Vaccine Success in a Small Country

Video Of The Week - Israel Wins Worldwide Praise for Vaccination Program - https://tinyurl.com/y44fp3ls

Anshel Pfeffer, 03- 1- 2021, The Sunday Times https://tinyurl.com/y5dsjqho

The almost deserted street outside the Misgav Ladach hospital in western Jerusalem belies the intense operation going on inside.

 Every other minute, an elderly person or couple, quietly walk in, swipe their electronic card and take a seat in a corridor on the ground floor. A supervisor checks them off on a clipboard and, within minutes, they are sitting in one of the six curtained booths, baring their arms for the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. 

Within minutes they are out, with an appointment, three weeks hence, for their second jab.

“I was a bit sceptical at first about being vaccinated,” says Kenneth Cohen, a retired rabbi from Jerusalem. “Two of my daughters said that there may be side-effects. But my brother had his vaccine last week and felt fine, so I guessed that since we both have the same DNA, I’d be fine. I didn’t even need an appointment.”

As the sun set on Friday afternoon and the Jewish Shabbat began, more than a million Israelis had received their first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine, in a drive that began less than two weeks earlier. That is more than 11% of Israel’s population of nine million, the highest proportion of any country yet to be vaccinated. In Britain, which was the first to begin vaccinations, only 1.5% have received their first jab.

The atmosphere now in vaccine centres across Israel is businesslike. But in the earlier days, there were ecstatic scenes. Most of those receiving vaccines so far are over 60 and have been sheltering at home for long, lonely months.

“At first, many people coming in were so moved at the thought that they could soon be with their families that we had incredible scenes,” says Yael Nitzan, normally manager of the hospital’s sleep lab but now supervisor of the vaccination centre. “Some of the old people started singing. One 80-year-old woman wanted me to dance with her.”

One million Israelis vaccinated in world-leading drive

One of the nurses, Manal Abu-Rhami, said: “I’ve had patients asking me if they could give me a hug. I had to tell them that it will take time for the vaccine to take effect and that they still have to be careful and avoid contact with others for a while yet.”

 Every two hours, a refrigerated van parks outside and a courier arrives with a blue padded carrier. Inside is a flat cardboard container. Within are further layers of padding and a small tray of glass vials with purple tops, containing the vaccine. They are placed in a fridge.

 The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is stored at deep sub-zero temperatures and once a tray has been removed from storage, the doses need to be used within a few hours.

 While Israel has prioritised those over 60 for the first phase, often, towards the end of the day, vaccine centres will have dozens, even hundreds, of doses still in hand. As word quickly gets around on social media, younger Israelis gather in the hope of getting an early jab.

 How has Israel, which does not manufacture the vaccine and has so far flown them in from Pfizer’s manufacturing hub in Belgium, become the world leader in vaccination?

 Israel is a relatively small country, with strong, centralised hubs that allow quick transport from the main store, near Ben Gurion airport in the centre of the country. The Israeli army has also provided refrigerated lorries.

 Then there are the health maintenance organisations (HMOs). Israelis enjoy free healthcare but, unlike in Britain where there is one HMO, the National Health Service, Israel has four public HMOs that compete for members and government funding.

 “The internal competition gives Israel a dramatic advantage now,” says Eyal Gabai, chairman of the Meuhedet HMO. “Since our budgets are determined by our ability to attract new members and keep those we already have, each HMO is constantly looking at what the others are doing, copying each other and looking for better ways to make services more accessible. That’s why every Israeli now has complete online access to all their medical files and can book video consultations with their doctors. And we all have nationwide networks of clinics, so every Israeli lives very near one.

 “The moment the vaccines arrived in the country, each HMO has been working to be the one who can get as many of its members vaccinated, as quickly and easily as possible.”

 The success of the vaccine drive is in stark contrast to other aspects of Israel’s handling of the pandemic. The country is in the midst of its third nationwide lockdown, due to spiraling rates of infection and hospitalisations — though across the country, many citizens seem to be ignoring the lockdown and travelling and socialising nearly as normal.

 Israel is now expected to have a surplus of vaccine doses, due to the orders it has placed with multiple manufacturers. At some point, public health experts believe, it will supply some of these to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, which has yet to begin vaccinating Palestinian citizens.

 There is also a political angle to the vaccination drive. Israel originally signed on with the two other large pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines — Moderna and AstraZeneca. But when it turned out that Pfizer would be the first to have a tested vaccine on the market, the government entered negotiations with Pfizer, agreeing to pay a much higher price to ensure early shipments of four million doses.

 Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, was involved in the negotiations, speaking on the phone with Pfizer’s chief executive, Albert Bourla, and directing the Treasury to pay a premium. Netanyahu was at the airport to greet the first shipment. The next day he became the first Israeli to receive the vaccine. Since then he has visited a vaccination centre nearly every day, always accompanied by television crews.

 Israel is heading for another parliamentary election, its fourth in under two years, and Netanyahu’s ruling party, Likud, whose government has so far been blamed for haphazard handling of the pandemic, has been trailing in the polls. His campaign is based on portraying him as the man who saved Israel from Covid-19, by vaccinating its people before any other nation. And if the current rates hold up, a majority of Israelis will have received their vaccines just in time for election day on March 23.

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It is the Season to Nail Israel

 Video Of The Week - Christian. Israeli. IDF Officer -https://tinyurl.com/yale4cl

By David m. Weinberg   December 24, 2020

For the full article go to Israel Hayom: https://tinyurl.com/y7nyelwm

 ‘Intersectionality” is the idea that race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap, and that all injustices are interconnected.

 Intersectionality has risen to smash Israel for Christmas. Two weeks ago, the “Irish Unity Movement” tweeted, “If Mary and Joseph set off to Bethlehem today, they’d cross 15 Israeli checkpoints and a 30-foot wall,” setting-off a Twitter-storm.

 One diplomatic correspondent responded that Mary and Joseph were Jews (!), who today would have been barred from visiting Bethlehem by Palestinian police. Others responded bluntly that “If Mary and Joseph somehow made it to Bethlehem they probably would be raped and lynched by a Palestinian mob.” Others noted correctly that the Christian population in Bethlehem has dropped drastically since the PLO took over.

 Intersectionality aside, the Western media annually devotes considerable Christmas ink, and many Christian NGOs dedicate their Christmas appeals, to purveying the false impression that Christians are under assault by Israelis. And worse still, that Jews are crucifying Christians smack in the heart of Bethlehem.

 THESE SCREEDS demonize Israel and seek to cover up the real reason for Christian decline in Bethlehem: the Palestinian Authority and radical Islam.

 It started with Yasser Arafat. Arriving from Tunis, Arafat immediately set out to suppress the Palestinian middle class across the West Bank, which he understood could be the only real opposition to his planned dictatorial authority. He nationalized most business sectors and squeezed Palestinian small businessmen out of business. Especially hard hit were middle-class businessmen of Bethlehem, mainly Christian.

 Arafat then sidelined the long-time Christian mayor of Bethlehem, Elias Freij, and Arafat’s henchmen led a campaign of terrorism and intimidation against Christian institutions and families in the city. Land theft, beatings and harassment of Christians in Bethlehem by PA security services and other gangs became routine. Forced marriages between Christian women and Muslim men were reported. In 2002,

 The result was an inexorable and ongoing Christian exodus from Bethlehem; a city captured by the PA and taken over by a very intolerant strain of Islam.

 Nevertheless, PA President Mahmoud Abbas annually releases a malevolent Christmas message in which he cynically calls Jesus Christ a “Palestinian messenger,” and goes on to blast Israel for denying “millions” of Christians their “right to worship in their homeland.”

 This is an ugly attempt to apply “replacement theology” (in which Christians are said to have superseded the Jews in a covenant with God) to the Palestinian assault on Israel. In Abbas’s reversed and warped world, the Jewish-Christian Jesus has been replaced by a Palestinian Christ, and Christianity is under attack by the Jews, not the Arabs and Muslims. Not only is this untrue, but it ignores the radical Islamic assault on Christians across the Middle East, often with government encouragement and support.

 In Gaza, Islamic terrorists have bombed churches, killed prominent Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox), and forced others to convert to Islam. In the West Bank, Arab Christians are better off than almost anywhere in the region, but only an estimated 50,000 live there – about 2% of the population, down from 10% in 1920.

 Overall, Christians now make up only 4% of the population of the Middle East, down from 20% a century ago.

 It should be the season for a rigorous world defense campaign on behalf of beleaguered Christians in the Middle East. Instead,‘tis the season to nail Israel.

