Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Book review: The Jonathan Sacks Haggada Collected Essays

This year, in response to the pandemic, Koren Publishers offered a free download of their Haggadah with the commentary of the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks.

But they didn't offer the other half of the book, the one that opens from the left-to-right side. I didn't even realize that this haggada had such an extensive set of essays - nearly 190 pages, which is pretty much book-length itself.

I love Sacks' writings and his weekly divrei Torah. He has an astonishing ability to notice things that others have not. His essays on Passover truly shine.

Sack's fluency with a wide range of sources, whether they be ancient or modern, history or poetry, sacred or ordinary, allows him to come up with startling conclusions that strike you with the dual realizations that no one ever seems to have made these points before, and that they seem to be correct. Here is an enthusiastic celebration of the Torah and specifically the Exodus as not only a story but as a work of philosophy, history and morality that pre-dates all others, and that was far ahead of its time and that had unparalleled influence in modern Western civilization.

Just one stunning example. Up until after World War II, the concept that one is obligated to adhere to higher standards, and to disobey if necessary, ones own leaders was hardly considered mainstream. Only after the Holocaust was the defense of "just following orders" no longer considered valid. Everyone is expected to disobey commands, even at the risk of one's life, that violate the higher values of human rights - but that is a relatively new concept.

Or is it? More than three thousand years ago, two women named Shifra and Puah - who according to the literal text seem to have been Egyptian, not Jewish - refused to obey Pharaoh's direct orders to murder all Jewish males upon birth. To them, there was a moral imperative that outweighed the demands of a deity-king.

This was, Rabbi Sacks notes, the first known example of civil disobedience, and one that was thousands of years ahead of modern times and completely alien to all peoples before (Sacks argues that the example in the Greek tragedy of Antigone is in fact not based on a higher moral code but on family loyalty.)

That insight alone would be enough to make a book notable, but these essays are filled with them. Sacks' essay on antisemitism is as good a treatment of the topic as any and better than most. He shows how the Exodus story influenced the founding fathers of the US to build a completely new type of nation, based on a Biblical-style covenant and concepts of inalienable rights that were most definitely not self-evident in 1776, but that were first written in the Torah.

Other essays and insights are equally dazzling, from noticing that the first speech Moses gives to the people on the cusp of freedom is an exhortation to teach their children, to brilliantly pinpointing the exact timeframe of the rabbis' seder in Bnei Brak and the importance of the anecdote to Jewish history.

You do not have to wait until next Pesach to enjoy the insights from Rabbi Sacks.

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

From Ian:

Dr. Miriam Adelson: We shall shake off the dust and arise

It is rare, at times like this, to begin the week – yet another week in the shadow of the coronavirus - on a note of joy and excitement. The crisis persists, and with it, heartrending stories of people lost, as well as of loneliness, of challenges to livelihood and of worries about what yet awaits us.

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

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

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

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

Israel’s first 100 virus deaths: More men than women; nearly 1/4 from Jerusalem

Data released by the Health Ministry showed that a slight majority of Israel’s coronavirus fatalities were men, a statistic that appears in line with a global trend, and the city that saw the highest death rate was Jerusalem.

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

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

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

Israel’s oldest victim was 98 years old and the youngest was 37 years old. The majority of those who died were over the age of 70, according to the figures. Almost all of those who have died from COVID-19 in Israel have suffered from preexisting conditions, according to hospital officials.

UN Watch: Amnesty International official gets Hamas to arrest peace activist

Amnesty International is being asked to fire a Gaza researcher after the New York Times reported that she got Hamas to arrest a Palestinian peace activist for holding a Zoom call with Israeli peace activists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In The Daily Californian, the group "Bears for Palestine" not only support terrorist Rasmea Odeh, but they also explicitly justify all Palestinian terrorism:

Regarding Leila Khaled and Fatima Bernawi, many individuals throughout history have demonstrated strategic means of resisting occupation and have been labeled as “terrorists.” ....And like Mandela, Khaled and Bernawi sought to bring attention to the brutal occupation of Palestinians. As millions of Palestinians have been expelled from their homeland and thousands of Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli occupation, it is only natural that Palestinians would militarize and resist the occupation.

It signals power and privilege to presume that individuals are “terrorists” without first asking what forces them to resort to protests. To individuals who seek to teach us oppressors’ morals, we respectfully say we do not take orders from colonizers. To quote the anti-colonial phenom Frantz Fanon: “When we revolt, it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”

Khaled was the notorious airplane hijacker involved in the 1969 TWA Flight 840 and El Al flight 219 in 1970. Bernawi attempted to bomb a cinema in Jerusalem.

Notice that the justification by the Bears of Palestine for the terror acts of these two women can extend to the most depraved acts of terror imaginable - if Bernawi is justified in her attempt to blow up people watching a movie, then any murderous act against any civilians is justifiable as long as it is called a mere "protest." ISIS beheadings are no different than suicide bombings which are no different than cinema bombings. 9/11 was justified by Osama Bin Laden for the US "occupation" of Arab lands. Every terrorist can justify his or her acts because of "oppression." And certainly all terrorists can claim that they are oppressed by the people they want to blow to smithereens.

