COVID-19
9388 new Coronavirus infections were reported in Israel over the last 24-hours. That was 7.9% of those tested. Israel has seen numbers of over 9,000 for several days. Today, Jan 14, 2021, according to https://ncov2019.live/data, Israel had 520,060 infected, that was 71,124 per million, with 3,817 deaths, at 415 per million, nearly 250 were on ventilators, and there were 1,054 critical cases and 78,221 active cases. Israel was #28th in the list of infected countries. Israel is also seeing the effects of a virulent “British” and “South African” strain of the virus that is much more contagious but not more deadly.
The USA was still #1 in infections, at 26,616,324, and deaths reaching close to 400,000. Yesterday the USA recorded a record single day record of 4,200 deaths. The USA has been sluggish to start a vaccination campaign. So far 10 million Americans have been vaccinated, that’s 10% of the elderly/at risk population but only 3.4% of the total population.
To combat the holiday inspired surge in infections, Israel has entered a two-week “total lockdown.” This is Israel’s third “total lockdown” that is being strictly enforced. Schools, malls, restaurants, theaters and all but essential businesses are closed. Residents are restricted to within 1 km (@600 yards) of their homes. Police man roadblocks on the main highways checking to see if the driver has a legitimate reason to be on the road.
However, the investigation is cursory unless a suspicion is aroused, then the police check the driver’s story using a database listing occupation and residence. A stiff fine is imposed on those trying to ignore the regulations. TV reports show long lines of cars during rush hour lined up at the barricades, snaking into the horizon. Israel’s Coronavirus Czar Prof. Nahum Ash, announced today that the lockdown will probably be extended another week in order to quell the spike in infections.
According to Ynetnews, Prof. Ash also said that the “restrictions could be eased if the number of serious patients decreases even if the tally of daily cases remains higher than where it was when the 2 previous lockdowns were lifted.” He added, because of the British and S. African mutations, the number of infections is higher, but “if we see a relatively sharp decline in the number of serious patients, we will be able to come out (of the lockdown) with a slightly higher number of daily cases than last time.”
Israel has continued the massive innoculation campaign. The vaccines reportedly also work on the new British and S. African strain. Over 20% of Israel’s population has so far been vaccinated. The campaign began with those over 60 and has now dropped down to vaccinate those over 45. Prime Minister Netanyahu expects the entire country to be vaccinated by March 20, 2021. (Coincidentally, that is three days before Israel’s fourth election in two years. Netanyahu is trying his best to take credit for the rate of delivery of the Pfizer vaccine and the success of the vaccination campaign.) Israel is vaccinating between 150,000 – 200,000 people a day.
Israel is, according to the media, being used as a global guide for the world not only as a system for vaccinations, but also in the results. Israel’s vaccines are being administered by the four HMOs in the country. All have extensive data bases and are interconnected, making the notification by phone or SMS easy. An SMS message carries a link to a website that allows the person to chose a date and location for the innoculation. The visit is entered into a data base of the HMO and the Health Ministry and should any complications arise the data is recorded and shared. Ostensibly, this gathering and sharing of data is one of the reasons that Pfizer pharmaceuticals, among others, has stepped up the deliveries to Israel, now scheduled to be approximately 1 million doses a week. Moderna Pharmaceuticals has also begun deliveries, but on a smaller scale, about 100,000 doses a week. Reportedly, these Moderna doses will be given to the Army and Police.
Already, according to the Israel Health Ministry, results are positive. Following just the first innoculation, the Israel’s infection rate has dropped over 30%. The current spike, according to health officials, is caused by the recent holiday season. The Hanukkah holiday saw a spike in the ultra-Orthodox community. 34% of those infected come from the ultra-Orthodox community. The Arab community is also hard hit, following the Christmas and New Years holiday, reaching over a 40% infection rate.
Once a those innoculated have received both the first and second innoculation, they will be issued a “green card” that will allow them to go to restaurants and coffee shops and theaters and to travel outside the country. The EU today was concerned about documents like these “green cards” and objected to their use saying it put undue pressure on their countries to meet Israel’s pace of vaccination, something countries like Germany, France and Austria are hard-put to do.