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Morocco First Arab Nation to teach Jewish History and Culture

Video Of The Week -Cave For Holocaust Survivors- https://tinyurl.com/y9c9dep6

 From Israel Hayom by Dan Lavie - https://tinyurl.com/y6b4xaeb

 Trailblazing change, Morocco on Sunday announced that its schools will soon begin teaching Jewish history and culture as part of the official curriculum—a first in the region and in the North African country, where Islam is the state religion.

It follows King Mohammed VI of Morocco’s decision to normalize relations with the Jewish state in yet another historic peace deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and announced last week.

The move has had “the impact of a tsunami,” Serge Berdugo, secretary-general of the Casablanca-based Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco, told the French news agency AFP.

The decision concerning the curriculum was reportedly made discretely, even before Rabat and Jerusalem formerly normalized relations. According to AFP, the decision was made as part of an ongoing revamp of the educational curriculum in Morocco, which began in 2014.

The move aims to “highlight Morocco’s diverse identity,” according to Fouad Chafiqi, head of academic programs at Rabat’s Education Ministry.

AFP further cited two U.S.-based Jewish associations—the American Sephardi Federation and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations—as saying that they had “worked closely with the Kingdom of Morocco and the Moroccan Jewish community” on the “groundbreaking” academic reform.

“Ensuring Moroccan students learn about the totality of their proud history of tolerance, including Morocco’s philo-Semitism, is an inoculation against extremism,” leaders of the two organizations said in a statement published on Twitter.

As part of the plan, two new books will be introduced into the curriculum. They include a description of the life and heritage of Moroccan Jews under Sultan Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib, a descendant of the Alawite dynasty that rules the country to this day.

The books, intended for fourth and sixth grades, include historical accounts dating from the 17th century to the present day.

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Will UAE be safer for Jews than most of Europe?

Video Of The Week - 500 Ethiopian Jews Airlifted to Israel - https://tinyurl.com/yc2sx752

For the full article By SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPost, 13-12-2020, go to https://tinyurl.com/ycs96vbn

Hanukkah celebrations in Dubai last week and the national efforts to support tolerance and coexistence in the United Arab Emirates have created a reality in which Jews are more welcomed and safe in the UAE than in Europe.  Many friends and contacts I have spoken to say they were surprised by the feeling walking around the Emirates’ most populous city over the last week wearing a kippah, something they would be hesitant to do in many places in Europe.

This is a testament to the reality of most Western democracies: It’s dangerous to be a Jew in Europe. Jewish schools are attacked and Jews with a kippah are assaulted. It happens almost every day throughout Western Europe and the US, where in some places half of all religious hate crimes target Jews.

Today, Jews are safer in the UAE than in most European countries and most American states. We measure antisemitism in most Western countries by how many thousands of attacks there are – that’s the reality. In most European countries, intolerance towards Jews is widespread, and growing.

This is evident on any visit to a synagogue or Jewish school in European countries. I have been to most of these countries over the last twenty years. I’ll never forget going to a kosher coffee shop near Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin. It was near the beautiful New Synagogue in that part of the German capital, a shul burned down during the Nazi era. Outside the coffee shop there were two policemen to guard against attacks. There were no people inside having coffee.

To be a Jew in Berlin, I wondered at the time, meant that if I go to a kosher coffee shop, there will have to be police guarding it. This is not “protection” but rather an illustration of the levels of hate directed at Jews.  But this isn’t security. People shouldn’t have to pray behind armies of police and soldiers with assault rifles. When we talk about a decline or increase in antisemitic attacks in Europe, we count them in the thousands. In 2018, for instance, there were 1,652 antisemitic incidents in the UK.

A person has to think twice before wearing a kippah in most countries in Europe – it’s risky. One could be spat on, shouted at, randomly attacked or even murdered.

NOW, a new embrace of Jews appears to be happening in the Gulf. These words of tolerance are not just about words, but appear to be about making Jews feel part of the fabric of places like Dubai, where people from 200 nationalities live. This means Jews can become a fabric of these societies, so that a man with a kippah is as normal as anyone wearing any other type of outfit. That is the way it should be.

It should be normal to be Jewish, to celebrate Hanukkah, to wear a kippah if one wants, to do Jewish things and buy kosher food if one keeps kosher. It should be as normal as to be Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist. Yet, a Buddhist and people of other faiths can go to prayers in Germany or France or the UK and not worry that they and their children will be beheaded and murdered by extremists. Their graves will not be vandalized.