If some acts of terror are justified, all acts of terror are justified. The question is why the University of California continues to allow students who have admitted that they consider terror to be justifiable to congregate on campus. After all, this article does not make a distinction between non-violent protests and crashing airplanes into buildings. Perhaps they would consider throwing grenades into the office of the Dean to "bring attention" to the high price of textbooks, that might be considered extremely offensive to those who cannot afford them. I can see nothing in the Bears for Palestine justification of murdering Israeli Jews that does not preclude justifying campus terrorism as well.

Students with such a twisted view of morality are a danger to everyone on campus. And those who read this letter and think there is nothing wrong with the sentiments expressed have already been brainwashed into accepting the Palestinian narrative that all violence is justified.

(h/t Andrew P)

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The PLO's Saeb Erekat has used Easter to send an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, hateful political message under the guise of "love."

Palestine is the land of prophets and saints and Jerusalem represents the heart of all of them. For those marking Easter, it represents a message of hope where life defeats death. This message of hope was spread to the world from Jerusalem. The three monotheistic religions share a message of love, hope, and coexistence. The use of religion, holy books, and religious arguments to justify hatred, violations and war crimes goes against the tradition enshrined in the values of those religions. The Holy Bible, that teaches love, has been used by the Israeli and US officials to justify oppression against the land and the people of Palestine, and ultimately, to advocate the illegal annexation of our country. Those who believe in humanity and particularly those who celebrate the message of love and hope arising from Easter cannot but denounce such acts.

Really? Where was Erekat's denunciation of the statement by Naim Ateek, president of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, when he said in his Easter message - during a wave of deadly terror bombings against Jews in 2001:

As we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine. The number of innocent Palestinians and Israelis that have fallen victim to Israeli state policy is increasing.

Here in Palestine Jesus is again walking the via dolorosa. Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them. ...

In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull.

This is what "the use of religion, holy books, and religious arguments to justify hatred, violations and war crimes" looks like. This is thinly veiled incitement to kill Jews to avenge the death of Jesus. This is pure Christian antisemitism from mainstream Palestinian Christians - and neither Saeb Erekat nor the PLO ever said a word. In fact, only a year after this antisemitic message, a PLO official paid tribute to Sabeel.

And this is just Christian Palestinian antisemitism. Do we even have to discuss the Muslim antisemitism, including from the PLO itself? Of Mahmoud Abbas invoking the libels of Jews poisoning wells?

Or of a Jerusalem cleric saying, a mere two months ago, that "Animosity towards the Jews is an obligatory religious duty, and one of the signs of the believers. Whoever does not show enmity towards the Jews is a total hypocrite"?

Or of Mahmoud Habbash, advisor to Abbas, last year calling Jews in Israel "foreigners who never had any religious or historical connection to this land and who would be told that this was the land of their forefathers"? While Erekat carefully says in English that the land is holy to Jews, the Palestinian Authority's top Sharia judge says the opposite in Arabic. Who is telling the truth? It sure isn't Erekat.

While Abbas walked back his "rabbis poisoning wells" statement when it hit the Western media, none of these were ever denounced or condemned by Saeb Erekat or the PLO. But now they suddenly pretend to care about people using religion to justify violence.

Spare us, Saeb. There is nothing that you don't politicize to incite hate against Israel and Jews, including Easter Sunday itself.

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The New York Times reported:

For five years, a small but feisty group of Palestinian peace activists in the blockaded Gaza Strip has been organizing small-scale video chats with Israelis under a bridge-building initiative it calls “Skype With Your Enemy.”

On Monday, the group, the Gaza Youth Committee, drew one of its biggest crowds yet — more than 200 participants — this time on Zoom, the newly popular teleconferencing platform.

But other Palestinians in Gaza, who took umbrage at the idea of befriending Israelis, were also listening in. And the resulting public uproar prompted Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, to arrest the youth committee’s leader and several other participants.

The charge: “holding a normalization activity” with Israelis, which a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, Iyad Al-Bozom, called a crime, saying it amounted to the “betrayal of our people and their sacrifices.”

...[E]arly Thursday morning, a freelance Gaza journalist, Hind Khoudary, posted angry denunciations on Facebook of Mr. [Rami] Aman and others on the call, tagging three Hamas officials, including Mr. Al-Bozom, to ensure it got their attention.

An arrest warrant was issued by the Hamas military prosecution, which handles accused collaborators with Israel, would-be suicide bombers and other serious security threats, Mr. Al-Bozom said. He did not identify or say how many other youth committee members had also been detained.

Hind Khoudary isn't just a "freelance journalist." She works for Amnesty International.

Yes, a person working for an organization that was founded to fight for the freedom of people imprisoned for free speech demanded that a terror group put people in prison for talking to Israelis.

Here is a post of hers still up on Facebook, autotranslated. where she denounces the "normalization" video, which can be downloaded here.

David Collier found a lot of other pro-terror posts from her, like these:

Even though this article about the Hamas arrests of people wanting to talk about how peace might be possible was prominent in the New York Times, I could not find a single "peace" group a day later that denounced Hamas. Nothing from B'Tselem or Peace Now or Gisha or IfNotNow or J-Street or Jewish Voice for Peace.

