum's chief of staff, there is an internal debate among J Street board members over whether they should support the bill:

McCollum sent a letter to J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami on June 4th [2019] seeking his endorsement of the bill. In a response sent almost two months later, Ben-Ami described his board’s internal deliberations. He wrote that J Street strongly opposes unique standards being applied to Israel, but also believes Israel must adhere to legal requirements placed on all recipients of taxpayer-funded military assistance.

“While our Board of Directors has not yet made a decision on whether to support H.R. 2407, it is seized [sic] of the matter and has instructed our staff to engage in further research and consultations with relevant experts and stakeholders on this legislation and the critical issue it addresses,” Ben-Ami wrote. J Street Communications Director Logan Bayroff confirmed that this continues to be the organization’s position on the bill.

But J Street was not always so hesitant.

H.R. 2407 is the second iteration of McCollum's bill.

Originally, in November 2017, Congresswoman Betty McCollum introduced the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act (H.R. 4391):

This bill prohibits U.S. assistance to Israel from being used to support the military detention, interrogation, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children in violation of international humanitarian law or the use against Palestinian children of: (1) torture, inhumane, or degrading treatment; (2) physical violence or psychological abuse; (3) incommunicado or administrative detention; (4) solitary confinement; (5) denial of parental or legal access during interrogations; or (6) force or coercion to obtain a confession.

The website OpenSecrets notes that 4 organizations registered to lobby on the issue of H.R. 4391 -- and one of those lobbying on the issue of McCollum's bill was J Street.

The site links to a lobbying report indicating J Street lobbying activities during the second quarter of 2018 were done by 4 different lobbyists.

That was then.
What would account for J Street's hesitation this time around?

According to The Intercept, there is a change in the language of McCollum's bill that has a number of Congressmen concerned:

Instead of directing the secretary of state to certify that U.S. aid is not being used by Israel to detain children, as the 2017 version does, the new bill amends U.S. law to explicitly ban U.S. aid from going toward the abuse of children, a move that takes discretion over such a ban out of the hands of the State Department.

But more than that, H.R.2407 amends the Leahy Law that prohibits the US from giving aid and training to either foreign military or individuals who are accused of "gross human rights violations" -- and adds a focus on Israel:

McCollum’s bill would make the Leahy Law even more explicit by barring foreign security units from using U.S. aid to carry out the “military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of children.” The bill’s amendment to the Leahy Law would apply to all countries that receive U.S. military aid, but its focus on Israel has made it particularly controversial. [emphasis added]

The potential for cutting aid to Israel concerns not only Democrats in Congress, but J Street as well.

J Street’s endorsement could provide wavering members of Congress enough political cover to back the bill. But J Street is still debating whether to ultimately endorse it. “We haven’t taken a position on this bill yet. We are still looking at the language and researching the very important issue it deals with,” said Logan Bayroff, a spokesperson for J Street.

Advocates for the bill have heard from congressional staffers that J Street is skeptical about using the Leahy Law to bar aid because, in J Street’s eyes, the law should be applied to only the most extreme human rights violations like mass sexual violence, massacres, or ethnic cleansing.

It is not surprising then that J Street has not been lobbying on the issue of H.R. 2407 as it did on H.R. 4391.

Ben-Ami was the one who bragged to Jeffrey Goldberg "I hope that we have a very strong left flank that attacks us."

But the increasingly vocal radical left is not impressed by Ben-Ami's claim to represent the American Jewish mainstream. Instead, just as Ben-Ami once admitted to The New York Times "our no. 1 agenda item is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s [Obama's] blocking back,” progressives expect Ben-Ami and J Street to keep moving to the left and provide cover for increased attacks on Israel by Democrats.

J Street has bragged they will fill the need to "validate, organize and amplify the voices" of American Jews and politicians.

Now vocal anti-Israel progressives demand J Street do just that.

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 International Crisis Group issued a report:

The Gaza Strip and COVID-19: Preparing for the Worst

What’s new? COVID-19 cases have appeared in the Gaza Strip, where close to two million Palestinians live in 365 sq km, many of them in crowded refugee camps where social distancing is hardly feasible.

Why does it matter? A major outbreak of the illness would swiftly overwhelm Gaza’s health care system, which has been devastated by years of war and Israeli blockade. The death toll could be horrific.

What should be done? The Hamas government should maintain its quarantine measures and step up other efforts to contain the virus’s spread. Israel should lift the blockade for medical supplies and allow Palestinians out of the strip should they require hospitalisation.

The report itself includes lots of footnotes to prove its point. Unfortunately the facts are overwhelmed by anti-Israel propaganda and falsehoods. Here's just one paragraph, footnote in italics:

After Hamas assumed control of the strip in 2007 (following elections the previous year), the Israeli government imposed a blockade that continues to severely restrict the movement of people and goods into and out of the territory. Apart from devastating the economy – in what the UN has termed a form of collective punishment – the blockade has crippled Gaza’s health care sector.
In 2018, the UN reiterated that “Israel’s 11-year-old air, sea and land blockade has driven Gaza’s social and economic conditions steadily backwards. This amounts to the collective punishment of the two million residents of Gaza, which is strictly prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention”. See “Closure of Gaza commercial crossing: UN expert calls on Israel to reverse decision”, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 13 July 2018.

