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ISRAEL

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Mufti of Jerusalem: Temple Mount ‘is Islamic and Only for Muslims’ No Jews allowed. Robert Spencer

By on December 22nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/mufti-jerusalem-temple-mount-islamic-and-only-robert-spencer/

Imagine the outcry if a non-Muslim leader said Muslims were not welcome at the site of an ancient Muslim holy place. But no one will take any particular notice of this. On Wednesday, theJerusalem Post reported that “the Palestinian Authority Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, on Tuesday warned of attempts by Jewish groups to establish a presence on the Temple Mount.” Hussein said: “We affirm, time and again, that the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque, with its entire area of 144 dunams [144,000 sq.m.], is Islamic and only for Muslims. There is no place for non-Muslims in any way in this mosque, whether through schools, churches or other places of worship.”

And the world remained silent, fearing charges of “Islamophobia.”

This is not the first time that a “Palestinian” official has said something like this. In fact, many have declared that no Jews will be welcome in a Palestinian state at all, not on the Temple Mount and not anywhere else. In November 2007, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, the Dean of Al-Quds University, appeared on Al Jazeera and said: “The Israelis now living in the territories of the future Palestinian state should return to living within the borders of the state of Israel. No Jew in the world, now or in the future, as a result of this document, will have the right to return, to live, or to demand to live in Hebron, in East Jerusalem, or anywhere in the Palestinian state.”

Then in the spring of 2013, Sheik Hammam Saeed, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, appeared on Al-Aqsa TV and said : “We must not forget the enemy, which planted the Jews in our land. It is time we demanded that these enemies and especially Britain, be held accountable. It is time that we held these true criminals accountable.” The idea that the British must be held accountable for having “planted the Jews” in Arab land is false in several ways, but the fact that Saeed said it indicated that he considered the Jews, despite the fact that they have had an unbroken presence in that land for over 2,000 years, are a foreign presence that must be removed.

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on December 20th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/showtimes-pathetic-exercise-in-reagan-bashing/amp/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Mutating cancer cells. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute, working with others in the Netherlands and Norway, have discovered that melanoma cells can “frameshift” to grow whilst avoiding the immune system. The process, however, generates new peptides (short proteins) that scientists can now target with new therapies.

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/how-cancers-hurt-themselves-hurt-immune-cells-more

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-researchers-spot-new-peptides-that-could-point-way-to-slaying-cancer/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03054-1

Gastro sensor gets “breakthrough” designation. (TY Nevet & UWI) Israel’s Exero Medical (reported here previously) has received Breakthrough device designation by the US FDA for its implantable biodegradable wireless sensor designed to continuously monitor for gastrointestinal leaks and healing status after surgery.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/exero-medicals-smart-sensor-granted-fda-breakthrough-designation-301192665.html

Covid-19 vaccine progress. The Israeli-developed BriLife Covid-19 vaccine is moving into Phase 2 trials. Hospitals including Sheba and Hadassah will test the vaccine on 1,000 volunteers including seniors and those with previous conditions. Meanwhile rollout of the Pfizer vaccine began – the Israeli PM first to be vaccinated.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-corona-vaccine-approved-for-phase-2-trials/

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israels-vaccine-candidate-set-to-launch-phase-ii-clinical-trial-652110

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293351 https://youtu.be/SuNJQ85eG6o

One ventilator for 3 patients. Israel’s Yehonatan Medical together with Sheba Medical Center have devised a ventilation system with a high-power output and built-in disinfecting mechanism that can treat between three and five patients simultaneously. It includes AI technology for alerting and adjusting to patient responsiveness.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/12/14/israeli-ventilation-system-could-give-covid-the-smart-treatment/

More intelligent Covid-19 treatment. Israel’s Iguazio (reported here previously) is to provide Israel’s Sheba Medical Center with clinical, real-time predictive insights from its AI Data Science Platform to help optimize care for Covid-19 patients. Iguazio’s systems will also help Sheba reduce delays in transporting patients.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3882399,00.html

Doctors arrive to help fight Covid-19. The Israel Experience Doctors’ Program has just brought 50 qualified doctors to Israel to help alleviate the coronavirus crisis. The doctors intend to make Aliya and simultaneously will prepare for Israeli medical licensing. 700 graduates of the program are already working in Israeli hospitals.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293141

