Rattling Israel's BBC Tormentors

 Video Of The Week - BBC'S "Blood Libel" https://tinyurl.com/9urahnes   

 Melanie Phillips April 21st 2021

 For the full Article go to - https://tinyurl.com/ed9vrvfw

 A reliable sign that someone has managed to puncture one of the BBC’s doctrinal falsehoods is when an interviewer is sufficiently rattled to keep interrupting.

 These theatrics occurred last evening on BBC TV’s Newsnight, when anchor Emily Maitlis grilled Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s new ambassador to the UK.Hotovely,  is highly controversial because of her profile as an Israeli religious nationalist.

 The Newsnight item was ostensibly about what Britain might learn from Israel’s “green” vaccination passport.Maitlis noted concerns that the introduction of a British vaccination passport might widen social divisions. Then she said : But in Israel, where the Palestinian population has not been inoculated at anywhere near the rate of the Israeli population, there’s plenty of concern about the passport’s ability to widen the gulf.

 Subsequently noting Israel’s impressive achievement in getting nearly 60 per cent of its population fully vaccinated, she nevertheless added:

…but the roll-out to Palestinian citizens has been much slower at 0.5 per cent.

 Woa! Stop right there! She appeared to be suggesting that Israel was discriminating against its own Arab citizens by vaccinating them at a slower rate. This is totally untrue. Israeli Arabs have been offered the vaccination in exactly the same way as every other Israeli citizen.   Maitlis seemed to be conflating Israeli Arabs, who are Israeli citizens, with Palestinian Arabs who are not Israeli citizens but inhabit those disputed territories beyond Israel. Under the Oslo Accords, their health needs are delivered by the Palestinian Authority.

 Hotovely proceeded to hole other falsehoods below the waterline. She pointed out that the Palestinian Authority hadn’t wanted Israel to provide the Palestinian Arabs with a vaccination programme. The PA had instead wanted to provide it for them itself, and had done just that by purchasing doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine.

 This unanswerable fact so wrong-footed Maitlis that she pulled out what she presumably believed was her killer point — that six Israeli ultra-leftist NGOs had said Israel had a “legal, moral and ethical” obligation to deliver Covid vaccinations to the Palestinians.

Hotovely kept her cool and responded with the first of her two zingers of the evening. “Let me ask you, Emily,” she said, “would you actually impose getting vaccines [on] the leaders of the Palestinians? Would you actually say [they had to] accept Israeli access and Israeli help? When they’re not interested?”

 Maitlis started to talk over her by robotically intoning “legal, moral and ethical obligation”. Hotoveley,proceeded to drive her point home:

But you’re not answering my question. My question is very simple. Can you impose receiving the vaccine on populations [whose] leadership wants to be in charge of the programme? You’re patronising the Palestinians.

 Maitlis asked:

You’re telling me that the Palestinians didn’t want to take up the vaccinations? Replied Hotovely:

No no, they had their own programme, they bought the Russian vaccine, they had a agreement with the WHO and they wanted to run their own programme and I think we need to respect that. And when they asked for Israel’s help, we were there to help.

With the collapse of that line of attack, Maitlis switched to the presumed awfulness of both Hotovely herself and the State of Israel that she represents.

 So it was that an item on the issue of vaccination passports found it necessary to accuse Israel of having proposed last year to annex up to one-third of the “West Bank”; and to accuse Hotovely, a former “settlements minister”, of being such a right-wing religious extremist that her appointment as ambassador had provoked 2000 liberal British Jews to petition against it. Did she or did she not, demanded Maitlis, support the “two-state solution”? To which Hotovely said how gratified she had been by the warm response to her arrival from the Jewish community, and calmly delivered her second zinger of the evening.

 You cannot speak about a formula when the Palestinians aren’t willing to sit and negotiate with Israel. They’re not interested in any two-state solution.

 From all of which we might make two observations. The first is that this was an impressive debut appearance by Tzipi Hotovely. She remained calm, factual and pleasant while delivering facts that punctured the lies (and which many Brits will not have heard before).The second is that,  the BBC seems to be taking its talking points not just from the Guardian, but also now from extreme-leftist NGOs.

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Arab Medical Apartheid - Where Is the Outrage?

Video Of The Week-Israel’s Mosaic Patchwork of Religions https://tinyurl.com/njmowhf6

  For the full Article by “Bassam Tawil” go to tinyurl.com/4f5nh4lf

          a)     Lebanese citizens have launched an online campaign that says that they have the  right to be vaccinated before any foreigner living in the country. The term "foreigner" mainly refers to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in Lebanon.   

b)     The campaign, which is being condemned by Palestinians and others as "racist" and "discriminatory," has evidently failed to attract the attention of all those individuals and organizations who are making false, libelous accusations against Israel. They do not care about this racist campaign because an Arab country, and not Israel, is discriminating against Arabs (the Palestinians).      

c)      Israel, in fact, has vaccinated more Palestinians than any Arab country.... Given that tens of thousands of Arab Israelis and residents of east Jerusalem have received the vaccine without any problem, means that Israel is the only country that actually has so far given the vaccine to Palestinians.