POLITICS
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s trial for corruption and breach of trust has been postponed because of the lockdown. The trial is set to resume in early March, if the lockdown is lifted. Meanwhile, Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul and major philanthropist, passed away this week at aged 87. Adelson was one of Netanyahu’s financial backers. He also started the pro Likud/Netanyahu free daily newspaper “Israel HaYom” (Israel Today). Adelson is to be buried in Israel. Adelson was also a major supporter of President Trump.
As of now, according to the Channel 12 TV news polls, the Likud stands to win 29 seats in the next election but is still short of the 61 seats necessary to form a government. His main rival, former Likud “Prince” Gideon Saar, polls 21 seats. Saar has said he would not go into a coalition with Netanyahu. Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party barely gets 5 seats in the recent polls. Gantz lost the majority of his support when he broke his election promise and went into the Netanyahu government. Many of those who were stalwarts in his Knesset list have left for other parties. Pundits say that as things stand now, another fragile coalition is the best scenario. Baring that, another round of elections should a stalemate occur. The fifth election in 2 years. Netanyahu, according to analysts, gets an A for securing the vaccines and an F for managing the Covid-19 epidemic in Israel.
THE CAPITOL RIOTS
Then there’s Trump and the Capitol riots. One observer said it reminded him of the Conspiracy 7 trial, (a film of that event is now on Netflix) where a Jewish judge, Julius Hoffman, faced the accused conspirator Abby Hoffman, also Jewish. A conundrum that drove some anti-Semites to distraction. The insurrection at the Capitol was not much different. According to press reports, groups like QAnon and the Proud Boys, who were no longer standing down nor standing by, along with other Neo-Nazi groups, were in the same mob as Orthodox Jews. Most obvious was Aaron Mostofsky, a registered Democrat, who was taken into custody in Brooklyn on Tuesday. Mostofsky faces four federal charges, including theft of government property. He is the son of Kings County Supreme Court Judge Steven (Shlomo) Mostofsky, also a registered Democrat.
Aaron Mosofsky was, according to the NY Times, wearing a bullet-proof vest, valued at $1,905, with “Police” written on it, and carried a riot shield, valued at $256. Mostofsky was one of more than 70 people charged since the riots. Reportedly, the Justice Department and F.B.I are pursing at least 170 other suspects, acting on over 100,000 tips. On Jan 6, 2021 Mosofsky posted a video on Instagram labeled “DC bound stopthesteal” According to the NYTimes, Mostofsky’s brother Neil, who was also at the riot but claims he did not enter the Capitol, is the executive director of Chovevei Zion, a politically conservative Orthodox Jewish advocacy organization.
On Long Island, in New York, the Orthodox media’s support for the Capitol mob “roils Long Island Jewish communities,” according to an article in the Times Of Israel.
“One paper banned from two synagogues after running photo of columnist posing triumphantly in front of sea of protesters, others steadfast in support of Trump,” according to Shira Hanau writing in the Times of Israel. Hanau wrote that the day after the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, the “5 Towns Jewish Times,” a weekly newspaper catering to the large Orthodox community in Nassau County on Long Island, ran of photo of one of its columnists positing triumphantly in front of a sea of protesters.” The photo was of 5TJT columnist Dr. Gila Jedwab (a dentist), who claims she left before the mob entered the Capitol. One 5TJT staffer, Marcy Behrmann Farrell, the online editor, resigned from the paper saying she could not work for a publication "that places so little value on respect and sees no value in our laws.”
Chat rooms on other Orthodox Jewish publications showed no remorse and were filled with debates. The haredi Orthodox online “Vos IZ Neias” claimed that Antifa, a loose collection of leftist anti-fascists, was responsible for the violence at the Capitol.
