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ISRAEL

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What apartheid? When B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad, who is Jewish, decides that I, my Arab family, and my Arab friends are all living under an apartheid regime, he and his organizations are basically telling us they see us as second-class citizens. By Yoseph Haddad

By on January 18th, 2021

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/what-apartheid-2/

Last week, I woke up one morning in my Nazareth home and was astonished to discover I was living under a racist apartheid regime whose only purpose is “the promotion and perpetuation of the superiority of one group of people – the Jews.” I rubbed my eyes, read the story in greater depth, and calmed down as soon as I realized the reports were based on yet another report by the left-wing NGO B’Tselem.

The problem is that this report has spread like wildfire around the world, and the propaganda is working. B’Tselem, which presents itself as a human-rights organization, is in fact known as an organization with a clear political stance that is in contrast to Israel’s position. As it turns out, people have no boundaries. How dare they say that I, an Arab Israeli who served along with Jewish soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces and managed hundreds of Jewish employees, live under an apartheid regime?

How can anyone say our society is living under an apartheid regime when among us you will find doctors, judges, and even lawmakers? How can you say Samer Haj-Yehia lives in an apartheid regime when he is the head of the biggest bank in Israel? B’Tselem has already broken the record for hypocrisy, but to compare Israel to an apartheid regime for its racial laws is not only a distorted lie but an insult to all those South Africans who actually lived through apartheid. It is contempt for and cynical exploitation of the concept.

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ISRAEL Memo to President Biden: Please Don’t Mess Up the Abraham Accords Memo to President Biden: Please Don’t Mess Up the Abraham Accords by Bret Stephens

By on January 18th, 2021

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/bret-stephens/president-biden-abrah

https://mailchi.mp/a3b1df29446b/krd-news-bret-stephens-memo-to-president-biden

In November 2013, I participated in an interview at the Wall Street Journal with Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi prince of legendary riches and blunt, if sometimes unsavory, views.

To New Yorkers with long memories, Alwaleed was the man who, after September 11, 2001, had sought to donate $10 million to the city, along with the suggestion that the U.S. government “adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.” (Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani returned the check.) To the Journal, he was a major shareholder in News Corporation, the paper’s parent company. Getting a meeting with the editorial board, of which I was then a member, was not a problem.

It turned out to be an exceptionally interesting interview. Three months earlier, Barack Obama had surrendered his red line in Syria, refusing to make good on his prior threats of military action in response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Instead, Obama seized on a Russian proposal to have Assad voluntarily relinquish his declared arsenal—a proposal that proved remarkably easy to violate while heralding a new era of American fecklessness in the Middle East.

“The U.S. has to have a foreign policy,” Alwaleed said that day. “Well-defined, well-structured. You don’t have it right now, unfortunately. It’s just complete chaos. Confusion. No policy. I mean, we feel it. We sense it.”

As dismayed as Alwaleed was by Obama’s climbdown in Syria, he was even more alarmed by Obama’s turn toward Iran, in the form of an interim nuclear deal that would later become the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The prince warned that Iran’s supposedly moderate leaders were not to be trusted, and that the only policy that could work was to “put maximum pressure now on the United States not to succumb to the president of Iran’s soft talk.” He also hinted that Saudi Arabia had a nuclear option thanks to an “arrangement with Pakistan.”

And then Alwaleed dropped a little bomb of his own. “For the first time,” he said, “Saudi Arabian interests and Israel’s are almost parallel. It’s incredible.”

That a prominent Saudi prince was willing to say it on the record, in the pages of a leading U.S. daily and in impolitic defiance of an American president, proved how right he was.

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Why Is Israel Doing Better Than Everyone Else in COVID Vaccinations? By Joel M. Zinberg

By on January 18th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/why-is-israel-doing-better-than-everyone-else-in-covid-vaccinations/

Eleven years ago, Dan Senor and Saul Singer dubbed Israel the “Start Up Nation” for its disproportionately large number of technology start-ups and NASDAQ stock listings. Make way for the Vaccination Nation.