IT’S POSSIBLE to have zero levels of anti-Jewish attacks. But it’s difficult when members of some European political parties, such as the Labour Party in the UK, are found to be members of secret social media online groups that openly deny and mock the Holocaust. That’s the reality.  When educated people in the leading political parties are “liking” and tolerating posts on Facebook claiming the Holocaust didn’t happen, or claiming Jews “exploit it,” then you have a problem. You can’t have tolerance when some of the people who are supposed to be progressive and in charge of tolerance in places like the UK deride and dislike Jews and tolerate Holocaust denial.

It’s not clear if the new messages from the UAE, Bahrain and other states that are pushing tolerance and coexistence will lead to a new era in the Middle East, but today I’d feel safer in the UAE with a kippah than in most countries in Europe. That says a lot about the disastrous failure of wealthy Western countries to create a society of tolerance towards an ancient minority.

 

ISIS Creeps Further Into Sinai

Video Of The Week - Christians Bring Golden Menorah From Rome To Jerusalem- https://tinyurl.com/y6dr3qhs

  Islamic terrorists may be preparing to renew attacks against Israelis, expected to flock to Sinai vacations once the pandemic ends.

By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel- https://tinyurl.com/y6bavytw  

Israel’s Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) is warning that Islamic terrorists in the Sinai desert appear to be gearing up to renew their deadly attacks against Israeli targets.

In a report on the state of Islamic terror in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel’s western border, the INSS says the ISIS affiliate in Egypt is transitioning from defense to offense, having stopped their border attacks against Israel in 2012.

In 2011 and 2012 terrorists in the Sinai staged several attacks on the Israeli border, killing at least nine Israeli civilians and soldiers, several Egyptian soldiers, and wounding dozens of others. Following those incidents they fired rocket into Israel on two occasions in 2015 and 2017 that caused little damage and no direct injuries.

INSS researchers are concerned that once the coronavirus pandemic in Israel ends with the use of new vaccines, tens of thousands of Israelis may stream back to resorts in the Sinai, a popular destination for Israeli tourists – but turning themselves into potential targets for Islamic terrorists who are still lodged in the Sinai and have struck before.

“Once the Taba crossing [from Eilat to Egypt] reopens, Israelis who flock to the Sinai Peninsula may find themselves targets, and Israel must prepare for this possibility – now more than ever,” researchers Tomer Naveh and Yoram Schweitzer reported.

Once affiliated with Al Qaeda, the group known as Wilayat Sinai swore allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 and has mostly concentrated its deadly attacks against the Egyptian army and government, slaughtering any Egyptian civilians who get in their way.

The horrific brutality of the Islamic terrorists was shown in their deadliest attack to date on November 24, 2017, when they attacked a mosque in the village of Al-Rawda in the northern Sinai, slaughtering 311 unarmed villagers who were at prayers, injuring at least 122 others.

The researchers say that Wilayat Sinai may be making a strategic change, “shifting from survival-based defensive action toward offensive actions that inflict considerable damage on the Egyptian regime and economy” that includes attacking the Suez Canal and tourism in the Sinai Peninsula. A speech earlier this year by an Islamic State spokesman called on Wilayat to attack Israel, but instead of attacking heavily armed IDF patrols, the terrorists may go after the softer, easier target – Israeli tourists.

“Wilayat Sinai might attempt to fulfill this directive by attacking Israelis, who are likely to return to Sinai once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted,” the researchers warned, with attacks against Israelis also hitting Egypt’s struggling tourism sector.

The INSS also noted that the growing terrorist threats against both Israel and Egyptian strategic assets “creates a convergence of interests and invites a broad scope for improving security cooperation between the two countries.”

“Israel should work with the Egyptians to coordinate a swift and effective response to such scenarios and assist in improving Egyptian security and formulating the required response,” the researchers concluded.

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There are Real People on Givat Hamatos

 Video Of The Week - City of David: Bringing Bible to Life - https://tinyurl.com/y59sdt8s

From Israel Hayom, By  Leora Levian 18-11-2020 https://tinyurl.com/y42lkpyf

Anyone who stands in the neglected Jerusalem neighborhoodsand shouts that it is "Palestine" is about as relevant as someone standing on the outskirts of Bethelehem, calling it part of east Jerusalem.

Anyone who heard the reports about the approval of a construction plan for the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in east Jerusalem could get the impression that it was a real estate jewel on which the Israeli government wanted to build luxury apartments, make a fortune, and on the way torpedo the dream of a territorially contiguous Palestinian states.