The one comment I did see was from Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch. But instead of a full throated denunciation of Hamas for arresting people speaking to Israelis, somehow he found a way to bash Israel, with an implication that is anything but compatible with human rights:

Roth seems to be saying that if Gazans had held a videochat with Israel's Foreign Ministry, then Hamas would be justified in arresting them. There are good Jews and bad Jews, and it is only a crime for Hamas to abduct people from speaking to good Jews.

This one incident shows the abject hypocrisy of the entire so-called "human rights" and "peace" communities. Amnesty hires a worker who explicitly supports terror, "peace groups" are silent when ordinary Gazans are arrested for speaking to Israelis online, and the head of HRW implies that Hamas' actions would be OK if only the Jews were more right wing.

It would be unbelievable if this sort of thing hasn't happened so many times before.

(h/t Petra)

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04/11 Links: Israel’s virus death toll jumps to 101; Passover in Israel Looks Like Yom Kippur; How JFK saved Passover for America's Jews

From Ian:

Israel’s virus death toll jumps to 101, with 10,743 confirmed cases

The Health Ministry announced late Saturday evening that Israel’s death toll from the coronavirus stood at 101, with five more deaths reported between Saturday morning and night.

According to Health Ministry figures late Saturday, Israel has 10,743 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 175 in serious condition and 129 people on ventilators.

Another 154 people were in moderate condition, the ministry said Saturday, with the rest having mild symptoms. Close to 7,000 of those diagnosed with the disease are hospitalized at home.

As of Saturday evening, 1,341 have recovered from the illness.

Israeli health officials are expecting a surge in coronavirus deaths in the next 10 days, according to a Friday report.

The rise in deaths does not signify an increase in infections, however. Patients who are already hospitalized and on respirators are likely to succumb to the virus in the coming days, according to predictive models from the Health Ministry, Channel 13 reported.

Almost all of those who have died from COVID-19 in Israel have been elderly and suffered from preexisting conditions, according to hospital officials. The novel coronavirus has been spreading quickly in nursing homes around the country, raising intense concern for the safety of elderly residents.

29-year-old COVID-19 patient treated with Israel's new ‘passive vaccine’

A 29-year-old haredi (ultra-Orthodox) coronavirus patient who is being treated at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital has improved from serious to serious but stable condition, after receiving multiple doses of plasma over the weekend from a donor who recovered from coronavirus, a spokesperson for the hospital told The Jerusalem Post.

On Friday, “with the assistance of Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman and his assistant, a suitable donor, a resident of Jerusalem, was found,” explained MDA director-general Eli Bin.

MDA brought her in an ambulance to its blood service center before Shabbat. A special team was waiting for her and transferred the plasma units to the laboratories to perform all required tests and prepare them for transfusion.

Then, with the approval of the Health Ministry, the blood units were delivered to Assuta and given to the patient.

The man is among the country’s youngest severe patients. He has several underlying medical conditions, and has been hospitalized at Assuta for around a week-and-a-half.

The first patient who recovered from coronavirus donated plasma on April 1, according to MDA deputy director-general of blood services Prof.
Eilat Shinar. Since then, some six other patients have made donations and, in the last two days, plasma units were provided to three different hospitals.

Netanyahu-Modi Diplomacy: India Ships Hydroxychloroquine to Israel

Lifting a blanket export ban, India has shipped a huge consignment of coronavirus treatment drugs to Israel. New Delhi delivered a five-tonne cargo of medicines including chloroquine, the antiviral drug currently being used in the treatment of Wuhan coronavirus.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, for the move. “Thank you, my dear friend, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, for sending hydroxychloroquine to Israel. All the citizens of Israel thank you!” the Israeli leader tweeted on Friday.

New Delhi had previously banned the export of hydroxychloroquine and other coronavirus-related medicines. India is reportedly the biggest manufacturer of the drug typically used in the treatment of malaria patients.

The Times of Israel news website reported New Delhi’s decision:
A plane from India carrying materials used to make medicines for treating coronavirus patients has arrived in Israel.

The five ton shipment, which the Ynet news site said arrived Tuesday, includes ingredients for the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which are used to treat malaria.

Several countries have been experimenting with hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus symptoms and US President Donald Trump has touted its potential. Experts, however, have urged caution until bigger trials validate hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness, as it and chloroquine can have potentially serious side effects, especially in high doses or administered with other medications.

Chag Sameach!

In every generation we are obligated to look at ourselves as if we have gone from slavery to freedom. This year it is a little easier to imagine having little control over our own lives. And as before, we will emerge free.

I wish all my readers and their families a wonderful Passover, a chag kosher v'sameach, and a very healthy and happy holiday.

(I will not be blogging from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday night.)

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04/08 Links Pt2: Pres. Rivlin: Passover reminds us that the Jewish people are all one family; Melanie Phillips: The story Jews repeat on Passover is the secret of their survival

From Ian:

Rivlin: Passover reminds us that the Jewish people are all one family

President Reuven Rivlin addressed the State of Israel and Jewish communities around the world before the Passover holiday, as many communities prepare to celebrate the holiday in lockdown.