Israel leads the world in COVID-19 vaccinations. It has already vaccinated nearly a quarter of its population, including 75 percent of the population most at risk, people over age 60. It has administered 24.5 doses per 100 persons, nearly double the next-best country (the United Arab Emirates) and about 8 times as many people per capita as in the U.S. and the U.K. Israel’s per capita vaccination rate is 24 times that of the normally efficient Germans and 50 times better than the world average. Only three other countries in the world — the U.S., China, and the U.K. — have administered more vaccines.

Why is Israel doing so much better than anyone else? Israel’s small size simplifies logistics. But there are other factors.

First, unlike American states, which have administered only about a third of the doses they have received, Israeli made sure it was ready to use its supply. Officials set up large vaccination centers and mobile units in advance. They reached out to minority groups, such as the ultra-Orthodox and Arab citizens, ahead of the roll-out to encourage vaccine uptake. Israel started vaccinations in mid-December and by the end of the month was vaccinating more than 150,000 people a day.

Second, Israel secured a large supply from Pfizer by promising to provide comprehensive safety and effectiveness data. Israel has a nationwide, computerized health database that can provide anonymized outcomes for all citizens, letting Pfizer use the country of nearly nine million as a real-time laboratory. In return, Pfizer has pledged to provide enough doses to vaccinate every Israeli over 16 by the end of March. In addition, Israel was the first country outside of North America to approve the Moderna vaccine and has purchased six million doses. Israel also paid premium prices — a wise investment in ending the economic devastation occasioned by pandemic lockdowns.

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL: FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on January 17th, 2021

  https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

The nation’s achievements in technology, social services, agriculture, medicine are dazzling. And now that the old paradigm for peace, namely, that Israel must offer dangerous concessions in return for “recognition of its right to exist “has been relegated to the dustbin of history by the Abraham Accords,  the Arab nations may enjoy the fruits of collaboration with Israel. Thank you, President Donald Trump, for shepherding this magnificent achievement! And Thank you Michael Ordman for compiling this list which never fails to amaze and gratify me. rsk  

Israeli surgeons used a new Israeli device to unblock the heart valve of a 96-year-old woman.
An Israeli Arab’s sight was restored by the first transplant of an Israeli artificial cornea.

Despite Covid, Israel is still repairing the hearts of children from Gaza.

Intel announced two more Israeli-developed microprocessors.

An Israeli car safety device prevents its gas tank from catching fire.

An Israeli company is to modernize the training of the Royal Navy.
An Israeli is Belgium’s soccer Player of the Year.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Vaccine rollout. 2 million+ Israelis have had their first Pfizer vaccination. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first of over 110,000 Israelis to receive the second dose. He also announced that Israel could be the first nation to be fully vaccinated. Inoculation of teachers and the over-50s has begun; the over-40s will start shortly.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-vaccine-shipments-arrive-netanyahu-says-over-50s-eligible-from-next-week/   https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/294568

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/BJ1mN11CAP

Allergies? No problem. (TY Hazel) Some 100 Israelis with severe allergies are being vaccinated at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center as part of a pilot program.  Previously, those with severe allergies were turned away from health clinics because of the risk of serious reactions, including anaphylactic shock.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/100-high-risk-allergy-patients-to-get-covid-19-vaccine-at-sheba-friday-654643

An effective anti-Covid nasal spray. The Nitric Oxide Nasal Spray, developed by Israeli-founded, Canada-based SaNOtize (reported here previously) has proved 99.9% effective in lab tests by Utah State University’s Antiviral Research Institute. Phase 2 trials continue in Canada and are just beginning in UK hospitals.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/could-this-israeli-s-anti-viral-nasal-spray-save-the-world-1.510530

A natural Covid-19 treatment? (TY UWI) Israel’s Novel Concepts Medical claims to have developed a combination of natural compounds that significantly decreases the amount of coronavirus spike protein, which binds the virus to the lungs. If its US patent application is approved, it will progress to clinical trials.

https://www.cityam.com/israeli-medtech-firm-claims-it-may-have-found-covid-19-cure/

https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/01/01/cure-covid-19-israeli-medtech-firm-claims-its-possible/