UV wavelength Covid-19 discovery. The ability of UV light to kill Covid-19 is well known. However, Tel Aviv University tests show UV with a wavelength of 285 nanometers kills 99.9% of the virus in 30 seconds – nearly as good as UV at 265nm. 285nm UV LED bulbs are cheaper and more readily available than 265nm.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-corona-discovery-uv-led-lights-kill-covid-19/

Brain-monitoring app tests for post-Covid symptoms. Israel’s Montfort (reported here previously) has enhanced its AI smartphone app that monitors neurological conditions. After six months of trials in Brazil, it now offers a test protocol for patients who have recovered from Covid-19 but still suffer long-lasting effects.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3881692,00.html https://www.mon4t.com/covid-19/

$30 million for emergency department. Philanthropist Sylvan Adams has donated $30 million to fund a new Emergency Medicine department at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center. A similar amount was allocated by the Israeli government. It will take two years to construct and will be the largest ER in Israel.

https://www.jns.org/sylvan-adams-donates-30-million-for-new-emergency-department-in-tel-aviv/

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Middle East’s Dual ‘Occupations’ The Israel-Morocco peace deal underscores a double standard on the West Bank versus Western Sahara. Eugene Kontorovich

By on December 18th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-middle-easts-dual-occupations-11608247133?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Many expected the Trump administration to recognize Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank before Inauguration Day. Instead, last week it recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Jerusalem and Rabat. The new U.S. position on Morocco’s borders has a sound basis in international law and diplomatic practice, and it makes the case even stronger for doing the same with Israel and the West Bank.

Morocco took control of Western Sahara in 1975. The territory had been a Spanish colony, but when Madrid abandoned it, Mauritania and Morocco invaded. Hundreds of thousands of Moroccan settlers followed.

The United Nations has described Morocco’s presence as an “occupation,” but much of the international community has taken a more ambiguous view, describing the territory as “disputed.” The Polisario Front, a Saharawi rebel movement, also claims the territory. In 2016 U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon apologized after referring to the territory as “occupied,” in what the U.N. described as an accident.

Traditionally, the law of occupation applies only to sovereign territory of foreign states. This covers most cross-border conflicts but not some post-colonial transitions where there is a gap in sovereign control. Thus, while the international community strongly opposed Indonesia’s 1975 takeover of East Timor (a similarly orphaned former Portuguese colony), it didn’t treat it as an occupation. Indonesia’s 1962 takeover of the former Dutch New Guinea gained universal acceptance.

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Ruthie Blum : The welcome extradition of Malka Leifer

By on December 17th, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-welcome-extradition-of-malka-leifer-opinion-652483

It appears that the extremely lengthy extradition saga of Malka Leifer is finally coming to an end. On Tuesday, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the accused pedophile against sending her packing to Australia, where she is wanted on 74 counts of rape and sexual abuse.

Though she still has another chance to appeal after Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn signed off on her extradition, there is little chance that such a move would bear fruit at this point. By now, Leifer’s lawyers have exhausted every avenue and used any lame excuse to keep their client from being sent back to the scene of her “alleged” crimes.

The reason that “alleged” should be in quotation marks here is that one of her defense team’s arguments over the past six years was that her sexual relations with the girls in the Adass Israel School in Melbourne – where she served as principal – were consensual. In other words, she acknowledges that the sex took place.

Adding insult to injury, one of her attorneys, Nick Kaufman, said, “It is simply unreasonable that [the alleged victims] did not know what those sexual acts were, and that they were not able to refuse.”

To lend credence to his argument, he peculiarly quoted one witness who stated, “I was afraid to say no. [Leifer] had a powerful personality. If I hadn’t done what she wanted, she would have become angry with me.”

Kaufman argued – ridiculously – that this meant her fear had been “subjective,” as opposed to the result of an actual threat.

Not only is the assertion of the students’ “consent” preposterous, but it’s completely different from what Leifer claimed when the first complaint surfaced in 2008. At the time, she not only denied the accusation, but got huffy about how it would ruin her reputation.

Well, she was right about that. But any damage to her name is well-deserved. Someone who takes advantage of his or her position of authority to pray on subordinates for sexual gratification warrants no sympathy.