"Dear Israelis, this year we will mark Seder night in difficult circumstances because of the ‘corona plague’, the modern affliction that casts a dark shadow on us all," said Rivlin in a Hebrew video. "Suddenly, we realize how important the simple things that make up our daily lives are to us. Simple things like going outside, and breathing the spring air which is always part of Pesach; like the bustling and hurrying – that are so Israeli – of the preparations for the holiday; and like the gathering of the family, loved and familiar, together around the Pesach table."

"Suddenly, when we are faced with ‘social distancing’, closures and isolation at homes, we feel even more clearly importance of the obligation to ‘tell the story to your children’, of passing on the story from generation to generation, from grandparents to children to grandchildren to great-grandchildren. This is our story, our anchor, what binds us together – even when we need to be apart," added Rivlin.

The president stressed that it is still a holiday and "despite it all" we will get ready for the Passover seder and "tell the story to those who are sitting with us as well as to those who are no less close, but need to celebrate the holiday with us from afar."

"In these days, my dear ones, we are all praying, together or separately, young and old, secular and religious, for the better days ahead. We all ask ‘remember the covenant of our forefathers’. Chag Pesach Sameach, a happy Pesach. To next year, together. Am Yisrael Chai, the Jewish people lives,” concluded the president.

A beautiful and heartfelt #Pesach message from #Israel's @PresidentRuvi to Jewish communities around the world, many of whom will not be able to celebrate the #Passover Seder with their loved ones tonight due to #CoronaVirus. pic.twitter.com/KlDyTtZpOq
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) April 8, 2020

Natan Sharansky: We will join forces and overcome this, together

Israel is a center of Jewish life, and a much safer, better-prepared society to handle world challenges. Now we need to think about how Israel can help the New York Jewish community, which is in a tough situation. In dangerous times, there is no place safer than Israel. In the past, when the plague struck Europe, millions died -- almost a third of Europe's population.

There were Jewish communities that were destroyed because people blamed them for the plague. The world has moved on, but even today there are some who blame the Jews for the current plague, and even say they are making money off it. This is a reminder to us all that prejudice does not die out. We need to be aware of it, and we must not stop our battle against anti-Semitism, whether it is aimed at Israel or at the Jews of the world.

As a former prisoner of Zion, I remember celebrating seder in solitary confinement. There were three slices of bread, three glasses of water, and a little salt. I decided that the warm water was wine, the dry bread was matza, and the salt was the bitter herbs. I tried to remember every sentence in the Haggada, and what I couldn't, I made up. "Next year in Jerusalem" was a very powerful sentence for me. I felt that I was with the rest of the Jewish people, on the right path. Then, Passover was a good opportunity to know just how much we weren't giving in and were continuing our battle.

I believe we will come out of this crisis stronger because we handled it correctly. The government made the right decisions before other countries did. It's important that we come out of this crisis more united, with a unity government.

A happy, healthy Passover to everyone, with much confidence in our role and our path.

Israelis Mark Passover, a Celebration of Freedom, in Virtual Isolation

The Jewish Passover holiday typically draws crowds of Israelis outside to burn heaps of leavened bread, commemorating the Biblical exodus from slavery in Egypt.

But on Wednesday a tightened coronavirus lockdown meant the streets of Jerusalem and other cities were nearly empty on the first day of the week-long holiday, when they would normally be dotted with fires and columns of smoke.

Israel this week imposed special holiday restrictions to try to halt the spread of the disease.

Jews may only celebrate the traditional “Seder” meal that kicks off the April 8-15 holiday season with immediate family.

And travel between cities is banned until Friday, with roadblocks erected at main junctions leading from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

A full curfew was due to take effect on Wednesday at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT), just before the Seder begins, and will last until Thursday morning. This prompted a dash for last-minute shopping, which saw long lines of Israelis wearing face masks outside grocery stores.

Some areas found workarounds to keep festive traditions alive in a month that will also see Christians celebrate Easter and Muslims mark the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

It’s almost Pesach, when the thoughts of Jewish bloggers turn to plagues and freedom. Plagues we certainly have. In addition to the coronavirus, Africa (and possibly the Middle East) is about to experience one of the paradigmatic Biblical plagues, swarming locusts.

We have freedom, too. Leaving aside the corona-related restrictions – which are becoming significantly more severe in Israel around the holiday – Jews in Israel are among the most free peoples in the world. For example, academic freedom is almost unlimited, as illustrated by this article in the wonderful English Edition of Ha’aretz, in which seditious Ben Gurion University professor Neve Gordon argues that the coming impact of coronavirus in Gaza will be Israel’s fault. He’s right that there are few test kits and ventilators there, insufficient hospital beds, and countless other deficiencies that, if the virus spreads widely there, will prove deadly. But of course he’s wrong about whose fault it is.

Recently, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar threatened that if Israel doesn’t give Gaza ventilators, they would take them by force and “stop the breathing of 6 million Israelis (apparently he means only the Jewish ones, since there are 8 million if you count Arabs).”