Yet that UN report linked to in the footnote, written by rabid anti-Zionist and terror supporter Michael Lynk, says the opposite!

GENEVA (13 July 2018) – A UN human rights expert has called on Israel to reverse its decision to close the Kerem Shalom/Karm Abu Salem commercial crossing into Gaza.
The Israeli decision, announced on 9 July, prohibits the import of everything but food, animal fodder, livestock, fuels and medical supplies into Gaza, and bans all export from Gaza. Israel imposed these new restrictions in response to burning kites being sent by Palestinians into southern Israel from Gaza.

Even during an assault on Israeli civilians with incendiary devices dropping all over the south, Israel still didn't restrict medical aid - but the ICG uses that as proof that its does, today!

The next sentence of the report shows that this isn't a one-off mistake:

The World Health Organization has said that, while Israel generally allows pharmaceuticals and disposables to enter Gaza because of their humanitarian nature, Israel has either delayed or prevented the import of medical equipment, consumables and spare parts.
See “Medical Equipment in Gaza’s Hospitals”, World Health Organisation, July 2009. From the blockade’s early days, the WHO has accused Israel of limiting access to proper medical supplies and spare parts, with the result that most of the equipment in Gaza is broken or outdated. “WHO: Israel-led blockade limits medical supplies in Gaza”, Haaretz, 30 July 2009.

Eleven year old reports are being used as proof of what Israel is doing today. In 2009, Israel was still formulating the rules of what to allow into Gaza without endangering Israelis and what the procedures would be. Those procedures have evolved over the years to facilitate entry of equipment that was previously delayed. Today is nothing like 2009.

ICG realizes that, and goes on:

These accusations have persisted. In 2018, the UN urged Israel to stop preventing the entry of humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the besieged strip. See Bel Trew, “UN urges Israel not to withhold aid from Gaza, as crisis deepens”, The Independent, 23 August 2018.

That article does not say one word about Israel limiting medical supplies! It does say that there is a shortage of such supplies, but that was entirely because the Palestinian Authority - which is responsible for medicines in Gaza hospitals despite Hamas' coup - actively decided to limit medicines and other critical products from Gaza. ICG mentions this in the next paragraph so it clearly knows about the PA's role in limiting medicine - yet it still blames Israel based on zero evidence, only a poor reading of newspaper articles and NGO reports that imply but do not show that Israel imposes restrictions.

For example, Israel does not permit the import of hydrogen peroxide, a medical disinfectant, noting that it can also be used in explosive devices. “List of ‘Dual Use’ Items”, Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), 2008.

If you look at the document they mention, it says that hydrogen peroxide with concentrations above 18% are prohibited - and for good reason, because mixing high concentrations with acetone can create a very easy to build explosive. Hydrogen peroxide to treat wounds is typically at 3% concentration; hydrogen peroxide cleaning products for hospitals are even less, so as far as I can tell there is no valid medical reason to allow higher concentrations of H2O2 into Gaza.

ICG then goes on to quote Amnesty and others claiming that Israel has targeted hospitals in the past, falsehoods that I have debunked many times, one at a time, showing how every one was targeting a valid military target that was using medical facilities as cover. It is also irrelevant to the discussion. In addition, ICG repeats the B'Tselem lie about Israel dismantling a medical clinic in the West Bank without noting COGAT's debunking.

What about the ICG recommendation that Israel allow Gaza Covid-19 patients to be treated in Israeli hospitals? It's own report shows that this can only happen at the expense of Israel treating its own citizens!

Even if Israel opened all its hospitals to Palestinians in Gaza who require hospitalisation without caring for its own citizens, it would be able to accommodate only 5,000 of the most severe cases. As a state comptroller’s report explained, Israel’s own health system is underprepared and overstretched. A former commander of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli army unit that deals with civilian needs in the West Bank and Gaza, said: “Israel cannot be blamed, [as] Israel is suffering already from this virus”.

If Israel would follow the recommendations in the report, it would result in many Israelis dying to save the lives of people who consider Israel their enemy. Why a nation sacrificing its own people to help those who want to destroy it is a moral decision is not explained.

One other issue not mentioned in this report is that Egypt, also on the border with Gaza, is not called upon to open its crossings to help fellow Arabs. Only Israelis are expected to do that.

It is most disappointing that an organization that clearly has access to the facts still says untruths.

No one wants an epidemic in Gaza. Israel is doing everything it can to minimize the chances of that happening without putting its own citizens at further risk. Anyone who says otherwise is not stating facts but parroting propaganda.

I don't know anything about the ICG's politics, and I hope that this poorly written report is more a reflection of unconscious bias than an attempt to smear Israel. We'll know soon enough if they issue corrections.