Leifer’s conduct – if an Australian court deems her guilty – was particularly heinous, however. As headmistress of a religious school, which keeps girls and boys completely separate and teaches the strictest interpretation of Orthodox Judaism, she would have been able to groom her victims without raising suspicion.

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Palestinian Track Record Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on December 16th, 2020

December 16, 2020, https://bit.ly/3njMqXI

The Palestinian conflict did not erupt in 1967, nor in 1948.

In November 1917, the Balfour Declaration called for the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish People” in Palestine, which was the accepted international name of the Land of Israel since the 5th century BCE. The declaration, by the British Foreign Minister, stated that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities [Arabs] in Palestine.” The declaration acknowledged the ancient national Jewish roots in the Land of Israel (Palestine), and that Jews were indigenous in Palestine, returning to – not colonizing – their homeland.

In April 1920, the post-World War I San Remo Conference reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration and laid the legal foundation for the creation of 22 Arab states and one Jewish state. It was signed by all 51 members of the League of Nations in the August 1920 Treaty of Sevres between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire.

Arab terrorism erupted in Jerusalem, Jaffa and the Galilee in response to the emerging reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East, which is considered by Muslims as the abode of Islam, “divinely-ordained to believers” and off limits to “infidel” sovereignty.

In July 1922, the League of Nations entrusted Britain with the Mandate for Palestine, which was authored by the San Remo Conference. The Mandate highlighted “the historical connection of the Jewish people to Palestine, and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” The sole purpose of the Mandate was to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, referring to the Land of Israel. The Mandate for Palestine has been included, since 1945, in Article 80 of the UN Charter, which preserves the inherent Jewish national rights in the Land of Israel.

In September 1922, the League of Nations and Britain transferred 3/4 of Palestine to the Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan, which gained independence in 1946.

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The Abraham Accords and the Intransigence of the Palestinian-Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza Alex Grobman

By on December 16th, 2020

https://thejewishvoiceandopinion.com/the-abraham-accords-and-the-intransigence-of-the-palestinian-arabs-in-judea-samaria-and-gaza/

 The Abraham Accords, the term given to the series of agreements reached last summer allowing normal relations between Israel and several of her Arab-Muslim neighbors, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and now Morocco, were greeted with optimism and approval by the Trump administration.

“Everybody who joined the Abraham Accords will see the benefits for their own people,” declared US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said he was “highly confident that many, many more nations will ultimately choose to do the right thing and recognize Israel as the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.”

In stark contrast to Pompeo’s confidence in other Arab nations’ ultimate decision to recognize the Jewish people’s return to their ancestral homeland, are the expressions emanating from the Palestinian Authority and its counterpart in Gaza, Hamas. These Palestinian groups have been brutal in their condemnation of the accords and those countries that have signed them.

Exploiting Children

Before his death this past November, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian politician and negotiator, called the accords “a poisoned stab in the back of the Palestinian people and an attempt to try and get around international legitimacy.”

Statements such as these have an effect on the Palestinian-Arabs as well as the Arab-Muslim populations in the countries that are making peace with Israel.

For example, a report from Palestinian Media Watch, a non-profit research institute that studies Palestinian society by monitoring and analyzing its media and schoolbooks, illustrates the opposition to normalizing relations with Israel. Posted on the official Facebook page of the PA faction, Fatah, headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, is a video clip of Bahraini children conveying their enmity towards the Abraham Accords.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The EU And Brennan Lament Fakhrizadeh’s Demise Fakhrizadeh had planned the nuclear “Final Solution” to the Jewish State. Joseph Puder

By on December 15th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/eu-and-brennan-lament-fakhrizadehs-demise-joseph-puder/

Once again the European Union (EU) has shown its hypocrisy by lamenting the assassination of Iran’s nuclear project chief, Moshen Fakhrizadeh. Peter Stano, the spokesperson for Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, tweeted that: “The killing of Moshen Fakhrizadeh and others is a criminal act and runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights that the EU stands for.” He was echoing former CIA Director John Brennan, an Obama appointee, who tweeted that, “this was a criminal act and highly reckless. It risks lethal retaliation and a new round of regional conflict.” The EU officials expressed their condolences to the family members of the individuals who were killed, while wishing a prompt recovery to any other individuals who may have been injured.

