Submarines, Russian Hackers and C-19

 

The lockdown in Israel has partially ended, but the infection rate is expected to rise. There is no longer any restrictions on travel of more than half-a-mile from home, or allowing visitors into the house. Skeptics think one of the reasons for the sharp drop in the infection rate is that the ultra-Orthodox have decided not to be tested for Covid-19. Israel’s infection rate has dropped down below 3 % of those tested, with under 1,000 new cases within 24-hours, down from nearly 15,000 two weeks ago.

The corona cabinet also decided to allow business travelers from “green” countries to enter Israel without proof they were not carrying the virus nor requiring them to be in quarantine.

Speaking to Ynet news, Corona czar Prof. Ronnie Gamzu said today that the rate would rise again unless the citizenry take charge of their own lives, wear masks, keep a social distance and keep their hands clean. He also encouraged everyone to take the Covid-19 test if they want the lockdown lifted. He said that Israel could test up to 70,000 cases a day but so far only 20,000 a day have shown up. He said the lack of testing “is noticeable not only in the Haredi sector, disproportionately affected by the pandemic, but within the general population as well.”

Gamzu said that people “do not understand that eliminating coronavirus means finding a sick person who is seemingly healthy...just let me find them.” This would help isolate the sick and contain the spread of the virus.

Gamzu also recommended the reopening of barber shops, beauty salons and alternative medicine next week. Finance Minister Yisrael Katz also called for the opening of street shops and beauty salons on Nov 1. However, Gamzu said, “We want to be careful because I do not want to bring Israel back to where it was at the end of the first wave.”

Another opinion piece in Ynet saw the worrisome widening divide within Israel. “The majority must rise up against the Haredi minority. The leaders of the Haredi community have rewritten the rules of the game pretending to be the persecuted when they are the persecutors.”

A potentially toxic issue is still the sale of USA’s F-35 jet fighters to the UAE. Some thought the sale was dangerous since the planes could ultimately wind up in the hands of Israel’s enemies. Haaretz thought that Netanyahu had run up again against Blue and White’s Benny Gantz, Israel’s minister of defense, over the controversial sale of the jet fighters. Netanyahu, Gantz said, had not informed him of the impending sale of the F-35 fighter jets to the UAE in exchange for a normalization agreement. Netanyahu, in a press conference on Saturday night, called Gantz’s accusations “baseless.” Netanyahu said he’d agreed not to object to the sale only after the deal was signed, but others say he’d agreed in advance. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu was looking “increasingly rudderless,” since his decision about the F-35s and the submarine affair, a $3.2 billion sale of submarines and patrol boats by Germany’s Thyssenkrupp company to Israel, that was “still in the water.”

Israel’s High Court is to hear a motion that the vote in Israel’s Knesset that approved a parliamentary committee to investigate the submarine affair should not have been overturned by Speaker of the Knesset Yariv Levine, a Netanyahu supporter. Levine overturned the vote to form an investigative committee over a technicality. The high court has yet to rule if the initial vote was legal, although the Knesset’s attorney ruled that it was.

Also, in Netanyahu’s televised press conference Saturday night, the PM said he would not tolerate any group ignoring the regulations and that harsh fines would be handed down to those who ignored the rules. However, other reports showed that the Haredi schools had reopened and other than receiving a few fines their schools stayed open in spite of the rules. A TV report on Channel 12 showed 92-yr-old Rabbi Kanievsky hunched over a Talmud with an aide whispering in his ear. The commentator said that the Rabbi probably didn’t grasp the issues and was only asked something like, “should the schools be open so the kids can study Torah or should they be closed.” The rabbi, said the commentator, of course said, “open.” The rabbi is himself still recovering from the Covid-19 virus.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s prime time press conference coincidentally broke into the Saturday night news coverage of the thousands of anti-Netanyahu protesters gathered near the prime minister’s residence on Balfour street as well as in hundreds of locations around Israel, all calling for the prime minister to resign. Netanyahu began his press conference with the headline news that Israel had reached an agreement with Sudan to begin talks on normalization. Netanyahu said this would lead to a peace agreement with a nation that had long been Israel’s enemy. According to observers, the first steps would be Israelis exporting drip irrigation technology to Sudan, a country that relies largely on agriculture and was doing poorly economically. Critics said that there was a long way to go before Sudan and Israel signed any agreements. Leaders of some of Sudan’s political parties have objected to any deals with Israel as have Sudan’s Islamic groups. Haaretz reported that “Israel Sudan normalization deal is more cause for caution that celebration.”