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Arab writers say that the Protocols proves that Jews are behind the coronavirus

Egyptian Dr. Makram El Nabrawy writes a seemingly reasonable article in Vetogate, where the author cautions against believing Egyptian claims that they have devised a vaccine for the coronavirus. He recalls an embarrassing incident from 2014 when the Egyptian army claimed to have created a device that could cure hepatitis-C and AIDS without touching the patient and warns against a repeat of that stunt.

And then he reveals his crazed antisemitism.

Through my readings of the situation and the realization of what I read in the past about conspiracies that are carried out today in full detail, which were mentioned in the book "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," I support all who work towards overcoming this ordeal, and we call upon God Almighty to lift this scourge from the country and people.

The wonderful thing about the "Protocols" is that they can be used to show that Jews are behind everything!

In another article, in Al Watan Voice, the author looks at the possible sources of the coronavirus. Could it be a natural event? Or perhaps biological warfare that got out too soon?

No, we are told, the only theories that makes sense are the ones where Jews are behind it:

Fourth: The hypothesis that the Corona crisis is related to the Deal of the Century, which was announced by US President Donald Trump in the presence of representatives of the Organization of the Elders of Zion and Zionism in conjunction with the spread of the virus in the Chinese state of Wuhan and the transmission of infection to the rest of the world, and I think that this hypothesis is the strongest and most explanatory of this crisis...

Fifth: The hypothesis that the Corona crisis is a Zionist play directed by Masonry and the representation of the sons of the Elders of Zion and its hero, Netanyahu, the far-right leader, and interior designer Kushner, who completely disappeared from view at this stage, and no appearance or statement has been recorded since the beginning of the crisis. According to this hypothesis the aim of this play is to draw the world's attention away from reality of what is going on in the Middle East and in the Palestinian territories and the endeavors of the Israeli occupation to complete the Zionist project and build the Greater Israel in the Middle East and the control of Zionism over the world as planned and documented in the protocols of the Elders of Zion, where it was indicated in the novel "Stones on the Chessboard".

In fact, every single thing that happens in the world is an attempt by Jews to divert the world's attention from Israel. It's amazing that Israel is ever mentioned in the media. it is all brilliantly diabolical!

Also, while writing this I noticed that an Algerian political thinktank website that calls itself the Algerian Encyclopedia of Political and Strategic Studies includes the Protocols in its list of reference books.

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.

Israel’s Political Zoo (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

The greatest danger to Israel from the coronavirus is not a collapse of the healthcare system and a massive increase in the body count, as happened in Italy.

It’s not impossible, but most groups – with the notable exception of Haredi communities in several locations who might soon find their neighborhoods or whole towns under quarantine – are following social distancing rules, which have proven to be effective. Resources are being pumped into the healthcare system, testing and tracking of patients are being ramped up, and various promising drugs are being tested. It will probably be bad but not apocalyptic, despite statements by some religious figures that the virus is a sign of the imminent arrival of the Mashiach.

I could be wrong. A shortage of doctors and nurses and other health workers is our weak spot. But I think that unless something entirely unforeseen happens, like a war with Iran, chances are that the virus will burn itself out within a few months (though nobody knows how many months).

On the other hand, the economic crisis that may result from the almost total shutdown of the economy for an extended period could trigger a vicious downward spiral, a chain of bankruptcies and layoffs, a classic depression that will take years to come out of.

The government is hoping to avoid this with a massive program of aid to individuals and businesses to get them over the hump. It will provide 80 billion shekels ($22.3 billion), the biggest such package in Israel’s history. As a result, the deficit will increase from 3.5% to 10% of GDP. I believe that whether the program will succeed or not depends on how long the national lockdown continues. When the schools reopen, the economy will come out of its suspended animation. If it’s still alive.

So how is our political class responding to the situation?

Like zoo animals? No, that’s unfair to animals, who after all usually only want basic necessities of life and to be left alone. They are more like really, really, spoiled, greedy, sociopathic, children.

After three elections, it was announced that Netanyahu and Gantz had agreed to form a unity government. But no, it turns out that there are serious difficulties and no solution on the horizon (read this excellent summary of the deadlock by Haviv Rettig Gur). Gantz, as Speaker of the Knesset, can make whatever demands he wishes, since – by procedural maneuvers – he can prevent Netanyahu from doing anything, including forming a government without him, even though Bibi could easily get the 61 votes needed to do so. But with the split-up of Blue and White, Gantz himself has no chance to form a government without Bibi, even with Lieberman and the Arabs. At this writing (Wednesday, 1 PM) neither side has budged. So here we are.

Even if they had succeeded, the cabinet would have been a criminal enterprise. The plans were for a government with as many as 36 ministers! A country the size of Israel does not need 36 ministers, each of whom are paid more than 50,000 shekels ($14,000) a month. It is already outrageous that the 120 regular Knesset members get 45,000 ($12,000) each month, a result of voting themselves raises every couple of years, but when you consider that ministers have well-paid staffs, offices, and so on, the cost is astronomical. Assuming (conservatively) that each minister costs the taxpayers 100,000 shekels a month, if the government were reduced in size to “only” 18 ministers, it would save 21.8 million shekels in a year, more than one fourth the cost of the coronavirus aid program. As MK Gideon Sa’ar pointed out, the time that the Treasury is about to take an 80 billion shekel hit that will be financed by borrowing is no time to create the largest, most expensive government in Israel’s history. Sa’ar himself has declined to take the most recent pay raise.