Groundbreaking heart surgery. Instead of open-heart surgery, doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center performed the world’s first catheterizations to unblock heart valves, including of a 96-year-old woman. They used the “ShortCut” – a tiny knife inside a catheter, developed together with Israeli startup Pi-Cardia.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/in-first-of-its-kind-operation-israeli-doctors-use-micro-knife-instead-of-open-heart-surgery/  https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210107005066/en/Pi-Cardia-Successfully-Treats-First-Patients-with-ShortCut%E2%84%A2-Device   http://www.pi-cardia.net/

Improved diagnosis of heart problems. Researchers at Israel’s Technion Institute have developed a way to detect heart problems based on routine electrocardiography (ECG). The new system demonstrated 96 percent average accuracy in diagnosing the various conditions, compared to 80% for currently available algorithms.

https://www.israel21c.org/automated-analysis-of-routine-ecg-detects-cardiac-problems/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73060-w

The correct personal treatment for cancer. Israel’s OncoHost (reported here previously) has achieved about 90% accuracy in predicting how melanoma and lung cancer patients respond to various therapies. And now Israeli Nobel Prize winner Professor Aaron Ciechanover has joined OncoHost’s scientific advisory board.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/oncohost-welcomes-nobel-prize-winner-to-scientific-advisory-board-301205142.html   https://jitc.bmj.com/content/8/Suppl_3/A11.2

https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/nobel-prizewinner-ciechanover-hails-much-more-precise-cancer-treatment/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3IJFoPW60E

$1 billion for cancer therapies. Israel’s Biond Biologics (reported here previously) has signed an exclusive worldwide license agreement with Sanofi for its innovative cancer therapies. Biond will receive $125 million up-front with more than $1 billion in potential payments. Biond’s plans BND-22 human trials to start mid-2021.

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/01/12/biond-biologics-and-sanofi-enter-into-global-licensing-agreement-worth-1-billion/

Searching for pancreatic cancer cures. (TY EEJH) This article describes the work of 3 Israeli scientists who received grants from the Israel Cancer Research Fund to research pancreatic cancer therapies. They include cell profiling to find early-stage markers; how glucose affects resistance; and cancer spreading along nerve fibers. 

https://www.jta.org/2021/01/11/health/israeli-researchers-use-novel-methods-to-seek-treatments-for-deadly-pancreatic-cancer

Artificial cornea restores sight. (TY Hazel & EEJH) Surgeons at Rambam Medical Center conducted the first implant of a synthetic cornea from Israel’s CorNeat (reported here previously). 78-year-old Israeli Arab Jamal from Haifa was able to see clearly immediately after the transplant, for the first time in 10 years.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/corneat-visions-first-patient-regains-sight-following-artificial-cornea-implantation-at-rabin-medical-center-ending-a-decade-of-blindness-301205312.html

https://www.corneat.com/corneat-vision-primetime-news

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Israel and the U.S.: Maintaining the Alliance Against Iran Shoshana Bryen

By on January 16th, 2021

https://www.newsweek.com/israel-us-maintaining-alliance-against-iran-opinion-

There are three primary threads involved in Western containment of the Islamic Republic of Iran and preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities: diplomacy, economic pressure and what the Israelis call “cutting the grass.” 

Diplomacy can be harsh and can include economic pressure, as in the “maximum pressure campaign” of the outgoing administration, designed to cut off the mullahs’ funds in hopes of either collapsing the Tehran regime or forcing it to enter serious negotiations. It can also be soft, as in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal) of the Obama administration, offering positive incentives in exchange for limitations or time constraints on threatening behaviors. “Cutting the grass”—reducing or eliminating actual military threats as they emerge in real time—has been Israel’s preferred method, and can be coupled with either of the two others.

“Maximum pressure” and “cutting the grass” have worked in tandem to severely constrain Iran. Hezbollah’s budget has been cut, Iran’s formerly 80,000-strong militia in Syria, commanded by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers, has been reduced to approximately 10,000, and the people of Iran have been protesting against their government. On the other hand, Iran has found ways to spend its limited funds on its priorities—namely, ballistic missile technology and nuclear weapons capability.

While the incoming Biden administration has made clear its preference for soft American diplomacy, a continuing alliance with Israel—public or tacit—that pressures Iran on the ground can serve both countries’ interests.

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Trump orders US military’s Central Command to include State of Israel

By on January 16th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/trump-orders-us-militarys-central-command-to-now-include-israe

Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of JINSA, noted that the realignment “will strengthen strategic planning, defense cooperation and deterrence against Iran by America and its regional allies.”