Gaza certainly doesn’t lack money. Europe, Turkey, and Qatar continue to send aid and invest in projects there. Israeli officials estimate that between 2014 and 2017 Hamas spent about $120 million on tunnels (which have now been neutralized by an even more expensive Israeli project of an anti-tunnel barrier along the border). That’s equivalent to quite a bit of medical equipment. And that’s just tunnels. It doesn’t include the rockets and the villas, malls, and resorts of the Hamas leadership.

Gordon says that Israel has “occupied” Gaza for 40 years, and “continues to control its borders.” His definition of “occupation” is strange, since normally you have to be present somewhere in order to occupy it; but leaving this aside, Israel does not limit the ingress of most medical equipment and supplies to Gaza. It’s true that some electronic equipment is considered “dual use,” (civilian and military) and therefore requires special permission to be imported. But that is a question of extra time, not prohibition. The rules about dual-use items came about from bitter experience, after (for example) chunks of metal pipe imported from Israel returned home in the form of Qassams, and steel rebar ended up reinforcing concrete tunnels.

The biggest hospital in Gaza, al-Shifa Hospital – which boasts a Hamas military command center in its basement – was built by the British in 1946 and was Gaza’s only hospital until after 1948. It was greatly expanded and renovated by Israel during the period 1967-1993. Other hospitals were built with money from various foreign sources (indeed, I haven’t found evidence of any hospitals built by Hamas; if anyone knows of any, please comment).

Gordon refers to the “de-development” of Gaza, a concept attributed to the deranged misozionist Harvard “scholar” Sara Roy. It is certainly true that the conditions of life in Gaza have deteriorated recently – they were much better in the 1967-1993 period than before or after – but the simple and correct explanation that this is due to the diversion of resources away from the welfare of the general population and toward weapons and infrastructure, as well as the enrichment of the Hamas elite, escapes him.

Gordon insists that Arabs in “occupied” Gaza don’t have freedom. But their leaders are doing exactly what they want. Does anyone doubt for a moment that if, through some miracle, they would stop trying to kill us, Israel wouldn’t fall over herself trying to improve the lives of the people there?

Gordon has been fighting against the State of Israel for years while living in it and working at a state-supported university (he is currently on sabbatical in London, but he retains his position in Israel). And we let him do it.

Here are a few short takes on other important freedoms that we have in Israel:

What about freedom of the press? Yes, Israel has military censorship, which sometimes unjustifiably holds up the publication of embarrassing facts. But Israel also has (in Ha’aretz, naturally), Gideon Levy, the anti-Jewish Jewish journalist. Can anybody imagine what would happen to a Russian Gideon Levy? Actually, we don’t need to imagine – the dangers of being a journalist in Russia are well known (to be fair, Russian journalists are as often murdered by local hoods as by the government).

Israel also shines in the area of freedom of religion. The Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, is accessible to Jews through one entrance for limited hours. Jews (and Christians) are not permitted to bring any “religious objects,” and are subject to arrest if they are caught praying, which can include moving one’s lips or even crying (I recommend that you read the link to get the full flavor of the situation). If they are thirsty, they may not drink from the water faucets on site, which are reserved for Muslims to wash themselves.

Muslims, on the other hand, have several entrances available, and unless there is tension related to terrorism, unlimited hours during which they can visit. They can pray, and sometimes Arab kids play soccer there. Freedom.

Now consider freedom to bear arms. That is an interesting one. It is hard for a private citizen to get a pistol permit, and long guns are almost unheard of in civilian hands. But almost every male Jewish Israeli between the ages of 19 and 40 has the right, more correctly the obligation, to take a month out of his life every year and, er, bear arms (when I was here in the 1980s, it was six weeks a year until age 55). And that is in addition to two years of mandatory service, which women also serve.

But what about Arabs? Although Druze and Bedouin citizens serve in the IDF, most Arab citizens are not required to do so. But – here Israel proves to be special again – illegal weapons are rife in Israel’s Arab towns. Even automatic weapons. So they can bear arms whenever they want to, and are not limited to one month a year.

The American Bill of Rights includes the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. And in Israel you have nothing to worry about – unless someone claims you owe them money! If that happens, they have recourse to a system called hotza’a lefoal by which a creditor can lock up a debtor’s bank account, make it impossible for them to leave the country, and charge outrageous fees and interest. But as long as you pay your cellphone bills and don’t have an angry ex-spouse, you have nothing to worry about.

So you see, here in Israel we have so much freedom that we can afford to give it to academics and writers who take the side of our enemies, to Muslims who deny our right to worship at our holy places, to members of the various Arab mafias, and to mobile phone providers.

We have so much freedom, in fact, that we don’t need the more traditional plagues.

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.

Followup on International Crisis Group's error-ridden story blaming Israel for Gaza

Last week, I showed that a report by the International Crisis Group NGO seemed to knowingly misrepresent the facts about medical aid Israel allows into Gaza.

A tweeter, Inquisitive Native, published a thread that exposed far more lies in the report that was retweeted by influential figures.

The report hasn't been corrected, which makes one wonder about the integrity and honesty of the International Crisis Group. It is acting far more like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge any errors let alone correct them, and far less like a truly apolitical independent NGO.

A quick look at its officers shows that there is nothing apolitical about the ICG.