It’s possible to argue about who is the most responsible for this travesty of “public service.” Gantz whines that he deserves as many ministries as Netanyahu, even though after the split of Blue and White, he brings only 15 mandates to government, while Bibi has at least 58 MKs to reward by doling out portfolios. Maybe the root of the problem is a system by which a MK is given a ministry as a political favor, and not because he or she is the best person to manage a part of government that actually provides services to the public.

The contest between Netanyahu and Gantz is part of a broader struggle between the “nationalists” (represented by Netanyahu), the group that wants Israel to be a Jewish state in a more significant way than just a state with a Jewish majority; and the “social democrats,” the legal and cultural/media/academic establishments that want to model Israel after Western Europe’s secular democracies. This tension has existed since the pre-state period, and I think it is more explanatory today than the traditional right/left distinction. Even after agreement on a unity government, we can expect more ideology-fueled “constitutional crises” as the opposition attempts to pass laws to oust Netanyahu because of his indictments, and the Supreme Court takes up petitions regarding the Nation-State law.

Several times in our history, this basic divergence – more than just a political disagreement – has endangered the state. This is such a historical moment. Here are my suggestions for what our government should do to survive it – if there ever is a government, and if it has a few free weeks between plagues, wars, and elections:

1.      Amend the Basic Laws for the Knesset and the Government to eliminate the system of proportional representation by party, which has led to the present impasse, and replace it with a system in which the citizens vote directly for their representatives, whether by districts or otherwise. Other countries make this work; we can too. It would greatly de-emphasize ideology in our politics, as well as reduce the likelihood of deadlocks like the present one.

2.      Pass a Basic Law for Separation of Powers. It will apportion power to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government, and in particular define the role of the Supreme Court, specifying the areas in which it may and may not intervene, on what basis, and who has standing to petition it. It should provide for checks and balances so no one branch can act tyrannically. It should also split up the functions of the Legal Adviser to the Government, who should not also be in charge of the state prosecutor’s office.

3.      Finally, the method of choosing judges, including Supreme Court justices, should be democratized. The system that allows the Bar Association and the current Supreme Court to dictate appointments must be eliminated.

Israeli politicians need to grow up and begin to accept responsibility for the people who are depending on them. These changes would give them a framework in which to do so.

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04/01 Links Pt2: Even In a Pandemic, Columbia Students Promote BDS; The 5 Books About Israel You Must Read While Stuck Home During COVID

From Ian:

Mosaic: Even In a Pandemic, Columbia Students Promote BDS

Where, finally, is the Jewish community in all of this? In past struggles, the organized American Jewish community was careful always to frame its defense of Jewish rights, and its policy toward anti-Jewish discrimination, in terms of the liberties due to all other Americans similarly under threat. The approach, which had its drawbacks, was logical and justifiable even if not always successful. But whatever its virtues or deficiencies, as a strategy and a policy it is useless in the present situation. No other group at Columbia is under such systematic attack; in this fight, Columbia’s Jewish students are entirely alone.

That the referendum on Israel will likely be taking place online means there will likely also be reduced fanfare surrounding its result. Whatever happens, though, the hardships faced by Columbia’s Jewish students appear destined to endure. Many will continue to opt out of taking classes on the Middle East or in a range of other fields (like anthropology and modern history) because they recognize that, as Ofir Dayan puts it, “as soon as the professor realizes who you are, you are never allowed to talk again.” They will shy away from associating themselves publicly with Israel, be wary in picking their friends, and exercise discretion even among their fraternity brothers and sorority sisters and in their student clubs.

This academic year, for the first time in recent memory, Jewish students at Columbia did not even sing Hatikvah—the emblem of Jewish hope, and the Israeli national anthem—at their annual Simḥat Torah celebration. No doubt, they refrained out of an “abundance of caution,” as we’re all now learning to say.

It is common knowledge that among Columbia’s major donors are many Jews who are likewise heavily involved in the Jewish community. How bad will things have to become for those with power and influence to take action?

Corona Pandemic Souvenirs

Here's the link: Souvenir.pdf

Yes, you can download Our Absolutely Free Paper Table-Top Pandemic Souvenirs. They'll keep you company now, and you'll treasure them for years to come.

PMW: Female terrorists are female role models: A mass murderer, a bomb maker, a plane hijacker - PA message to women on International Women's Day

On International Women’s Day, PA TV paused from its almost continuous reporting on Coronavirus, to present female terrorists as role models for Palestinian women.