On the Army Radio’s Rino Tsror talk show, Giora Iland, formerly Head of the IDF's Planning Directorate (J5) and later Israel's National Security Advisor, said that Sudan agreed to stop enmity and agreed to start discussing agriculture and other things. Iland said that Sudan has only made a statement of intentions, nothing more. He pointed out that the present government of Sudan is transitional. “This is not a peace agreement like that with the UAE or normalization like with Bahrain. He said, “Lots of politicians talk about what’s going on but don’t know what’s going on and a few who don’t talk know a lot.” He said after the US elections there will be a different picture.

In the USA, President Trump made much of the Sudan Israeli talks and said other nations would soon follow. He hinted that Saudi Arabia would be one of them. But Dr. Nachman Shai, former Knesset Member and cabinet minister, now teaching at Duke University, said in an opinion piece in Ynet news, that these are only distractions from the real issue. That a Biden win will “mean a dramatic shift” for Israel. He wrote that Israel has been ignoring the US Jewish community and instead been supporting the Republican party. “Israel will have to go hat in hand” to the US Jewish community to get any support. He wrote that “The need for immediate achievements comes at the expense of any sort of long term vision.” He added, “Close association with Trump, the Republican Party, the evangelicals and their fervent supports...comes at the expense of similar ties to the democratic party and the diverse elements within it including the academic elite, workers’ unions, ethnic minorities and of course the Jewish community.”

Sands casino owner billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of Netanyahu’s biggest supporters in the USA’s Jewish community, and a major Trump donor, appeared in a new HBO documentary, “The Perfect Weapon,” about cyber-warfare. According to the documentary, based on the book by NY Times reporter David Sanger, Adelson inadvertently began the cyber war when he told a televised talk at New York’s Yeshiva University in 2013 that the US should drop a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert to display toughness in nuclear negotiations, “but without hurting a soul.”

The Iranians responded by launching a carefully planned cyber attack against Adelson’s Sands casinos requiring a $40 million fix. According to the documentary the cyber war was on, with the USA and Israel joining forces to attack Iran’s centrifuges that produce fissionable nuclear material. Then the Russians began their own attacks including those in 2016 when they tried to, and perhaps succeeded, in

influencing the USA election that put Trump in the presidency. And will probably try to disrupt the voting in the current election by hacking into computers counting votes or even changing names of voters so that when they appear at the poles to vote, or vote by mail, the votes will be invalid because the name on the ballots or presented to the election officials are different than those held by the voter.

A recent New York Times article says that Russia is still actively hacking nuclear plants and power grids. The article cites a hacking group called “Dragonfly” or “Energetic Bear,” a group traced to “a unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., targeting states and counties.” According to the Times, “Cybersecurity officials watched with growing alarm in September as Russian state hackers started prowling around dozens of American state and local government computer systems just two months before the election.” In the HBO documentary, Joe Biden told the camera, “Putin knows who I am and he doesn’t like me.”

The HBO documentary also mentions Russia and China hacking laboratories that were developing Covid-19 vaccines. With so many enemies, Israel needs to keep ahead of the curve to keep

up a level of preparedness should the various peace initiatives not prove to be enough. Iran has consistently tried to break into Israel’s security establishment’s computers. So far, at least the experts hope, the Iranians have been unsuccessful.

Right or Wrong?

 

On Sunday, Israel eased some restrictions from the lockdown imposed a month ago after infection rates hit nearly 9,000 over a 24 hour period, a rate of 15% Covid-19 positive test results. However, with the lockdown, the infection rate has fallen precipitously to less than a 5% positive infection rate.

Israel now has 302,832 people infected with Covid-19, that’s 32,925 per million, with 2,190 deaths, or 238 per million. The USA, by comparison, has 8,342,665 infected, or 25,160 per million, with 224,282 deaths at 676 per million.