It is headed by Robert Malley, one of Obama's architects of the policy to weaken America's allies and strengthen its enemies. He has a long history of anti-Israel writings, and was the main proponent of the theory rejected by everyone at Camp David and Taba that it was Israel that was at fault for the failed peace negotiations with the Palestinians. He has met with Hamas several times from his earlier tenure at ICG and there are reports that he has met Hamas within recent months. His father was a key figure in Egypt's Communist Party.

And it looks like ICG was co-founded and funded by George Soros, who funds every single anti-Israel organization he can find.

No wonder it is not willing to correct its falsehoods. It never meant to be accurate to begin with.

(h/t David A)

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04/08 Links Pt1: Israeli COVID-19 treatment shows 100% survival rate; 7 more virus deaths bring toll to 72; In New York, the Distance Between Life and Death Grows Shorter

From Ian:

7 more virus deaths bring toll to 72; 10 are from Beersheba elder care facility

Israel reported seven new deaths from the coronavirus Wednesday, bringing the number of fatalities in the country from COVID-19 to 72.

At Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, a 97-year-old man and a 96-year-old man died.

According to Hebrew media reports, the two were residents of the Mishan assisted living facility in the southern city, raising the number of people from there who died of the virus to 10.

Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv announced the death of two men, a 77 and 75-year-old.

Another victim, a 67-year-old woman, had numerous preexisting conditions, according to Rambam Medical Center. Her husband was also sick and hospitalized elsewhere, though it was unclear from reports whether he also was infected with the virus.

The other fatality was a 85-year-old man being treated at HaEmek Medical Center in the northern city of Afula.

The man, who suffered from preexisting diseases, was a resident of the Yokra assisted living facility in the northern town of Yavne’el. He was the third resident of the facility to die, the Ynet news site reported.

The seventh fatality was a 90-year-old woman who died at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

In New York, the Distance Between Life and Death Grows Shorter

For the city’s Jews, community has become a source of both danger and protection. Crown Heights, Williamsburg, and Borough Park are places where everyone knows and sees everyone else. “You can look at it as one big giant family that lost so many members,” Labin says of his neighborhood. For many, daily life is organized around spending time with a group of at least 10 people three times a day. The coronavirus preys on such tightknit places, and yet cohesion is also a line of defense. In Crown Heights, an organization of local Jewish medical professionals set up a help line early in the crisis and has now conducted an extensive survey tracking the virus’ impact among the area’s Chabad Hasidim.

March and April are the giving season in religious communities—charitable fundraising drives are often built around the upcoming Passover holiday. In every neighborhood, there are existing volunteer and charitable organizations, many of which are now under intense strain. The economic crisis means that former donors are now recipients. In a normal year everyone would give something if they could, as Alex Rapaport, director of the Masbia soup kitchen explained. Rapaport mentioned a neighbor of his who installs kitchen equipment for a living and is usually busy in the runup to Passover. The coronavirus has effectively put him out of work. “Last year he gave to the Pesach campaigns. This year he’s on line at the soup kitchens.” Rapaport says that demand for Masbia’s services is at roughly five times its normal levels and that the organization is distributing $100,000 worth of food every day, much of it to people who aren’t Jewish. “We’re actually giving matzo to people in seven different languages. There are lots of immigrants on line from many different countries of the world, and they can have matzo for the first time.”

Masbia will halt distributions over Passover. By then, Rapaport says, “There isn’t going to be a single piece of food in our facility.”

Supply isn’t Rapaport’s biggest problem, though—it’s labor. People are getting sick at a time when additional assistance is required to scale up operations. A shrinking pool of workers and volunteers is an issue throughout Jewish charitable organizations. The need is increasing while capacity rapidly contracts.

“Right now, our volunteers are at a very low number,” says Goldie Deutsch, coordinator for the Satmar Bikur Cholim of Borough Park. In normal times, Bikur Cholim maintains stockpiles of free kosher food and other such supplies in New York-area hospitals. Now that hospitals are closed to visitors, Deutsch and her volunteers have mostly been delivering food to coronavirus patients and their families. They are struggling to keep up. “We get a lot of phone calls for shiva houses,” says Deutsch. “People are sitting shiva and they need food. People are overwhelmed, but we have to use a thousand-times bigger word than overwhelmed ... We feel helpless. And in our organization we were taught from our cradle: Never say no. No matter where we are financially, we can never say no. “

One organization that has seen an especially wrenching jump in need is Links, which assists children in the Orthodox community who have lost a parent. Last week, Sarah Rivkah Kohn, the organization’s Borough Park-based founder and director, explained that 21 new families had approached her group in the previous 10 days, which is the number it would see during a typical four-to-five-month period. Since the crisis began, Kohn has conducted Zoom video sessions with preschool-age kids and received phone calls from children who got her number second- or third-hand.

“This kind of grieving is a very different kind of grieving,” Kohn explained. There’s the enormity of the disaster, suddenness of the disease, and the cruel impossibility of a normal shiva and funeral. “There is a sense that this just spun out of control so quickly, so fast. My father or my mother were just here, and now they're not.” Kohn anticipates that her organization’s budgeting for therapy will have to dramatically increase, although the impact of the crisis is too vast to measure right now. “It’s a very unique and different kind of loss ... It’s just something where we don’t have the answers yet.”