Significantly, when the EU does condemn Iran’s radical regime, it is a half-hearted condemnation. Specifically, when the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the “elimination of the Zionist entity” last May, the EU responded to Khamenei’s threat by stating that, “Such statements are totally unacceptable and represent a deep source of concern. They are also incompatible with the objective of a stable and peaceful Middle East region pursued by the EU.” Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, responded to the EU statement, saying that, Khamenei did not just bring into question Israel’s legitimacy, he wrote explicitly about ‘eliminating the Zionist regime’ which goes from denying the Holocaust to promoting one. The gravity of his remarks is not reflected in the EU reaction that should go beyond words.”

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EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Equating Zionism With White Supremacy in the Age of Trump The newest thrust in the campus tactical assault against Israel. Richard L. Cravatts

By on December 14th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/zionism-equating-white-supremacy-age-trump-richard-l-cravatts/

Nazifying ideological opponents is a tactic that campus anti-Israel groups and individuals have long used as part of the ongoing cognitive war against Israel, in which Zionism is racism, Israelis are the new Nazis, Gaza is equivalent to the Warsaw Ghetto, Israel is committing genocide against the guiltless Palestinians (a “Holocaust in the Holy Land,” as one student event called it), and the Star of David of the Israeli flag is regularly manipulated to incorporate a swastika.

This intellectually destructive behavior is nothing new for these anti-Israel activists; what is new is that they made a tactical pivot after the election of Donald Trump, choosing to join the chorus of shrill voices accusing the White House, conservatives, Republicans, and even white people in general of being a new incarnation of racists, fascists, and white supremacists, emboldened and given influence by the Trump administration’s alleged racist and xenophobic ideology.

This newest thrust in their tactical assault against Israel, using the hysteria about a phantom alt-right infecting government and academia to justify a more aggressive bludgeoning of the Jewish state, means that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other radical campus groups and individuals have felt no compunction at all in increasing the tenor and intensity of their tactical assault on Israel and using the current political climate to reinforce a new slur—white supremacy—against it.

Some of that tactical poison flows to campuses through The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a coalition of hundreds of organizations that “is ‘at the very heart’ of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement’s efforts to isolate Israel in the U.S,” and which provides resources for radical student groups such as SJP. “Since Trump came to power, we have seen a very open alliance between Zionists and white supremacists,” the organization’s website announces definitively. “This alliance becomes all the clearer when we look at the shared histories and values of the United States and Israel,” since “Both the United States and Israel are European settler colonial states built on the exclusionary ideology of white supremacy,” and “Zionism and the US empire, both manifestations of white supremacy, collaborate closely to achieve shared goals.”

Apparently, this toxic view has taken hold on university campuses. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s SJP chapter, for example, this hateful ideology was on full display when, in a September 2017 Facebook post, the group announced that since “there is no room for fascists, white supremacists, or Zionists at UIUC,” they had organized a rally called “Smashing Fascism: Radical Resistance Against White Supremacy.” It would hopefully occur to any sentient being that characterizing Zionists as keeping company with or in fact being fascists and white supremacists is not only a historically grotesque notion, it would also seem to be self-contradictory.

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A Nobel Peace Prize for President Trump and His Majesty King Mohammed VI? by Mohammed Habib

By on December 13th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16852/nobel-peace-prize-trump-king-mohammed

Salmi Gailani, who was born in 1991, the year of the ceasefire, “blames the U.N. for the fact that for 30 years, Western Sahara has been a frozen conflict…. ’30 years is long enough to place ballot boxes,’ he said.” — Euronews, November 17, 2020.

The international community has been trying to broker a peace for the Western Sahara for 30 years. Some observers, however, suggest that “if the Polisario Front were to have sovereignty over the Western Sahara, it would mean that Algeria was effectively surrounding Morocco.”

Along with last week’s the triumph for President Trump and King Mohammed VI, there have also been charges that Morocco could have joined the Abraham Accords without the US recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara. So far, however, no one has quite said how.

Last week, US President Donald J. Trump and His Majesty King Mohammed VI of Morocco, in a move that immediately prompted calls for a Nobel Peace Prize, agreed that Morocco would be the fourth Arab country — joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan — in establishing a solid peace with Israel this year. A felicitous reciprocity is that Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States.