Marking the day, official PA TV showed images of several prominent Palestinian women. But besides the worthy writers, politicians and educators, PA TV included several female terrorists and even a mass murderer:

Dalal Mughrabi
Terrorist murderer, who led killing of 37,
among them 12 children Shadia Abu Ghazaleh
Terrorist, bomb maker

Laila Khaled
Plane hijacker Fatima Barnawi -
Terrorist, who placed bomb in theatre

In addition, PA TV chose this day to honor terror mom Um Nasser Abu Hmeid, who is famous and admired for being the mother of 5 terrorist prisoners serving multiple life sentences for murder and one dead terrorist “Martyr.” [Official PA TV, Special Interview, March 8, 2020] Click here to view this video

In another broadcast, PA TV said that Palestinian women “are the prisoners and the Martyrs” and “the praiseworthy rebels who have carried the weapons.” While this was said, the edited broadcast showed visuals of terrorist Israa Ja’abis, who carried out a car bomb attack; terror mom Um Nasser Abu Hmeid; and mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi. A poster of Mughrabi included the text “Heroic Martyr Dalal Mughrabi”:

Official PA TV narrator: “[The Palestinian women] are the prisoners and the Martyrs, daughters of the Martyrs. They are the mothers of the leaders and the sisters of the heroes. They are the praiseworthy rebels who have carried the weapons and created generations of educated people.”
[Official PA TV News, March 8, 2020]

Palestinian Media Watch has exposed numerous times that the PA exploits International Women’s Day to put female terrorists on a pedestal, including suicide bombers and other murderers, and encourage Palestinian women to belike them. Even now, during the Coronavirus crisis, the PA and Fatah continue to promote female terrorists as role models.

Female terrorists are female role models: A mass murderer, a bomb maker, a plane hijacker, PA message to women on International Women's Day

Read more about this: https://t.co/sliIuJx6O1 pic.twitter.com/QbdxPCmsMm
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) April 1, 2020

Life under coronavirus is like life under fire. That means that Israelis are one up on everyone else in coping with this global pandemic. Life under fire is, after all, our normal state of being.

That made it almost anticlimactic when on Friday night, there was a missile attack on Southern Israel. Living through a global pandemic AND a terror attack? It’s like one big Jewish joke.

Now throw in ISOLATION when the entire purpose of the BDS Movement is to isolate Israel. Which means we have actual experience at this thing: in being isolated from the rest of the world. We’ve been isolated by everyone everywhere. At the UN, by politicians like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, by the BBC, in social media, on college campuses and in the ivory towers of academia.

Director of Human Rights Watch Middle East and North African Division and Quincy Institute scholar Sarah Leah Whitson, responds to Jew-hating Jewish Israeli journalist and BDS supporter Mairav Zonszein.

If anyone knows isolation, by God, it’s ISRAEL. You might even say we’re the champs of isolation. Quarantine? Pshaw. Quarantine in a bomb shelter? We’re cool. (Not really. But little tip: that’s the front we put up, and the front actually helps us deal, you know?)

Whelp. What can I say? From my Israeli and (possibly nauseating) perspective, the one thing this global pandemic has going for it is that we are all in this together (cue the orchestra). This is a good feeling because, for a change, we are not the ones! I say this with joy as both a Jew and an Israeli.

But the reverie is broken when we read of the evil ones who blame corona on the Jews, though Jewish communities have taken a huge hit, with many Yidden dying. The feeling of community evaporates when we hear of evangelicals targeting Israeli children with Christian television programming at a time when kids are under lockdown with unlimited screen time.

Israel has only two anti-missionary laws. 1. It is illegal to offer compensation in the form of money or goods in exchange for conversion. 2. It is illegal to convert a minor without the presence or consent of their parent. Missionaries have targeted Israeli children with Shabbat programming for years. With the coronavirus, Israeli children are a captive audience under lockdown 24/7, with unlimited screen time.

And we are forced to observe and acknowledge that some politicians, terrorists, and even plain old garden-variety Jew-haters will always exploit a tragedy to smear Israel and to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories.

I stumbled on this antisemitic, anti-Israel meme while looking for funny memes to cheer up my friends. I reported the post to Facebook, but they say it doesn't violate their Community Standards.

With the immoral things they say and do, these liars and evildoers take themselves out of normal human society. They too, are in isolation, but it is a kind of self-isolation: a choice born of hate to separate themselves from all that is good. The message these people give brings ugliness to our world. This, at a time when it seems like that world might be ending, like we might soon be judged for how we behaved on God’s earth.

I am glad I am not one of them, the people who choose to be bad. If there is happiness to be found in this calamity of epic proportions, it lies in the possibility to ally myself with the others—the good people, Jewish and otherwise—who shop for an elderly neighbor, or reach out with a phone call to those who are alone.

Right now, the good ones are the only ones I care about.

And I’m hoping they're most of the humans in world.

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Mohamed Hadid, the real estate mogul from California whose two daughters Bella and Gigi are supermodels, went to Spain and posted that a mosque there broatcast a call to prayer for the first time in 500 years.