While Israel has been falsely accused by some international media outlets and human rights organizations of "refusing" to vaccinate Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against COVID-19, no one seems to be paying attention to what is happening in Lebanon, an Arab country that has long been hosting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Syrians and other Arabs.

First, the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement states that "powers and responsibilities in the sphere of health in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip shall be transferred to the Palestinian side."

According to the agreement, "the Palestinian side shall continue to apply the present standards of vaccination of Palestinians and shall improve them according to internationally accepted standards and shall continue the vaccination of the [Palestinian] population."

Second, the Palestinians said they had refused to accept vaccines from Israel, and that the Palestinian government was working to get the doses from the World Health Organization and companies around the world.

Third, despite the Palestinian denial, Israel recently acknowledged that it gave 100 vaccine doses to the Palestinians, with another delivery expected shortly.

Fourth, the Palestinian government announced that it has signed in the past few weeks agreements to purchase vaccines from four different companies.

Fifth, Israel recently facilitated the delivery of 5,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine to the Palestinians. The Palestinians were easily able to import it, as they said they preferred to do.

Sixth, Israel is in fact giving vaccines to Palestinians – those living in east Jerusalem and who, as holders of Israeli ID cards, enjoy access to the same healthcare system as Israeli citizens. (The majority of east Jerusalem Palestinians are residents, not citizens, of Israel).

All these facts have failed to convince anti-Israel journalists and organizations around the world that the Palestinian government, and not Israel, is responsible for obtaining vaccines for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Israel-haters are bringing up the issue of vaccines not because they care about the Palestinians, but because they seek to hold Israel responsible for Palestinian suffering that, as usual, is being caused by their own leaders.

The Palestinian leaders had a great deal of time to ask Israel to help them get vaccines. Instead of doing so, however, they announced in May 2020 that they had decided to sever all relations with Israel to protest Israeli government policies on settlements. In late 2020, the Palestinian leaders reversed their decision and decided to restore their relations with Israel. They had wasted precious time that could have been used planning how to get vaccines for the Palestinians.

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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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Why Israel Chose to aid an Ailing Enemy

 Video Of The Week -3,200-Year-Old Canaanite Fortress https://tinyurl.com/y32a3g7v

Saeb Erekat repeatedly libeled Israel, aided terrorists and was an obstacle to peace. But Jewish values will always dictate that Israelis help those in need.

(October 19, 2020 / JNS) It’s the kind of story that drives a lot of friends of Israel nuts. One of its chief opponents, Palestinian Liberation Organization senior leader Saeb Erekat recently fell ill with COVID-19. Faced with the decision as to where to be treated, it was only natural that instead of going to a Palestinian hospital or even one in neighboring Jordan, he chose to go to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

This is, after all, the same person who spent his career lying about Israel, and smearing it as a nation of oppressors and war criminals. He’s part of a government that spends far more on paying salaries and pensions to terrorists and their families than on hospitals. Indeed, in March of this year, he actually went as far as to falsely allege that Israelis were spitting on Palestinian cars so as to spread the coronavirus to them. And though he has served as the P.A.’s chief peace negotiator, he’s spent his tenure in that position working to make peace negotiations impossible, swearing that he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end the ongoing conflict. 

However, when faced with the question of where was the best place in the region to seek help, Israel was the obvious answer. One of the region’s pre-eminent health-care facilities, Hadassah and its doctors took him in. 

Some Israelis and friends of the Jewish state can’t understand it. They see this willingness to help even enemies as a particular form of weakness. They cite the passage from the Midrash of the sages that says, “He who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate” as a good reason to turn Erekat down.

Others think that it was wrong of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to exact concessions from the Palestinians in exchange for what may well be the best chance of saving Erekat’s life. And it wasn’t just right-wingers saying that. Michal Cotler-Wunsh, a moderate member of the Knesset from the Blue and White Party, asserted that prior to admitting him, Israel should have gotten the P.A. to agree to reciprocal humanitarian gestures, such as returning the bodies of slain Israeli soldiers being held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip or freeing two Israeli Arabs who wandered over the border in that terrorist enclave.

That sounds only fair; still, the supposedly hardline government led by Netanyahu didn’t try to extract such concessions or at least didn’t try very hard to do so quietly. Why not?