Israel’s pre-schools and kindergartens have reopened. Travel restrictions for only up to 1 kilometer from home have been lifted entirely. Airports have also reopened. Also, the restriction against having guests in your home, or in synagogues, have been removed, but still limited to ten indoors and 20 outdoors. Restaurants are still closed but carry out is now permitted, not only deliveries. However, most schools have remained closed with classes only on Zoom. The government’s Covid-19 Czar Ronni Gamzu said on TV last night that people still had to remain vigilant, wear masks, keep social distance, and observe proper hygiene.

Razi Barkai, on his Galei Tzahal army radio show, criticized Prof. Arnon Afeck, who is on the government Covid-19 committee, for caving into political pressure by Haredi parties by allowing pre-schools and kindergartens to also open in the “hot” spots, or Red zones.

While most Haredi rabbis have come out in favor of the health ministry restrictions, including the closing of schools, yeshivot and limiting synagogue attendance, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, the 92 year old leader of the non-Hassidic “Litai” Ashkenazi community, told his followers to send their children to school in direct contravention to the government guidelines. According to Channel 12 TV news, the rabbi said that he’d asked for a date when the yeshiva students could return to study and received no reply so he acted on his own. This move set off a tidal wave of commentary across the media. Rav Kanievsky also ignored PM Netanyahu who warned him not to open the Haredi schools. Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox elementary schools with tens of thousands of students opened Sunday morning in open defiance of government restrictions. According to the Times of Israel, several politicians, including two government ministers, called for any institution that flouted the rules to lose its public funding.

Afeck said that Rabbi Kanievsky has called on his students to observe the regulations when they return to school. Sari Rot, of Modiin Elite, told Barkai that families live 12 to 13 persons in an apartment and when they’re locked in they spread the virus among themselves even if they observe the health regulations.

Some Haredi yeshiva students interviewed thought they had achieved a ‘herd immunity’ rate since most of the students had been infected and were thus immune. But Razi Barkai asked on Israel Army radio’s Galei Tzhal, what happens when these students go home on the weekends, or to visit their families, or hang out in town drinking coffee, as they are wont to do. Or just to go to the local grocery store for supplies or cigarettes? They spread the virus. On that topic, Haaretz thought “Netanyahu caved to the ultra-orthodox paving the way for a third lockdown.”

A lengthy article in Haaretz contained interviews with 16 leading Israeli physicians and hospital heads. The conclusions were, 1.) We have to learn to live with Covid-19. It will be with us for a least a year. 2.) On a scale of 1 – 10 where was Covid-19? Most said around 4. 3.) All thought a lockdown was a mistake. “And the policy for dealing with it is fundamentally wrong.” Prof. Asher Alhayani, former CEO of Meuhedet HMO said, “Even before the first lockdown, I said, ‘Friends, it won’t help, more people will die from the lockdown than from the coronavirus.” He said it helped at first but “the virus is here, and we have no idea when a vaccine will arrive.” He said poverty caused by the lockdown also kills. And creates heightened anxiety. And that every time the lockdown is lifted the numbers of infected skyrocket. He stressed a logical and practical approach.

Almost all those interviewed thought that politics were now determining how the pandemic was fought. Dr. Ariella Levkovich, and infectious disease specialist said, “...the decision makers’ behavior is characterized by cowardice and a lack of creativity. You can’t force nine million people to be locked in their homes like dogs in a kennel.” She thought that if the Haredi community was trying to achieve ‘herd immunity’ than they should be separated from the rest of the general population while this experiment goes on.

Dr. Shmuel Rochberger, specialist in internal medicine said, “What most worried me has been the unanimous agreement. The senior Health Ministry staff all spoke in the same voice. Today, I understand that the person setting policy and silencing every other voice is the prime minister. He’s not allowing any dialogue, and I say that with pain. I supported Netanyahu. I persuaded others to vote for him. Today, I am deeply ashamed of that.” Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, director, Ben-Gurion University School of Public Health, Beer Sheva, said, “The lockdown is an admission of failure. Prof. Gamzu has said so explicitly. It was a political decision.” Davidovitch said, “It’s time we found a way to live with the virus. If we follow the rules, avoid gatherings and adjust our activities wisely and effectively, by moving some of them into the open air for example, we will be able to reduce infection dramatically.” Dr. Gili Ofer-Bialer, of Maccabi HMO said, “Reality shows that this is a disease we’re going to have to live with.”