View this post on Instagram

Azan from speakers from an ancient mosque in Spain said to be first time in 500 years. For all of us to heal we might be from different religions but we are all the servants of God the might let’s repent from all the all the misery that we have caused each other around the world God bless us all

A post shared by Mohamedhadid. (@mohamedhadid) on Mar 30, 2020 at 11:21pm PDT

He writes, "For all of us to heal we might be from different religions but we are all the servants of God."

But he is actually an antisemite. He has repeated a number of times a ridiculous story that his mother sheltered a family of Polish Jewish refugees in Safed for two years (because no Jew in Palestine would ever help a Jewish refugee family...) and then that they "kicked us out of our own home." It is all a lie.

What actually happened in Safed in 1948 is that the Arabs planned to murder all the Jews in the city. Benny Morris writes in his book 1948:

One of the stories about how the Arabs fled from Safed was their fear of the Davidka mortar, an ineffective weapon that made a very loud sound. There are a number of differing accounts that all say that the Arabs were afraid that the Jews had the atom bomb because of the great noise it made, and this prompted them to flee. Some say that they knew that some of the atom bomb developers were Jewish and that is what made them make the connection.

But I just read this story, which is plausible and too good not to share:

The battles raged for months, until the spring of 1948, several days before Israel was declared a State. In late April, an artillery piece, nicknamed "The Davidka" was delivered to the Jews. They shot it off several times, but the mortars did little damage.....the main effect was the tremendous noise. However, the weather changed, and, unusually for that time of year, it began to rain. The rumor quickly spread through the Arab community that the Jews had acquired the atom bomb [thinking the rain was nuclear fallout - EoZ], and the entire Arab community left that night. With their exit, morale deteriorated among the Arab troops, and the Haganah was able to secure the city.

Several years later, a local tour guide, curious as to how the rumor of the atom bomb had spread, asked some of Tzfat's old-timers to recount the story. Several of them told him the same story.

Seems that before the Arab riots of 1929, when the Jews and Arabs used to shop together in the common marketplace, the women became friendly, and although they hadn't had contact since the riots, they remembered each other. When the hostilities broke out in the winter of 1948, they got into the habit of coming to the "no-man's land" in the evenings, when there would be a lull in the shooting, and yelling at each other. The Jewish women would yell at the Arab women in Arabic, and the Arab women would yell at the Jewish women in Yiddish.

The evening after the Davidka was shot, one of the Arab women asked "vos is dus?" to which one of the Jewish women, sarcastically, replied "we have the atom bomb". With that, the rumor spread, and what had once seemed to be impossible became a reality - the battle for Tzfat was won.

Safed/Tzfat might have been saved by the Jewish women of the town!

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04/01 Links Pt1: Three more die of coronavirus, bringing Israel’s death toll to 24; PA prioritizes terror payments over welfare as coronavirus curbs budget

From Ian:

Three more die of coronavirus, bringing Israel’s death toll to 24

Three more people died in Israel on Wednesday afternoon, taking the country’s death toll from the coronavirus up to 24.

Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center announced the death of a 69-year-old woman as a result of the virus, saying she suffered from “severe and complicated” underlying health issues.

The Wolfson Medical Center in Holon minutes later announced that a 74-year-old man died from COVID-19. The hospital said he had been sedated and hooked up to a respirator in very serious condition and had numerous preexisting conditions.

The Sheba Medical Center said a 66-year-old woman also died from the coronavirus. She too was said to suffer from preexisting health problems.

There were no immediate details on the identities of any of the victims.

The announcements bring Wednesday’s virus death toll to four and came after the Health Ministry on Wednesday raised the tally of people infected with the coronavirus to 5,591 as Israel recorded its largest single-day jump in new cases.

The ministry data prior to the two latest fatalities showed 233 new cases since Tuesday night and 760 in the last 24 hours. The previous high for a 24-hour period was the 663 new cases recorded between Monday and Tuesday evenings, 527 of which were included in the latest Health Ministry tally.

There were 97 people in serious condition, three more than the previous night, with 76 of them on ventilators.

Another 118 people were in moderate condition and the rest had mild symptoms. So far, 226 Israelis have recovered from the virus.

Inside an Israeli Coronavirus Hospital

This is the eight-step dressing regimen of Adham Abdalrazik, a nurse at the Galilee Medical Center in the northern Israel town of Nahariya, before seeing patients in this COVID-19 era. In a cramped supply room, he grabs a pair of thin shoe covers from a plastic bin and slips them over his feet. At the next bin, he pumps a sanitizer jug and cleans his hands. He continues to his left, progressively donning blue gloves, a blue gown, hair netting, an N95 mask, a face shield, and another pair of gloves.

Abdalrazik normally works in the hospital’s geriatrics department. But these are not normal times, so the geriatric patients were relocated from here to the internal medicine department three weeks earlier and a COVID-19 department was configured in its place. Abdalrazik’s patients now—three patients on this day—are solely those with COVID-19.