Morocco’s Tiny Jewish Community Hit Hard by Coronavirus, With 11 Dead

Morocco’s tiny Jewish community has taken a major hit from the coronavirus pandemic, with 11 members from the community of less than 2,000 people dying of the disease so far.

Most of Morocco’s once-thriving Jewish population fled the country beginning in 1948, moving largely to Israel and France.

The Israeli news site N12 reported on Wednesday that the latest community member to be taken was Yemin Peretz, 74, who passed away on Tuesday at a hospital in Casablanca, a week after his wife Simone and son Ari died of the virus. Ari’s wife Pascal Peretz is also in serious condition and is on a respirator at a hospital.

The four victims are relatives of Israel’s Labor party leader Amir Peretz.

“The blows fall on us one after the other,” a member of the Casablanca Jewish community said. “Almost every day there is a funeral for someone from the community who died from corona.”

“We have not yet recovered from the death of Ari and Simone, and yesterday the father Yemin also passed away,” he added. “They were the mainstays of the community, contributed greatly and helped a multitude of people. We pray that Pascal will survive.”

“We’re also such a very small community,” he said.

It is believed that the heavy toll is the result of a large Purim party attended by hundreds of people who had also been at a wedding a few days before with a person infected with the coronavirus.

The president of the Jewish community sent a letter to all members telling them not to leave their homes during the Passover holiday.

No, the US Defense Department did NOT procure a million face masks for Israel. The @JPost screwed up a translation.

The Jerusalem Post reported early this morning this headline:

A plane carrying over a million surgical masks for the IDF landed in Ben-Gurion airport Tuesday night, in an operation run by the US Department of Defense's Delegation of Procurement.

Predictably, and understandably, the anti-Israel crowd went crazy over the idea that the US was giving much-needed protection equipment to Israel rather than to local hospitals that desperately need them.

A few hours later, without explanation, the Jerusalem Post changed the story:

A plane carrying over a million surgical masks for the IDF landed in Ben-Gurion Airport Tuesday night, in an operation aimed to protect soldiers on the frontlines of preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

What happened? Did the censor pull the story?

No. The Jerusalem Post screwed up royally. They mistranslated, or used Google Translate, a story in Hebrew - possibly this one - where the phrase "In a procurement initiative of the Ministry of Defence’s procurement mission in the United States" was turned into "US Department of Defense's Delegation of Procurement." ..."בפעילות משלחת הרכש של משרד הביטחון בארה"ב"

The haters, being who they are, will never admit that they widely pushed a false story.

But newspapers like The Jerusalem Post need to be more cognizant of how a mistake on their side can prompt a wave of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment, with hundreds of retweets from people who want to incite against the Jewish state.

(h/t TT)

UPDATE:

JVP @jvplive acknowledged the mistranslation - but says that Israel buying masks, with its OWN money, for its OWN first responders, is "morally wrong."

Let the Jews die.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the "morality" of the anti-Israel mamzerim. pic.twitter.com/Kj0dKOevTl
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) April 8, 2020

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Iranian opposition estimates nearly 20,000 COVID-19 deaths in Iran so far

There have been stories about Iran vastly under-reporting the number of coronavirus illnesses and deaths since the beginning of the breakout there. Now opposition officials have announced that the actual number of deaths from coronavirus in Iran is approaching 20,000, much higher than the official toll of 3,872.

Even worse, Iran is planning to bring people back to work and even restart sporting events in the next two weeks, despite evidence that the worst is not over yet.

In recent days, at least one Iranian official has come forward to disclose publicly just how inaccurate the Islamic Republic’s statistics truly are. In a recent interview with the official IRNA news agency, Hamid Souri, a member of Iran’s official National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce, laid out that the latest estimates suggest some 500,000 Iranians may actually be suffering from the disease, and that new outbreaks are expected in hotspot regions like Tehran, Khorasan Razavi, West Azarbaijan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, and Semnan. "The coronavirus curve has not flattened in any of the country's 31 provinces," Souri concluded.

As with every other autocratic regime from Russia to China to Syria, one cannot believe their coronavirus figures. And organizations and governments believing those figures can endanger everyone, by allowing trade and interactions that they might otherwise avoid. One can imagine, for example, Iran or China pushing to ramp up trade with Africa now, and Africa has been comparatively spared the worst of COVID-19 with fewer deaths there than in just Louisiana. A single visitor in either direction could potentially begin infecting thousands.

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Hamas counts many more terror attacks in March than the Shin Bet does

The coronavirus has helped decrease the number of terror attacks in Israel significantly. Here is the Shin Bet's summary for March, where the number of attacks plummeted to 89 from February's 332:

But Hamas claims that by its count, there were 522 attacks in March in the West Bank alone!

Resistance operations continued in the occupied West Bank during the month of March, and these operations varied between shooting, armed clashes, attempted stabbing, detonating explosive devices, and throwing Molotov cocktails against the enemy army and usurpers.

A periodic report issued by the media department of Hamas in the occupied West Bank monitored the continuation of the resistance operations in the month of March 2020, when the West Bank witnessed 522 resistance actions, including 30 major operations, which resulted in the injury of 10 Zionists from usurpers and enemy army soldiers, The highest was in Jerusalem, where 5 Zionists were injured.

