World Health Organization lies about Israel on coronavirus and other health issues
Trump recently suspended U.S. funding of the WHO. America is by far the largest donor to the agency and was scheduled to give it $894 million during the current two-year funding period.NGO Monitor: BDS Group Makes a Mockery of Global Pandemic
The president said Thursday that “the World Health Organization should be ashamed of themselves because they’re like the public relations agency for China.” He could have also added that the WHO has operated like a PR and propaganda agency for the enemies of Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East.
A year ago, WHO member countries voted 96 to 11 – with the U.S. in opposition – for an annual resolution blaming Israel for “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syria Golan.”
While one might expect the WHO to be apolitical, it – like nearly every other U.N.-associated organ – is used by Israel’s enemies as a platform for viciously attacking the Jewish state. What may be even more disturbing is that democracies that should know better – including France, Belgium and Sweden – joined in the unjustified condemnation of Israel.
As U.N. Watch noted, out of 21 items on the WHO agenda, the only one focused on a specific country applied to Israel. This targeting of Israel has been going on since at least 2000.
U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer noted that “anyone who has ever walked into an Israeli hospital or clinic knows that they are providing world-class health care to thousands of Palestinian Arabs.”
It will not be surprising if this year the WHO adopts the usual Israel-bashing resolution and falsely accuses Israel of preventing Palestinians from getting treatment for COVID-19 – the disease caused by the coronavirus.
In fact, Israel is doing a great deal to help the Palestinians contain the coronavirus outbreak that first apparently arrived in the West Bank in Bethlehem.
On April 20, 2020, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) published a “fact sheet” titled “Coronavirus under Israeli Apartheid.” The document promotes numerous allegations originating with Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which, since their original publication, have been removed, have been proven false, or are simply outdated. This failure to utilize factual and accurate information and make reasonable policy recommendations demonstrates that the purpose of this document is to demonize Israel and not to advocate for Palestinian health.Corona doesn't stop the NIF from trying to harm Israel
A core component of the “fact sheet” is the intersectional claim that Israeli policies “embody” something called “#CoronaRacism,” drawing false parallels between Palestinians and minority communities in the US and the UK. BNC also negates the responsibility of Palestinian actors for healthcare and ignores the diversion of resources by Hamas and other actors to weapons, tunnels, and terror, instead of public infrastructure in Gaza.
Distortions in the document include:
“Epidemics … are disproportionately violent to populations burdened by poverty, military occupation, discrimination and institutionalised oppression.” — Letter in The Lancet, March 26, 2020: The document opens by quoting a letter to The Lancet, which was, in fact, removed by the journal shortly after its publication. The letter was written by a group of anti-Israel activists, including repeat offender Mads Gilbert, and attacked “Israeli oppression and international complicity.” Ironically, the since-removed letter calls for Palestinians to “return” to Israel precisely when Israel was suffering from a much higher rate of infection than Gaza. The authors shamefully declare “no competing interests,” hiding their years of virulent anti-Israel advocacy behind a pledge of scientific objectivity.
Palestinian communities in Israel are “likely to become epicenters of the coronavirus outbreak” due to deficiencies in testing, information and health services: BNC links to an opinion article published on March 31, which provides no citations to back up its allegations, and is in any case, outdated. Reality over the ensuing month showed the prediction to be false: Jewish communities, in particular Ultra-Orthodox areas, were the epicenters in Israel, whereas Arab communities were relatively unaffected. Indeed, Haaretz now features an “update” in the article, linking to an April 2 piece titled “Israel ramps up coronavirus testing in Arab cities where infection rate relatively low.”
People of Israel, fear not – while the world, including Israel, deals with corona virus, record level unemployment and what the “new normal” looks like, the radical, extremist New Israel Fund and their grantees continue to apply pressure on the Jewish State.Surviving COVID-19: Special Interview with Eli Beer of United Hatzalah
The goal of the New Israel Fund – an organization which continues to openly advocate a boycott of the Jewish State – is to create a “New” Israel, this, despite the fact that Israel is only a 72 year old country.
Take Hamoked, an organization which since 2008 has received upwards of $720,000 from The New Israel Fund, and claims to work “for the enforcement of standards and values of international human rights and humanitarian law,” and to date has focused on defending the families of terrorists. Just this month, Hamoked sent an urgent letter to demand the authorities "stop preventing Palestinian Arabs undergoing family unification procedures who live in Jerusalem.”
Do you get it? While all those who live in Israel were restricted for health reasons to not exceed 100 and then 500 meters from their home, Hamoked – in defiance of global distancing procedures – advocated for Palestinian Arabs to be able to move “freely and without delay.” And in Jerusalem, which has one of the highest ""rates of infection in the country.
Then, a group of New Israel Fund grantees led by Hamoked petitioned the High Court of Justice “… to demand that inmates classified as security inmates, and particularly those among them who are minors, be allowed to maintain family contact with their families at this time via the telephone.” In its April 1 response to the petition, the state announced its decision to allow “juvenile security prisoners and detainees who are not held in Damun prison [where a telephone-contact pilot test is being run] to have one telephone call with a first degree relative during the next two weeks…”.
Is that what American Jewish supporters of the New Israel Fund want from the State of Israel, for Palestinian Arabs (or anyone?) to move freely while corona is endangering the world?
In the first episode of Together with Rabbi Yonah we speak with the incredible and inspiring Eli Beer about his experience surviving COVID19. Eli is the President of United Hatzalah in Israel, the volunteer paramedic organization.
In this video you will hear his incredible saga of how a person dedicated to saving lives was himself saved miraculously by doctors in Miami.
This moving and powerful story of survival and his message are potent medicine during this difficult time. Eli heard the doctors in the ICU unit deciding his fate. Then he prayed to God for healing.
Eli also shares a heartwarming story about a Hatzalah volunteer helping a Holocaust survivor and much more.
Simply put, Eli’s amazing recovery is teaches us that when God hasn’t decided on bringing someone back home, that our actions, prayers and good deeds can and do make a difference.