One pragmatic answer is that for all of the antagonism between Israel and the P.A., in addition to the latter’s refusal to make peace, the day-to-day working relationship between them continues. Contrary to the incessant talk about the occupation, almost all Palestinians live under the dictatorial rule of P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and his corrupt Fatah Party. There is a fair amount of security coordination going on that is partly aimed at reducing Palestinian attacks on Israelis, yet also focused on keeping Abbas alive against threats from his Hamas rivals.

Doing favors for Palestinian leaders is part of this uneasy relationship, so it’s hardly surprising that Israel would reserve a bed at Hadassah for the use of a person who has done so much to hurt the Jewish state.

But the real reason goes far deeper than that.

As much as Israel is depicted as a modern day Sparta—a militarized state that is dominated and governed by its security establishment—Jewish values still play a crucial part in its decision-making. Being a Jewish state necessarily involves considerations that a purely utilitarian approach to life would reject.

Much like Netanyahu’s highly controversial decision to trade more than 1,000 convicted Palestinian terrorists, including many with blood on their hands, for the freedom of a kidnapped young soldier, Israeli leaders often wind up doing things that objectively make little sense. The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange let murderers of children walk free; however, the obligation to redeem a captive took precedence and rather than suffer politically for the decision, Netanyahu was applauded by voters even as security experts deplored the precedent he had set.

By the same token, the generally tough-minded premier likely felt that it was impossible for him to refuse a humanitarian request, even from a bitter foe.

It’s doubtful that any other country would be so generous to an enemy, yet somehow, the notion that Israel would turn away a person in need is inconceivable. Unlike the English common-law tradition, there is a specific Jewish obligation to help others rather than to stand by only watching their plight.

Israel isn't perfect but it is often unfairly judged by a double standard about its conduct towards enemies that is not applied to any other democracy at war. Though it is far more scrupulous about trying to avoid hurting civilians when it fights its foes, it is continually blamed for any casualties in ways that others are not.

Like the peace offers that Erekat and his comrades have repeatedly rejected, no one will give Israel credit for its unilateral humanitarianism. But it’s entirely natural, if also frustrating, that Netanyahu would help a Palestinian leader in need even when we know that if the shoe were on the other foot, Israel’s foes would not do the same.

The instinctual application of traditional Jewish values by the Jewish state’s secular government should not surprise anyone. Even when it will not advance Israel’s cause, behaving decently to those who would not reciprocate such a gesture is still the default position of any government of the Jewish state. 

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Anti-Israel NGOs Exploit COVID-19 To spread hatred

Video Of The Week - Security Technology Tracks Coronavirus- https://tinyurl.com/urvgr5m

From JNS, By Becca Wertman

For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/wle98nj

The cynical exploitation of a global health crisis by so-called human-rights organizations sends a clear message: These groups aren’t about justice and morality.

·         

For anti-Israel advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which constantly attempt to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state, the COVID-19 pandemic’s domination of the global news cycle poses a significant challenge—the world now has real problems to deal with.

Nevertheless, some NGOs have a solution. Namely, they have decided to link their agendas to COVID-19. This is consistent with previous attempts by NGOs to capitalize on the prevailing public discourse, such as manipulating narratives of climate change and LGBTQ rights as part of their anti-Israel campaigns.

Take, for instance, the offensive and anti-Semitic sentiment expressed in a tweet by Sarah Leah Whitson, the former head of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East department and now with the Quincy Institute. Not for the first time, Whitson deployed classic anti-Semitic tropes, in this case the blood libel. In response to a cynical tweet that “6 million Jewish [sic] Israelis” will now understand life under “occupation” due to virus-related restrictions, Whitson lamented that it was “such a tiny taste. Missing a tablespoon of blood.”

To be sure, not all NGOs have gone that far. Some have stuck to their standard anti-Israel nonsense. One common theme is the “occupation,” where the COVID-19 virus has been appended to standard anti-occupation rhetoric and campaigns that, for some obsessed NGOs and activists, are still the most pressing global concerns. Of course, their complaints about Israeli policy in the West Bank do not seriously grapple with whether it will effectively curb the spread of disease, but rather presume Israel must be acting in bad faith, because “occupation.”

On March 10, for example, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Maryland hosted an event with the title, “Corona and Countering the Occupation.” According to the poster advertising the event, the issues to be discussed included “How is corona being handled in Palestine?” “How does occupation worsen the situation?” and “What is the best way to counter the occupation.”

Another example is a tweet by the American fringe group IfNotNow, claiming that “Demolishing Palestinian homes will worsen the coronavirus spread. It was already inhumane to displace people, now it’s also an urgent matter of public health. The Israeli army must stop demolishing homes and focus on the health and wellness of all Israelis and Palestinians.”