Shin Bet counts five injuries - four slight and one moderate.

Here is a rare case where Israel's enemies from the Left would not adopt Hamas' statistics over Israel's, because they want Palestinians to appear nonviolent. This argument loses its power when Hamas itself is bragging about attacks and wants to make itself look better politically - and attacks on Jews fill the bill.

But Israel's enemies still figure out a way to spin their own terror attacks - because Israel has the audacity to arrest them:

No idea if the number is even remotely true, as the source is "local humam (sic) rights associations."

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04/07 Links Pt2: Jews have always been blamed for plagues - coronavirus is no different; ‘The Guardian’ calls Trump a Nazi and Jews his enablers; Latma 2020 Eps 3

From Ian:

Jews have always been blamed for plagues - coronavirus is no different

This is why the attacks that come from both left and right, and from both Islamists and fascists (though the latter are in fact easy bedfellows in their toxicity and extremity) are so identical in form and tone. As I wrote in The Spectator last month, coronavirus is a boon to the propagandist because of its immense malleability. Because it’s invisible, it can take on the face of any enemy your narrative – be it left, right, Jihadist or fascist – needs. You can project onto it what you will. And people do and are, in their droves.

Still, we must remember that this is not the Middle Ages. Jews are being blamed (by some) for the virus, they are not being hurt or killed en masse for it. When China’s perceived responsibility for coronavirus means Asian Americans are being assaulted on a daily basis, a sense of moral perspective is required.

What the contemporary moment does show is that while hatreds often evolve or at least mutate, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they just metastasize. The Jews no longer poison wells to spread the plague; they engineer it in biolabs. The Devil doesn’t give them immunity from it, Mossad does.

It is easy to dismiss all this as nonsense. I would suggest that this is an error. Coronavirus has shrunk the world’s attention to a degree previously unseen in our lifetimes. People are looking for answers – and once again, scapegoats. This will continue long after we come out of isolation and even after a vaccine is found (should those dates be different). Narratives of Jewish or Zionist culpability now threaten in ways they previously did not. Across the Middle East and in pockets of the West these ideas are the epistemological backdrop to everyday life: their hatred is leavened by their banality. If these societies suffer mass deaths the hatred will remain, the banality will not.

Almost three years ago a man shot up a DC Pizzeria because he believed online reports that Hillary Clinton was operating a paedophile ring out of it. It was the perfect embrace of the sinister and the absurd. Now false reports rise once more. The time of coronavirus is a time of fear and paranoia. If the death count rises it is just a matter of time before acts of violence against Jews rise along with it. And as the cliché goes, what starts with Jews never ends with Jews. The world must resist this poison, and resist it now, for all our sakes.

Anti-Semitism rages during coronavirus

Faceless anti-Semitic vandalism has been unimpeded by requests that people remain at home to contain COVID-19’s spread. On March 28, just days after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan closed all nonessential businesses and “urged Marylanders to…stay home,” an unknown man ventured out at around 1:30 a.m. to deface the Rockville, Maryland, Tikvat Israel Congregation synagogue with swastikas and other hateful graffiti. Anti-Semitic and racist graffiti was also discovered in two locations in Bedford, Massachusetts, on Saturday. Massachusetts residents were asked to “do their part … and stay home” starting March 24.

With the recent global rise in anti-Semitism, it should come as no surprise that coronavirus-related anti-Semitism has not been confined to the U.S., but is found across the world and throughout the political spectrum. The Anti-Defamation League reports specific incidents of COVID-19-linked anti-Semitism emanating from far-right groups in France and Switzerland, government-sponsored sources in Iran and Turkey, and far-left groups in Spain and Venezuela.

Jews control the banks.
Jews control the media.
Jews control the weather.
And NOW Jews control viruses.

When do we have time to sleep?? 😂 pic.twitter.com/EMLFZITaGG
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) March 18, 2020

A reminder of the anti-Semitic tragedies that united Americans in December 2019 briefly pierced the coronavirus news cycle last week. On March 29, 72-year-old Josef Neumann died from the serious brain injuries he sustained on December 28, when anti-Semitic attacker Grafton Thomas used an 18-inch machete to attack Jews gathered for Hanukkah at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, New York.

A week after Neumann was attacked, his youngest daughter opined that his family “hope[s] he wakes to a changed world with peace, unity, and love for all.”

Though the momentum of the fight against anti-Semitism has flagged since the start of 2020, the hatred itself continues, fueled by the contortions of those whose impassioned hatred of Jews and the Jewish state of Israel knows no bounds. In honor of Neumann’s untimely passing, and in pursuit of a “changed world,” people of all backgrounds must reinvigorate their important battle against a dangerous and pervasive prejudice. (h/t Zvi)

Commentary Magazine Podcast: The Pandemic in Israel

American-Israeli journalist Ruthie Blum joins the podcast to discuss how the Coronavirus pandemic has reshaped Israeli society and politics.

Latma 2020, Corona Days, Episode 3

Our health correspondent explains the statistics on the statistics, Gantz’s voice changes and our favorite, Tawil Fadiha, in his first interview this season