The restrictions on protests was also lifted. Saturday night saw thousands gathered outside Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence, and tens of thousands protesting around the country, calling for the prime minister to step down. One unsubstantiated statistic put the number at over 200,000 nationwide.

A number of protesters were arrested. Some of the protesters were hit with pepper spray, bottles and eggs. According to the media, since the protests began months ago only one counter-protester has been arrested, while scores of anti-Netanyahu protestors have been arrested and issued fines. Netanyahu has been indicted on three felonies.

Amos Gilad, former head of Israel’s military intelligence, thought that Netanyahu should also be investigated for involvement in the $3.2 billion submarine affair. Gilad said he was personally informed of the purchase of the submarines without the necessary three bids required by law. The purchase was made, anyway, without bids, and the contract was awarded to the German ThyssenKrupp AG company. Two of those involved in the purchase, both close to Netanyahu, have been indicted for bribery and receiving kickbacks. “These things don’t happen without the commander knowing what’s going on,” said Gilad. He thought a police investigation, not one run by the defense ministry, should be opened into Netanyahu’s part in the affair. He worried that some in the defense ministry may have been involved in the scandal and would try to cover up the facts.

Critics say that Netanyahu’s attacks on the legal system and protests against him, coupled with the destabilizing effects of the virus, are major causes for deep polarizing atmosphere that has settled over Israel and fear the violence may yet turn deadly. Netanyahu’s popularity is slipping quickly. One protester outside Balfour street said he was a liberal, but would even vote for the right-wing Yamina party’s Neftali Bennett if that would mean Netanyahu was out of office. “As long as we get someone honest, I don’t care who it is.”

In the USA, Rupert Murdoch of the Fox News empire, has said that President Trump would lose the election because of the way he handled the Covid-19 pandemic. In Israel, Netanyahu’s handling of the pandemic has cost him support even among those who once voted for him. Pundits wonder if both Netanyahu and Trump are looking at their last days in power. But pundits have been wrong before.

Hang Onto Your Hats

 

A few things.

1.) Is Trump faking this infection? Michael Moore, the filmmaker, ranted a conspiracy theory on Facebook that Trump was faking the infection to help him in the polls. Now that he has “beaten” C-19 and shown it “wasn’t so bad,” he can justify not wearing a mask, and be a superhero to his followers. Trump declared himself “drug free,” and is going back on the campaign trail.

Analysts say that with the polls favoring Presidential candidate Joe Biden by as much as 10 points, it seems that President Trump needs all the help he can get to win the upcoming election.

2.) Another observer asked “When President Trump told the Proud Boys to “Stand by and Stay Ready” was he talking about using them when he lost the election to riot in the streets as the election was contested?

When the President asked William Barr, the attorney general, to change the rules that prohibited investigations into election fraud before an election?”

According to the NY Times, “For decades, federal prosecutors have been told not to mount election fraud investigations in the final months before an election for fear they could depress voter turnout or erode confidence in the results. Now, the Justice Department has lifted that prohibition weeks before the presidential election. The move comes as President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr have promoted a false narrative that voter fraud is rampant, potentially undermining Americans’ faith in the election.”

3.) In Israel, PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has slipped 40% in the polls over the last few months. Likud now, according to a Channel 12 TV poll, shows Netanyahu’s Likud party with only 26 seats while Yamina party’s Neftali Bennett, once a Netanyahu loyalist, is now his arch-rival. Bennett’s Yamina, with 23 seats in the polls is breathing down Netanyahu’s neck. Bennett’s votes, pundits say, were mostly taken from Blue and White. Analysts say Bennett may swing more to the center and merge his Yamina party with Likud while dumping far-right MK Smotritch from Yamina.

Avraham Rabinovitz, political commentator on Channel 12 news said that Blue and White, that tied Netanyahu in three previous elections, is now down to just 9 seats, and has to start being more proactive.“ And … about Gantz and Ashkenazi: what happened to them is exactly, but exactly what was predicted to happen to them.” (that they were shut out by Netanyahu, ignored, and marginalized) “This survey, might still benefit them. This poll and other polls should be a wake-up call for Gantz and Ashkenazi – but they seem to be sleeping so deeply that it is unlikely they will wake up.” Rabinovitz also said that Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid may lose more votes to Yamina. ”

Channel 12 tv’s poll figures show that the public’s opinion of how Netanyahu handled the Covid-19 pandemic is dismal. 64 % of those polled thought he did a bad job. 