A second theme is “Blame Israel for Gaza.” For the 15 years since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, NGOs continue to attribute a “humanitarian crisis” to Israel, based on a unique standard of international law applied to Israel alone. NGOs deny Hamas and other actors agency for diverting resources from public infrastructure and services to weapons, tunnels and terrorism. In the current context, NGOs have been using COVID-19 as an excuse to condemn legitimate anti-terrorism policies and to preemptively blame Israel for an outbreak in Gaza.

For example, on March 15, Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch’s Israel-obsessed executive director, tweeted, “The coronavirus will test the wisdom of Israel’s policies for crippling the economy and health systems of Gaza and the West Bank. As the occupying power (for Gaza, too, given Israel’s severe restrictions on movement), Israel is responsible for health care.” The Israeli NGO Gisha similarly published an article, “Crossings update: Israel to impose extensive travel restrictions at Erez Crossing over coronavirus concerns,” belittling Israel’s policy of restricting access to its borders, including Gaza’s, to curb the spread of the virus.

Palestinian terror-linked organizations are also exploiting the public health crisis for their anti-Israel advocacy. For instance, Samidoun, a group with noted ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group, posted an article on its website, “Israeli apartheid, COVID-19 and Palestinian prisoners: Freedom now!” The NGO claims, “Palestinian prisoners are continuing their struggle to confront Israel’s apartheid COVID-19 response that poses a threat to Palestinian prisoners and, indeed, all Palestinians. No Palestinian prisoners have yet been diagnosed with coronavirus, but their conditions of confinement present a serious concern.”

Addameer, another PFLP-tied group, has also shared articles with sentiments such as, “at the moment, while the world is suffering from the pandemic, COVID-19, Palestinian prisoners are still suffering medical negligence.”

This cynical exploitation of a global health crisis by so-called human-rights organizations should therefore send a clear message: In times of emergency, expect the regular drumbeat of anti-Israel propaganda from organizations claiming to espouse justice and morality.

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Israel a ‘Living Lab’ to Treat Coronavirus

Video Of The Week - Corona Cure Breakthrough - https://tinyurl.com/tfclc23

 For the full Article go to - https://tinyurl.com/t9zg6uz

JERUSALEM – AT A medical center outside of Tel Aviv, 11 Israelis remain quarantined  after disembarking last week from the Diamond Princess luxury cruise ship in Japan, where hundreds of passengers became sick with coronavirus. But even after two of these quarantined Israelis have tested positive for the new virus, medical staff have hardly touched the group. Instead, they are relying on telemedicine tools to remotely monitor and communicate with the isolated patients.

"We have been able to meet all their medical needs without exposing the staff," says Eyal Zimlichman, the doctor overseeing the group's isolation and care at Chaim Sheba Medical Center, a sprawling campus on a former military barracks.

The model reflects the increasing embrace of telemedicine in general in recent years, and its potential in dealing with the new virus, officially known as COVID-19, which emerged in Wuhan, China, late last year and now affecting at least 40 countries, health officials say.

Highest Technological Expertise In the World

"This current environment certainly makes for an interesting proving ground (for) existing solutions," says Crystal Riley, a lecturer in health administration at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. "It's not outside the realm of possibilities that new technologies will emerge from this epidemic."

Chaim Sheba's innovation center recently put out a call to entrepreneurs in Israel, which has a large digital health sector, and around the world for proposals for new solutions to test and treat patients with coronavirus.

"Word has gotten out that we have this group of people here and we have gotten so many emails from startups offering us their solutions," Zimlichman says. "This is like a living lab here."

Last week, when the passengers from the cruise ship arrived on a chartered flight to Israel, medical officials transported them in shuttles to Sheba. Upon arrival, doctors wearing protective gear physically examined the patients, none of whom had any symptoms of the virus.

But since then, doctors have not had much physical contact with the patients. Rather, each day, the patients use hand-held smart devices from Israel-based startup TytoCare, which they hold over their chests, allowing doctors to listen to their heart and lungs remotely. They also use the devices to let doctors look into their ears and throats. Under their mattresses, a sensor system from the Israeli medical device company Early Sense, which never touches the patient, monitors their breathing patterns for subtle changes and potential signs of respiratory infection. The EarlySense system collects and analyzes more data than traditional methods, and is not invasive, which is key in getting people who may not even be sick to comply with precautionary medical monitoring, doctors and company officials say.

Health officials hope a new directive for those in Israel who are worried about possible coronavirus symptoms or exposure to call a hotline rather than visit a medical facility will help prevent any spread of the virus. The hotline, run by the Magen David Adom emergency response service and the ministry of health, allows callers to have video conversations with doctors, nurses and medics.

"Barriers to telehealth are largely in people's lack of education on the utility of it," says Mariea Snell, professor and assistant director of the online doctor of nursing program at Maryville University in St. Louis. Another challenge is scale, Zimlichman says, especially when it comes to new products.

Sara Toth Stub is a journalist based in Jerusalem.

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