It is Wednesday, March 25, and we are in the department’s Yellow Zone. Abdalrazik’s patients are maybe 10 steps away in the hermetically sealed Red Zone. The department has 24 beds and nine rooms, including a six-bed room reserved for critical-care patients, of which there haven’t been any yet. Only five patients have been hospitalized here with COVID-19, all with mild cases of the highly contagious virus. Each patient has been young: a 49-year-old and the rest 23 to 29.

“Oh, Prince Charles now has coronavirus,” said Sharon Mann, who works in the hospital’s international-affairs department, of the news appearing on her smartphone.

A few buildings to the north, in the complex’s rehabilitation center, sits the COVID-19 department’s 30-bed intensive care unit. The unit is empty for now.

This is the calm before what the hospital’s medical officials expect, and what Israeli leaders have cautioned for weeks, will be the storm of this global pandemic.

“We have to prepare ourselves for much more,” said Dr. Masad Barhoum, GMC’s chief executive officer, who stopped in at the department during my visit. “This is just the opening stage.”

Be like #Israel and #StayAtHome! pic.twitter.com/nHF17U95G1
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 31, 2020

Israeli unemployment exceeds one million: 24.4% of workforce

The number of unemployment benefit claimants exceeded one million for the first time on Wednesday, climbing to 24.4% of Israel's entire workforce.

While the unemployment rate stood at just 4% prior to the coronavirus outbreak, over 844,000 individuals applied for unemployment benefits since the start of March. The vast majority - nearly 90% - are employees placed on unpaid leave. A further 6.4% have been made redundant.

"Unfortunately, our forecasts materialized - we reached one million jobseekers in March alone," said Israeli Employment Service director-general Rami Garor. "We are working to create the conditions so that next month can begin with lower unemployment, with the gradual return of the economy to normal, as far as possible and following the guidelines."

A significant increase in new applicants was identified on Tuesday compared to recent days, with nearly 35,700 applications submitted by jobseekers. About 24,000 new applications were received by the Employment Service on Sunday and Monday.

"The big question, both in Israel and in most economies affected by the virus, is whether this extremely exceptional situation is just temporary or could be long-lasting," Prof. Eran Yashiv, an economics professor at Tel Aviv University's Eitan Berglas School of Economics, told The Jerusalem Post.

"There is a real danger that a significant fraction will not be able to resume work when this stoppage ends. Obviously, the longer the containment policies last, the worse the situation will become."

Dr. Leonhart Rauwolf traveled to the Holy Land in 1575. His description of Jaffa is most interesting:

A short Relation of my Travels by Land from the Harbor of← Joppe → , to the City of Jerusalem.
IN the Morning early as soon as the day did appear, which was the 13th day of September 1575, we got on shore, and dispatched immediately some to the Town of Rama, two Leagues distant from thence, to get us a safe Conduct, or Pass, from the Sangiach, and to bring along with them some Mockeri, or Ass-driving Carriers, to provide us Carriage to Jerusalem. In the mean while we stay'd upon the high Rocky shore, where the Town ← Joppe → did stand formerly, which at this time was so Demolish'd, that there was not one House to be found, where the Pilgrims at their arrival could shelter themselves, save only three large Vaults, which went very deep into the Hill, and extended themselves towards the Sea. Into these are sometimes the Pilgrims let in, but being that at that time, a great deal of Corn was laid up there, whereunto they still daily added, on purpose to supply Constantinople during the scarcity, it was forbidden that any Body should be let in.
...
← Joppe → at that time was very well Built and Fortify'd, which doth appear, because a good many of the Jews did, at the time of the Desolation of Jerusalem, retire thither, to defend themselves against the Might of the Romans, although it was but in vain; for being that the time of the punishment, that was to befal them, was at hand, the City therefore was two several times one after another, besieged and taken, and demolish'd, and as Josephus testifieth, about 12600 Jews were killed in it. We also read, That after the time of Gotfrid de Boullion, when the Christians lost again the Land of Promise, that then this Town also was retaken again by the Infidels, and razed to the Foundations; so that now there are no Antiquities at all to be seen. And I should have doubted very much whether there did ever stand such a Town there, had not I seen some large pieces of the Ancient Town Walls still remaining, which are so near to the Sea, that there is hardly room to go at the outside of them.

Rauwolff was not the only traveler to testify that Jaffa was empty.

Jean Cotwyk described Jaffa as a heap of ruins when he visited in 1598. ("Iaffa" is "ruinosum hodie," meaning ruins today.

It seems that Jaffa was not the continually occupied Arab town it has been characterized as.

(h/t American Zionism, a fantastic find!)

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On March 27, The Lancet published a purely political anti-Israel screed, complete with footnotes, pretending to be concern for Palestinian health in Gaza:

Structural violence in the era of a new pandemic: the case of the Gaza Strip
David Mills
Bram Wispelwey
Rania Muhareb
Mads Gilbert
“Hope for improving health and quality of life of Palestinians will exist only once people recognise that the structural and political conditions that they endure…are the key determinants of [Palestinian] population health.”