According to Rabinovitz, “the public understands that the corona crisis is being managed with a narrow personal prism, with a personal political prism.” In other words, Netanyahu is worried more about his trial, where he is scheduled to begin appearing in court on Jan 1, 2020 for three felonies, than with fighting the corona-19 pandemic. However, legal maneuvering has kept moving the opening court sessions farther and farther away. Netanyahu’s attorney’s are trying to get the Jan 1, 2021 date moved to at least the spring.

Analysts in Israel also ask what the American public thinks of Trumps performance?

According to the Pew Research Center’s September poll, 57% thought Trump was projecting the wrong message. A CNN poll published yesterday said the disapproval of Trump’s handling of the overall coronavirus outbreak reached 60 percent in the poll, while 37 percent approved.

4.) New elections in Israel? Pundits agree that Netanyahu does not want new elections now, not with his popularity lagging. And the sharks circling to take him out. Finance Minister Israel Katz, of the Likud party, publicly disagreed with Bibi, something previously unheard in the Likud hierarchy.

According to Rabinovitz, “It is very interesting what Gideon Saar, Israel Katz and Nir Barkat think at the moment, all those who thought they were Netanyahu’s successors – and it turns out to them that the one who may and may replace him is Naftali Bennett.”

Other observers say that Netanyahu may soon have a rebellion in his ranks. “But who knows?” they ask. “He’s one of the wiliest politicians to ever appear on the Israei scene.”

5. Some observers say that Defense Minister Gantz and Foreign Minister Ashkenazi, of Blue and White, may heed Rabinovitz’s call and wake from their deep slumber Ashkenazi has said that he believes what he and Gantz are doing is “biting the bullet,” keeping the government stable in a time of crises, which they, (both Gantz and Ashkenazi are former Army Chiefs of Staff,) consider their patriotic duty.

Still, they may oppose Netanyahu’s request to extend the budget deadline, again. It now stands as the end of December. If no new budget is passed by then, and another extension denied, then new elections will automatically be called. But will Gantz and Ashkenazi decide that opposing Bibi is the most patriotic thing they can do now? Pundits, in a wait and see mode, speculate that if the Blue and White party leaders stand up and oppose Netanyahu’s request for a budget extension, then there will be new elections, soon. As of now the analysts say March or June.

6.) Key point. The economy is going down the tubes. How long can business be frozen in place? According to the Jerusalem Post, by September 20, 2020, “The number of unemployed people in Israel passed 900,000.”

The Azrieli Modiin Mall was a veritable ghost town on Wednesday. Almost all the stores were closed. Only the bank and post office were open, with lines of people in masks, socially distanced, waiting their number to be called to enter the facility. A few take away restaurants.

Azrieli Mall, Modiin, Israel

were open. Businesses need income to pay the taxes that fuel the government. With the current regulations, experts say, the economy will slowly grind to a halt.

7.) Lockdown and protests. Israel entered a lockdown with only essential businesses open, travel limited to 1 km from home, and, over the Succot holiday, a rule against having visitors in the succah. Or at home. The lockdown seems to have some effect. The infection rate has fallen from a high of over 13% to a little over 9%. Still, Israel has the 6^th highest deaths per capita in the world.

Protesters are forbidden to travel farther than a kilometer from home to attend a protest. Still, protests have sprung up in Tel Aviv and elsewhere that were broken up by the police. One protester in his twenties in Tel Aviv said he was unemployed, had no money, and was protesting so the government would do something about him and others like him. Protests continued Saturday night with thousands of anti-Netanyahu protester at hundred of locations around the country.

7.) “The Haredim in Israel and in NYC are going nuts,” said one commentator. “Small groups seem to steer the conversation.” In Israel the Peleg Yerushalmi, the ultra-conservative ultra-orthodox group, refuses to listen to Haredi leaders like Rav Chaim Kanievsky, now hospitalized in serious condition with Covid-19. Aryeh Deri, Sephardi Shaas party leader told Channel 13 tv news that a fringe of protesters was not listening to the leaders who were clear in saying, wear masks, keep a distance, and pray outdoors not in synagogues. Still, in Haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and places like Modiin Elite, the Haredi protesters ignore pleas to keep a social distance and stay out of enclosed places, like synagogues. The infection rate in the Haredi community in Israel is three times that in a non-Haredi community.