 U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the mission of the U.S. military in the Middle East, to include Israel, reported The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, citing U.S. officials.

Until now, Israel had been part of the U.S. European Command for the sake of America’s Arab allies that have had adversarial relationships with the Jewish state.

The development of the Abraham Accords—in which CENTCOM members the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel—has allowed for pro-Israel groups to make the case that the time is ripe for Israel to fall under CENTCOM as well. (Sudan and Morocco, the other more recent signees of the Abraham Accords, are not part of CENTCOM, as Sudan does not have military cooperation with the United States and Morocco is part of the U.S. Africa Command.)

One of the pro-Israel groups to advocate for the move was the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), whose president and CEO, Michael Makovsky, said that the realignment “will strengthen strategic planning, defense cooperation and deterrence against Iran by America and its regional allies.”

“I hope it might also smooth the way for the Pentagon to utilize Israel more for regional operations, including by prepositioning precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and other much-needed weaponry for American, Israeli, and possibly, partner Arab forces,” he continued. “PGMs are critical to Israel’s continued ability to defend U.S. interests by rolling back the military footprint of Iran and its proxies.”

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Will Israel lose its freedom to operate against Iran? – opinion Israel needs to prepare for this new reality where its ability to combat Iranian forces and proxy groups is concerned. By Ruthie Blum

By on January 15th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/will-israel-lose-its-freedom-to-operate-against-iran-opinion-655483?fbclid=IwAR3z6bPkCu03rcuy6zviDXEA8tR0PxZObv4aaG4KM0TV5KTZIz3b3jBNzko

Speculation about the extent to which the incoming American administration will appease Iran has been rampant. But US President-elect Joe Biden’s picks for relevant top positions don’t seem to leave much room for conjecture.

Let’s start with William Burns, Biden’s nomination for CIA director. Burns currently serves as president of the left-wing foreign-policy think tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of whose donors is the Open Society Foundations network, established by George Soros.

Burns has decades of experience as a career diplomat under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Contrary to false hopes, however, this is not a good sign. Burns is a longtime associate of Biden’s. The two have worked closely together, most recently when the latter was vice president and the former was deputy secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, during the administration of former US president Barack Obama.

The most disturbing thing about Burns, whose posts have included ambassadorships to Russia and Jordan, is his key role in covert talks with the regime in Tehran in 2013. These led to the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 countries: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China plus Germany. By that time Burns had retired, but his imprint lived on in the disastrous nuclear deal.

In this context, Biden’s statement about Burns – “[He] shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical” – is amusing, if not downright disdain-inducing. Equally ridiculous, but cause for greater concern, is Burns’s current faith in the JCPOA from which outgoing US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

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Pakistani Muslim Cleric: Israel Belongs to the Jews “Not for the Palestinians.” Hugh Fitzgerald

By on January 13th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/pakistani-muslim-cleric-israel-belongs-jews-hugh-fitzgerald/

If you thought there was no way to top the news about the normalization of ties between Israel and four Arab states – the U.A.E., Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco – well, this just in from Pakistan may do it: a leading political and religious figure in the country has just announced that Israel belongs solely to the Jews. It was never meant for the “Palestinians.” The amazing report is here: “Pakistani cleric: We should recognize Israel,” by Dean Shmuel Elmas, Israel Hayom, December 20, 2020:

Pakistani political and religious leader Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani announced Saturday, Dec. 20, at a conference, that he supports the normalization of his country with Israel, according to a report by British-Pakistani writer Noor Dahri.

“This is an international issue, I support recognition of Israel,” Sherani said. “Educated Muslims need to understand that the Quran and history prove to us that the Land of Israel belongs only to the Jews. King David built the house of God in Jerusalem for the Israelis and not for the Palestinians.”

The honorific “Maulana” means that Sherani is a learned Muslim cleric. He is also a formidable figure in Pakistani politics, having served in Pakistan’s National Assembly from 1988 to 2018, save from 1999-2002, and from 2007 to 2013. In other words, he’s served at the national level for more than 20 years. But he’s never made such a remarkable statement, recognizing that “the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews”: It is “not for the Palestinians.”