As the world is consumed by the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it should be of no surprise that epidemics (and indeed, pandemics) are disproportionately violent to populations burdened by poverty, military occupation, discrimination, and institutionalised oppression.2 Structural violence rooted in historical, political, and social injustices determines health patterns and creates vulnerabilities that hamper the effective prevention, detection, and response to communicable disease outbreaks. In the occupied Gaza Strip, the convergence of these forces in the era of a pandemic have the potential to devastate one of the world's most vulnerable populations.

The colonial fragmentation of the Palestinian people and their health systems, combined with a neoliberal development framework implemented during the past decades, has created a profound dependency on aid, placing health care at the mercy of increasingly restrictive international donor politics. Since 2007, Israel has imposed a crippling land, air, and sea blockade over the Gaza Strip's 2 million Palestinians, 1·4 million of whom are refugees,6 subjecting them to extreme crowding in one of the world's most densely populated regions.

As a result, the Gaza Strip faces high levels of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and lacks sufficient clean water, while the blockade disrupts medical supply chains, curtails the movement of patients and health workers, and severely inhibits medical capacity-building and public health development. Preventive measures and containment of COVID-19 will be extremely difficult now that the pandemic has reached the Gaza Strip. While prisoners in Iran and elsewhere are temporarily being released to protect them from contained spread, for Palestinians, living in what is described as the largest open-air prison in the world, there is nowhere to go—unless, of course, they are granted their legal and moral right of return.

Guided by our moral values and professional obligations, the international community must act now to end structural violence by confronting the historical and political forces entrenching a cyclical, violent, and mutable reality for Palestinians. A COVID-19 pandemic that further cripples the Gaza Strip's health-care system should not be viewed as an inevitable biomedical phenomenon experienced equally by the world's population, but as a preventable biosocial injustice rooted in decades of Israeli oppression and international complicity in the struggle for the health, fundamental rights, and self-determination of all Palestinians.

We declare no competing interests.

Among the footnotes is one to the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 where they justify the "legal and moral right of return" - even though the resolution has no legal validity nor does it say there is a right of return nor does it say anything about morality. But, hey, its a footnote, so it must be true!

To give an idea of how much these people care about humanity, Mads Gilbert has explicitly said that he supported the 9/11 attacks on the US (a position he retracted 8 years later only after he was shamed by it:)

In a statement made to Dagbladet in the wake of the September 11 attacks Gilbert stated: "The attack on New York did not come as a surprise with the politics the West has followed the last decades. I am upset by the terrorist attack, but I am at least as upset over the suffering that the US has caused. It is in this context that 5000 dead has to be seen. If the U.S. government has a legitimate right to bomb and kill civilians in Iraq, the oppressed has a moral right to attack the U.S. with the weapons they may create as well. Dead civilians are the same whether they are Americans, Palestinians or Iraqis." When asked if he supported a terrorist attack against the US he answered: "Terror is a poor weapon, but my answer is yes, within the context I have mentioned."

Bram Wispelwey wrote an article for Praxis Center that waxes poetic about the weekly Gaza "Return" protests, claiming that the thousands of people bussed to the Gaza fence by Hamas were acting spontaneously, and in the end he justifies Palestinian - and, in fact, all - terror:

While we tend to automatically justify our own violent American revolution—which, let’s remind ourselves, was about taxation and political representation—we’ve often hypocritically held different standards for those who protest or revolt against deeper historical injustices (e.g. the Haitian Revolution), or who refuse to accept dispossession, displacement, mass incarceration, and other conditions no human beings should be asked to tolerate. Such double standards flood the Western conversation on Palestine, leading to the constant parsing of non-violent vs. violent resistance at the expense of a rigorous conceptual framework that explicates violence through its origin, maintenance, and current power structure.

Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire contends that “never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed…It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the ‘rejects of life.’”

Here Wispelwey is echoing Gilbert in saying that violence is justified because the other side is always more guilty. Whether he realizes it or not, he is supporting 9/11 and ISIS as well, as Paulo Friere's appalling logic works on literally every terrorist act in history.

David Mills had previously written a letter to another medical journal with Gilbert and Wispelwey where they claimed that Israel deliberately targets medical workers during Gaza protests. He went to Ben Gurion University of the Negev but does not mention that in his affiliations for the Lancet letter, perhaps due to embarrassment that his BDS buddies would be unhappy that he collaborated with the hated Zionists.

Rania Muhareb is not a doctor or even a med student. She is an undergraduate student at SciencesPo and works for Al Haq, a BDS-supporting Palestinian NGO with links to the PFLP terror group.

The idea that these career Israel haters have "no competing interests" is only one of many lies.

The good news is that soon after people complained about this letter, The Lancet's editor removed it from the Lancet webpage. Copies still exist elsewhere on the Internet but the Lancet link - here gleefully posted at the PLO webpage - is dead.

Maybe The Lancet actually learned something from its reprehensible behavior in freely allowing anti-Israel lies to be published in the past.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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Here is last night's livestream where I discuss yesterday's article about the UN report on Palestinian gender laws as well as the Palestinian prime minister and court system explicitly saying that their signature on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women is worthless.

I get a little passionate.

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