“Today we’re dealing with the Haredim instead of Corona,” said Moshe Shlonsky on Galei Zahal’s Army radio.

8.) Haredim in the USA.

Scenes of Haredim dancing in the streets without masks, or wearing masks with Trump’s name on them, were splashed across Israeli TV and media. Some protests were in Boro Park, led by Heshy Tischler, whose apparent agenda is to get elected to the city council it seems.

One protester said the police crackdown was aimed at Haredim because it was known they support Trump for president. The Haredi organization Agudas Yisrael is protesting the move to limit the number of worshipers in synagogues.

The infection rate in the Haredi community in the USA is three to five times that in the non-religious communities. In the Haredi town of Kyrias Yoel the Covid-19 infection rate is reportedly 28% of the total population whereas statewide the infection rate is only 1%. Some of the protesters told reporters that if Black Lives Matter protests could go on, why couldn’t they pray inside synagogues on the Succot holiday?

A similar refrain was heard in Israel regarding the protests on Balfour street against Prime Minister Netanyahu when complaining Haredim could not attend prayers inside the synagogues.

Analysts see that, as the crises goes on, a divide is widening in the USA between the Haredi community and the communities at large.

In Israel, said one analyst, the police and army can deal with the Haredim. Not a new thing. But the resentment aginst the Haredim is growing dangerously.

But in the USA? That’s even more worrisome.”

Another said that while those Haredim in Boro Park are legitimate American citizens, how well will they take the to the police using an iron fist, as both Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have warned?

Even if these Haredim in Boro Park don’t wear those Trump facemasks, analysts ask, how much support will they get from the non-Haredi Jewish population? Or the non-religious Jewish population? One pundit said that “Here’s where it gets dicey, will their eschewing the health regulations create a massive antisemitic backlash, even if they do wear Trump facemasks? A few Proud Boys raiding Boro Park could create a wave of such attacks, especially if the virus is placed squarely on the shoulders of the Haredim.”

9.) Hang onto your hats.

Alternative Reality

 

Many in Israel believe that the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) live in another world, an alternate reality from that of the normal Israeli: one centered on spirituality, ritual and social conformity. Many Israelis believe that the Haredim, who fight against going in the army, and mostly live off the state, are purposely isolated from the outside world and insulated from outside influences.

Haredim eschew television, and any radio programs or internet sites not approved by the rabbinical authorities. Haredim have their own newspapers, radio stations, and internet sites. Posters with the latest news and announcements are still plastered on notice boards around the Haredi neighborhoods, versions of the ancient pasquinades.

That they live in an alternate reality became clearer this morning when Chaim Vader, a Haredi writer and publicist, appeared on Israel radio Kan Reshet Bet’s “Kalman/Leiberman” talk show. Chaim refuted the Weizman Institutes statistics that examined last week’s infection numbers, including those infected over the Succot weekend. The Weizman institute concluded that there was a 22 % increase in infections in the general population but a 50% increase in the Haredi population. “I want to tell you I have statistics that are completely different,” said Chaim.

A bit of background is necessary here. As of Monday afternoon, there were 268,175 people infected in Israel, that was 29,157 per million making Israel the third highest per capita in the world. 1,719 people had died, at 187 per million a relatively low number, with 878 people in critical condition and 65,064 active cases with approximately 90% of those in isolation.

Emergency regulations to ostensibly try to curtail the rise of virus cases, that had reached as many as 9,000 new cases a day, were enacted. The new rules, in effect for one week, restricted travel, except for emergencies or for those involved in vital jobs, to one kilometer from home (about half-a-mile). But Haaretz reporter Chaim Levinson broke the news that Likud Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel, had ignored the health ministry rules and driven over 100 miles from her home in Tel Aviv to her in-laws home in Tiberias, parts of which are a virus hotspot, to be with them for the Yom Kippur fast. The regulations limited travel to half-a-mile. Her father-in-law is a rabbi in Tiberias. She said she contracted Covid-19 from her driver. Levinson reported that she tried to hide the trip from a Health Ministry epidemiological investigation into her infection. She denies that accusation. Pundits do say that her actions prove that that all people are equal but some more equal than other.