One cannot help but wonder if this declaration was sua sponte, an expression of Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani’s deeply held beliefs, uttered without consulting anyone else, and expressing his desire to push forward the case for Pakistan to normalize ties with the Jewish state. Of course, other Muslim states have normalized relations with Israel, but all of them took care to formulaicly express their hope for the establishment of a Palestinian state. This Pakistani cleric has in breathtaking fashion stated uncompromisingly the case for the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel that the ghost of Zev Jabotinsky could not have bettered.

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Media: Israel Must Be Denigrated for Its World-Beating Vaccination Programme by Richard Kemp

By on January 12th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16930/israel-vaccination-programme

The same negative policy [by the press and many purported human rights groups] extends to other major benefits that Israel has brought to the world, including scientific innovation, medical technology and life-saving intelligence. It goes against editorial agendas to report on the Jewish state in a positive light unless they can somehow twist a good story to turn it bad.

Under the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, which created the Palestinian Authority (PA), it alone and not Israel, is responsible for their health care, including vaccinations. Nearly 150 UN members recognise “Palestine” as a state, yet these media and human rights bodies, displaying deplorably predictable bias, cannot bring themselves to allow it agency.

Contradicting allegations of a racist or “apartheid” policy, Israel has been vaccinating its Arab citizens since the programme began. Given some reluctance to be vaccinated among these communities, the Israeli government, in conjunction with Arab community leaders, have been making concerted efforts to encourage them, including a visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to two Arab towns in the last few days for this purpose.

The same approach can be seen over the Abraham Accords of 2020, historic achievements in a hitherto elusive peace between Israel and the Arabs. These have often been received with callous cynicism in the media as well as among veteran peace processors, whose own prescriptions have repeatedly failed.

[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is the driving force behind the Abraham Accords, whose origins date back to his speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015, when he made a stand against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu’s solitary stance was seized on by Arab leaders, who began to realise they had common cause with the State of Israel, which could lead to a brighter future for them than one encumbered with unnecessary animosity.

Prejudice against the Jewish state is so intense in the Western media that praiseworthy actions guaranteed to hit the headlines if attributable to any other country are frequently ignored, diminished or denigrated when it comes to Israel. When there is a disaster anywhere in the world, for example, Israel is often the first, or among the first, to offer assistance and send in relief workers. Most recently, last month the Israel Defence Forces dispatched a team to Honduras following the devastation of category 4 hurricanes Eta and Iota which left thousands homeless.

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Terror U: Who is Suppressing Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities? Terrorism against Israel is not only promoted within the university walls; it is celebrated publicly. Richard L. Cravatts

By on January 12th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/terror-u-who-suppressing-academic-freedom-richard-l-cravatts/

In January of 2019, the Academic Freedom Committee of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) wrote a letter to Benyamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and several other ministers and officials. In that condemnatory letter, MESA, an organization that has been obsessively and chronically anti-Israel, chastened Israel, with the purpose of the complaint “. . . to urge a halt to the Israeli army and security forces conducting arbitrary arrests at and incursions into Palestinian universities, assaulting students, faculty, and staff and obstructing the education of thousands of students.” 

Of specific concern to MESA was the 2018 arrest of Yehya Rabie, the President of Birzeit University’s Student Council by the IDF and a similar arrest of Omar al-Kiswani, the previous President of Birzeit University’s Student Council. “While the Israeli army accused Rabie and al-Kiswani of ‘suspected involvement in terror activity,’” the letter flippantly stated, “both men remain in detention without trial. These arbitrary arrests and detentions without trial are not the exception but the rule” and such arrests, it was claimed, “follow a pattern of Israeli forces’ aggression on Palestinian campuses.” 

For an organization of coddled, safely-ensconced professors in American universities it is easy, of course, to castigate Israel for its behavior in insuring the safety of its citizenry, particularly since in discussing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, MESA has reliably expected no rational or reasonable behavior from the perennially-oppressed Palestinians and has singularly blamed Israel for its alleged brute treatment of the Palestinians, including these specific arrests which, it contended, “follow a pattern of Israeli forces’ aggression on Palestinian campuses,” and the “attacks, assaults, and detentions described above are grave violations of basic rights to education and academic freedom.”

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