But the neglected caravan site with the impressive view is, first of all, a human story, a social one, a story about domestic issues in Israel. In the 1990s it was populated by hundreds of families who arrived as part of the large waves of aliyah from Ethiopia and lived there until they could move into permanent accommodations. They were joined by a few dozen families in need of emergency housing, and they are the ones who live in the "neighborhood" – a slightly puffed-up name for a twisted road with broken streetlights, stray dogs, and broken-down mobile homes.

I know Givat Hamatos well because I arrived there in 2009 after I called all the community centers in the area and realized that the neglected site was a former part of Jerusalem. There were four of us, looking to make the world a better place, who came to fill the social and educational vacuum. We set up a clubhouse for children and teens that is still in operation. For some, it rescued them. We became an integral part of the place the responsibility for which has been passed back and forth between the Jerusalem Municipality and the Housing and Construction Ministry's Amidar building company for years.

Once every few years, including this week, the neglected neighborhood makes it into the headlines. "Construction in east Jerusalem," the left-wing organizations cry, and envoys of the European Union rush to criticize the "attack on the peace process." Former US Ambassador Martin Indyk took to Twitter to ask if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to "embarrass" President-elect Joe Biden through controversial construction in Jerusalem.

But the "peace process" hasn't been on the agenda for a long time now, and the "embarrassing" construction includes hundreds of housing units for the adjacent Arab neighborhood of Beit Zafafa, and Givat Hamatos – get ready for this – is in the far south of the city, near Bethlehem and Gush Etzion, not in its east. This perfect disorientation is so symbolic of those who in the name of a dream ignore reality; those who seek out Palestinian "oppression"  and are blind to the fact that real people are already living there. Before they run to lay out the borders of an imaginary Palestinian state, maybe they could turn the spotlight (and resources) to the big questions involving the people who live there now: questions of housing and education policies; personal responsibility and government planning; massive investment in certain sectors while others are ignored; historical mistakes and who is responsible for fixing them.

Anyone who has a hammer sees only nails; anyone who has European funding sees only a problem of Israel oppressing the Palestinians. But anyone who stands on Givat Hamatos and screams "Palestine!" is about as relevant as someone who stands on the outskirts of Bethlehem and calls it "east Jerusalem."

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Peace With Saudi Arabia??

 Video Of The Week - Netanyahu with Pompeo in Saudi Arabia - https://tinyurl.com/yx8fmq7a

 From JP 23-11-2020 by Iahav Harkov

 For the full article go to- https://tinyurl.com/y573a9d9

 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Neom, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, Israeli sources have confirmed.

 Netanyahu, along with Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and Netanyahu’s Military Secretary Avi Bluth, used a private plane belonging to businessman Udi Angel, which the prime minister has used for past diplomatic trips. The plane left Israel at 5 p.m. on Sunday and returned after midnight.

 The Israeli and Saudi sides discussed Iran and normalization, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a senior Saudi adviser.

Netanyahu said in a Likud faction meeting that “for years, [he] never commented on these matters and will not start now. For years, I have spared no effort in strengthening Israel and expanding the circle of peace.”

 Still, Education Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the meeting in Saudi Arabia took place, calling it an “amazing achievement” and “a matter of great importance” in an interview with Army Radio.

 Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan denied that the crown prince met with Israeli officials during the meeting with Pompeo, saying, “the only officials present were American and Saudi.” However, he did not deny that any meeting between MBS and Netanyahu took place.

 Farhan’s denial is likely a reflection of Saudi King Salman’s continued reticence to make his country’s warming ties with Israel official.

US President Donald Trump mentioned the possibility that Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords Israel signed with other Gulf states in recent months, but reports came out immediately afterward of a generational divide, with the 84-year-old king remaining loyal to the traditional Saudi position – that peace with a Palestinian state must come before normalization with Israel – while the 35-year-old crown prince supports open ties with the Jewish state.

 The trip was kept tightly under wraps in Israel as it was being planned for more than a month, and neither Defense Minister Benny Gantz nor Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi were informed before it took place. IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi was also uninformed, though Netanyahu’s military secretary did participate in the meeting.

 On Sunday, however, Prince Faisal told Reuters that normalization with Israel would only come after “a permanent and comprehensive peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis including the establishment of a Palestinian state on 1967 borders.”

The minister said his country has “supported normalization with Israel for a long time,” pointing out that they authored the Saudi Peace Initiative that would have the Arab world establish ties with Israel in exchange for their vision of a two-state solution.

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