 

Another implied effect of the emergency regulation was restricting protesters from traveling more than one kilometer from their home to protest, effectively shutting down the weekly Balfour protests in front of PM Netanyahu’s home calling for him to step down. Critics say this rule was meant to stop the protests that were reportedly unnerving Netanyahu and his family. The tactic only led to a dispersion of the protests with tens of thousands of protesters spread around the country, on street corners, bridges or marching in downtown Tel Aviv, where mounted police confronted them arresting nearly 20 people.

 

One report in Haaretz stated that Public Security Minister Amir Ohana had ambitions to become Minister of Police and the police commanders in Tel Aviv hit the protesters hard to curry favor with the potential Minister of Police.

 

But on the Kalman/Leiberman talk show, Chaim told the broadcasters that the protests were not proof that the Haredi community was not discriminated against. Still, Kalman went on to say that among those critically ill, 9% were from the general population and 60% from the Haredi community. Again, Chaim said “I have completely different numbers.”

 

“That say what?” asked the broadcasters. “That the numbers are the same (in both the general population and the Haredi) or even less.” When asked to divulge his sources Chaim demurred. “I saw it in the media, somewhere. I don’t have your resources at my fingertips to pull up these sources.” Chaim also claimed, without proof, that there were no more deaths this year than any other year in Israel. “Not true” said Kalman. “Oh, but you should know that it is true,” said Chaim. 

 

When Kalman asked him how he explained the death of the Admor (rabbinical leader) Hassidic Rebbe Mordechai Leifer, known as the Pittsburg rebbe, at age 64, Chaim said he didn’t refute that Covid-19 wasn’t dangerous, just that it wasn’t fare to pick on the Haredi community. (Thousands turned out for the Rabbi’s funeral.) The key to the discussion was about equality in a democracy. Why should thousands be allowed to demonstrate on Balfour street (against Prime Minister Netanyahu) and the Haredim not be allowed to pray? Again and again Chaim returned to this refrain. In a democracy all should be equal. “There should be a law equal for all. As soon as you don’t do that…” he said, trailing off.

 

“Okay,” Kalman said, “You’ve convinced me. No more demonstrations. Does that mean that the synagogues and yeshivot and study halls will close?” Chaim answered, “There will be less.” Kalman repeated, “Okay, you’ve convinced me, Balfour demonstrations are equal to synagogues.” “Look,” Chaim said, “the simple man in the street, he sees the demonstrations and he says why can’t I go to synagogue if they can demonstrate?” Chaim said that “These people aren’t friers (suckers). They see that you can go to demonstrations but we can’t pray. They don’t buy it.” He also said, “You have a family of twelve stuck in an apartment without a television, no sport, no books. What do you expect them to do?”

 

“But the demonstrations are in an open space, outside, the prayers are indoors,” said Kalman, who is modern Orthodox. He even quoted from a letter by Rabbi David Kanievsky, the 92-year-old leader of the “Litai” Ashkenazi Jews, who wrote that those running synagogues should do their best to maintain the health regulations. 

 

“But he didn’t say to close them,” Kalman said. Kalman also said that the rabbinical leaders treated their followers like children. And if they would just tell them, as parents tell their children, how to behave, they’d save a lot of lives.” Rabbi Kanievsky, who at one point told the yeshiva students to ignore rules to say out of their yeshivas, was hospitalized with Covid-19 last Thursday. His condition remains stable.

 

At one point Asaf Leiberman chimed in, “Chaim, I can’t take it any more. You toss out these numbers and claim to have sources but you don’t have any facts. All you do is muddle the issue.”

 

“Then why,” he asked, “that for forty years there hasn’t been any demonstrations in Bnai Brak until this year?” Good question. Clearly there was truth in his skepticism.