Lloyd Wolf, free-lance photographer for the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) was covering the riots. He approached two women blowing the shofar (hollow ram’s horn), one wrapped in a tallit (ritual prayer shawl). Wolf said he questioned the women and deduced they were evangelical Christians blowing the shofar like Joshua to bring down the walls of Jericho.
So far six people have died as a result of the riots, one facing arrest committed suicide on Saturday. One of the Capitol police was killed. An attorney asked if that did not make all those involved in the riot guilty as accessories? Even Trump, who incited the riot? Other analysts say that this wasn’t a riot but a failed insurrection. AP (Associated Press) reportedly assiduously avoided calling the riot a ‘coup’ and settled for ‘insurrection.’ Other observers say Trump tried and failed to seize the Capitol and perhaps have his followers force the legislators to void the Electoral College votes, or at least destroy them.
According to legal experts Trump can still be denied any chance to run again for office if such a motion is approved by a simple majority of the Senate. Others say the issue is not so clear. Perhaps, they posit, he must first be convicted at the impeachment hearings.
However, the investigations into how the riot happened, how the mob managed to get into the Capitol, is ongoing. The role of the Pentagon official, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, who dragged his heels sending in the National Guard, saying he didn’t want photos of the National Guard holding rifles, and standing in front of the Capitol building. Ultimately, VP Pence called him and urged sending in the National Guard, although Trump should have been the one to do that.
Then there was the role of some of the Capitol police seen wearing red Trump supporter MAGA hats and guiding rioters around the Capitol building, or the charge that some legislators, like Congresswoman Lauren Boebart,(R. Colorado) were complicit in the riots by texting locations of the legislators. Reportedly, she tweeted “speaker has been removed from the changer.” Boebart also reportedly carries a gun in her purse and refuses to go through the Capitol buildings metal detectors. Speaker Pelosi has said anyone refusing to go through the detector will face a $10,000 fine. According to reports, Secret Service agents are concerned for President Elect Biden’s life and worry an irate legislator may try to assassinate Biden.
Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (D. New Jersey) said she witnessed colleagues escorting people through the Capitol on ‘reconnaissance’ ahead of the violent insurrection. She notified the Capitol police and the Capitol Sargent At arms. Both the chief of the Capitol police and the Sargent-at-arms have resigned. Some Capitol police have been suspended with pay. There are also reports of police from around the country attending the riots. John Catanzara, the head of the largest Chicago Policeman’s Union, defended those who attacked the Capitol. Other policemen from around the country who were seen at the riot have been suspended.
Time will show who was to blame. Who was complicit. Pundits expect the lengthy impeachment trial of President Trump to take months. And while the trial is expected to impede President Elect Biden’s need to get Senate approval for his cabinet picks, ultimately a vote on their acceptability will be taken.
But, then there’s Lloyd Wolf. His father escaped Nazi Germany, came to America, served in the US Army, and was part of the unit that liberated the Nazi’s Buchenwald concentration camp. Wolf recalls his father’s telling of the brown shirts and Hitler Youth and how frightened he was as a boy. And how relieved he was when he made it to America. According to Wolf “The Proud Boys are the equivalent of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (Hitler’s street terrorists)... It came to me that this fascist thuggery and oppression is what my father came to America to get away from.”
David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee said, “It was the soft core group, not the hard core group, that allowed itself to be co-opted” and give power to the Nazis. He said that QAnon, the group that claims a deep conspiracy of pedophiles, globalists an atheists, has many of the same classic anti-Semitic tropes: a cabal that is also preying on children. Another observer of QAnon said that “Q” was to be the savior of America and the Christian world. And some thought that “Q” was either Trump or someone close to him.
The inauguration is only days away, and the impeachment is expected to drag on for months. Former FBI head James Comey is against the impeachment because he says it will give Trump exactly what he wants, to be the center of attention. In the news every day.
Pundits worry what else Trump and his followers have in mind. Trump may be out of office by next week but he will not be out of mind for months to come. As one observer said, it’s time for those who really prize democracy to “Stand down” but “Stand by.” And be ready to act before the Proud Boys, the Neo-Nazis and the QAnon followers strike again.