Since 1975, when Spain gave up its colony in the Western Sahara, the sovereignty of the territory has been under dispute. The area, about the size of Britain, wedged between Morocco and Mauritania, runs southward along the Atlantic Ocean. The territory and its waters are rich with phosphates, bauxite, fish, and possibly offshore oil reserves. Although Morocco has officially administered the area for the last 30 years, it has been claimed by the Polisario Front, (an abbreviation for “Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro”), an Algerian-backed group composed of a nomadic people, the Sahrawis.

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL

By on December 13th, 2020

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

A new Israeli stem cell treatment can halt and reverse MS.
Israel has received its first deliveries of coronavirus vaccines.
An Israeli-Ethiopian immigrant has won a scholarship to Oxford University.
Over 130 Israeli hi-tech companies have been exhibiting in Dubai.
New investment in Israeli startups is at record levels.
An Israeli has won the NASCAR European championship for the 3rd time.
Morocco and Israel are to establish diplomatic relations.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Stem cell treatment can help MS patients. (TY Nevet) Jerusalem’s Hadassah-University Medical Center and Israel’s NeuroGenesis have developed a stem cell treatment for patients with progressive multiple sclerosis. A Phase II human trial not only halted progression of the disease but led to improvement in neurological ability.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/hadassah-stem-cell-treatment-could-let-ms-patients-walk-again-651475

https://www.hadassah.org/news-stories/hadassah-and-neurogenesis-announce-groundbreaking-results-ms-study.html  https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa333/6012789

https://www.neurogenesis-cell.com/

Hope for stroke and dementia patients. Israel’s BrainsGate (reported briefly here previously) has developed a technology for the treatment of ischemic strokes and vascular dementia. The Ischemic Stroke System is based on an implantable electrode stimulator that increases blood flow to the brain. Clinical trials are in progress.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3879615,00.html  http://www.brainsgate.com/eng/

Hackathon for autism. Israeli innovators and entrepreneurs participated in Hackautism 2.0 – a virtual tech marathon to create innovative technological solutions for the challenges of children and adults on the Autism Spectrum. The winning teams addressed sleep quality, non-verbal communication and job finding,

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3879838,00.html 

Israeli blood tests for the Gulf. The OLO finger-prick blood tests from Israel’s Sight Diagnostics (reported here previously) will soon be available in medical centers across the Gulf region. The Israeli company is partnering with Dubai’s Phoenix Capital who will install OLO initially in the UAE and then other Gulf states.

https://elwatanelarabynews.com/archives/67584

Games to fight diabetes and cognitive decline. Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services research and innovation center has initiated KSM Playzone – focusing on the field of health gaming. KSM has awarded $25,000 to the developers of two health education games – Diabattle (for diabetics) and Memento (cognitive rehabilitation).

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3879792,00.html

http://www.diabattle.mobi/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ibwc4ziBw

https://humanfirst.hac.ac.il/neuro-and-social/neuro-and-social-nofar-laor/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvGzkofWzTA

Israeli doctors in Gaza. (TY Hazel) Israeli-Arab orthopaedists, neurologists, heart surgeons, and mental health experts are in the Gaza Strip relieving the strain on hospitals fighting coronavirus. They are conducting urgent (previously postponed) surgeries on non-Covid-19 patients and training up Palestinian Arab medical teams.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-medical-delegation-heads-to-gaza-to-provide-essential-care/

First vaccines arrive in Israel. An end to the coronavirus pandemic is in sight as hundreds of thousands of doses of Pfizer vaccines were flown into Tel Aviv. Vaccinations are due to begin on Dec 27. Israel is scheduled to receive 4 million doses of the vaccine by end Dec.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/1st-doses-of-pfizer-vaccine-arrive-in-israel-ahead-of-mass-inoculation-program/

Israel’s vaccine is vital. Progress has been made with the Israeli-developed vaccines and treatments. The MigVax oral vaccine is ideal for developing countries as it easy to transport and distribute. It is also much safer, e.g., for those who have allergies or compromised immune systems.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/after-coronavirus-vaccine-success-is-israels-migvax-still-needed/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK7u5e922f0

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