The police claim they closed up 22 synagogues and that 18 Haredi protestors were arrested in the demonstrations that followed. Other protests and battles took place in Mea Sharim in Jerusalem and Haredi towns like Betar Elite and Modiin Elite. The police went into these neighborhoods to enforce the regulations that no gatherings were to take place in the Succot (booths or huts) put up for the festival. Regulations also forbade visits by anyone to a succah not their own. Police said they passed out over 10,000 fines at 500 shekels (@$140) apiece.

 

What was clear during the discussion was that the Haredi community had their own views on the Covid-19 pandemic and what caused it. “Don’t you have an obligation to go to your community and tell them to follow the rules. To help save lives?” asked Kalman.

 

“Most of those infected are children. We take good care of the elderly,” Chaim said.

 

Chaim, who also wrote for a Haredi newspaper, apparently believed what he was saying. That may mean that an entire body of information that is counter to mainstream sources is promulgated and accepted as fact by the Haredi population.

 

Chaim thought that the protests in Bnei Brak and other places were a result of the police not realizing that “synagogues are sacrosanct.” Kalman countered, “But dangerous.” “So are demonstrations on Balfour street. Or in Tel Aviv,” said Chaim. According to Chaim, only a fringe group of Haredim are causing trouble. Are protesting. Are fighting with the police. TV news reports show young Haredim trotting backwards in front of a public bus driving through their neighborhood and tearing the windshield wipes from the windows. Police say others threw stones and bricks. One news clip from a bystanders mobile phone showed an enraged policeman tossing an empty bucket at a fleeing boy and hitting him in the head. The clip played over and over on TV. The boy is now represented by an attorney and is suing the police.

 

The discussion between Chaim and the broadcasters never devolved into an argument but it was clear a great wall like that in China stood between the two sides. Each had their own view of reality.

 

Another alternate reality is the one created and inhabited by U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

Like the Haredim, President Trump lives in his own world. He is the star of that world. Analysts say that future politicians will study how President Trump achieved his outstanding success, not in business, in which he has been proven to be less than stellar example of business acumen, but as a reality TV star.

 

President Trump reportedly earned over $450 million from his reality TV show “The Apprentice.” He used that money, it was reported, to prop up his failing businesses. President Trump realized that after seven seasons of mostly high ratings, they dropped off at the end, that being outrageous worked.

 

He carried those lessons to the 2016 elections and managed to steal headlines and be the lead, or close to the lead, story in every news cycle. He never stopped his outrageous behavior nor did he give up his successful tactic of always being in the news.

 

Flouting the mask rule he became a symbol for his followers, who copied him. He reportedly enforced this no mask rule in cabinet meetings demanding those wearing masks remove them. One observer quipped that he ignored science knowing science was a word in the dictionary, a book that was rarely opened by his loyal following. 

 

Even when Covid-19 caught up with him President Trump played to the grandstands. In Walter Reed Hospital the President was treated with the latest drugs and methods that science could provide. The medical staff apparently managed, so far, to contain the virus. The President stole headlines, again, when he came out waving to his fans from inside his limousine. More headlines. More discussion. Again, the center of attention. According to a 2018 article in the British paper, the Guardian, “Trump has weathered endless scandals by creating a new one to distract from the last. He's a carnival huckster running a three-ring circus.”

 

Like Chaim Veder of Bnai Brak, President Trump lives in his own world filled with the truths he finds amenable to his behavior. One observer pointed out that President Trump massages facts to his own advantage and outlook. The observer added, “but science isn’t idle speculation. Death is absolute. The Covid-19 virus kills.”

 

Experts say that masks slow down and can even prevent infection. Massaging the truth to fit a world view, real or imagined, does not change the truth, said one pundit. Living in an alternative reality, said another observer, ultimately becomes living in an illusion. A policeman’s baton, or a tracheotomy to insert an oxygen supply, become the reality. Blaming the left, or the media, or anti-Haredi politicians will not change the facts. Nor will imposing lockdowns to quell the anti-Netanyahu protests. 

 

The Covid-19 might be slowed down in Israel by the emergency measures, but until the governments in hard-hit countries, like the USA and Israel, begin to take and follow the advice of scientists, not leaders like Trump and Netanyahu who put politics and personal gain before the lives of their citizens, it appears that the numbers will continue to grow. One day there will be a vaccine. But until then the hucksters and the self-interested should pay more attention how to fight the virus than to feed their egos or, for Netanyahu, try tricks to stay out of jail.