Too Much Or Not Enough
Jerusalem Magazine
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SOME THINGS SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SAID
Israel’s Prime Minister Neftali Bennett, speaking in his first appearance at the UN on Wednesday, didn’t take the same aggressive posture as his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared at the UN with charts and graphs showing Iran’s increasing proximity to a nuclear weapon. According to Israeli press reports, Bennett spoke in general terms about Iran, mentioning that country 26 times during his speech. Critics pointed out the he never once mentioned the Palestinian issue.
Bennett advised the world on how to handle the Covid-19 pandemic. “While doctors are an important input, they cannot be the ones running the national initiative. The only person that has a good vantage point of all considerations is the national leader of any given country. to let the leaders of countries make the decisions related to Covid-19 and not allow the health experts and medical professionals to make those decisions.”
Bennett’s statements brought about a plethora of harsh criticism from Israel’s health officials. Health Minister Neitzan Horowitz called the remarks “unfortunate.” Health Ministry Director-General Nachum Ash said he was saddened by Bennett’s statements. “It is an unpleasant reality. We didn’t expect such comments…We will continue to make our opinions heard.” Another official said, “We’re giving our all…and yet he attacks us off the UN stage."
Bennett has reportedly been at odds with the health officials who have called for more restrictions, while Bennett reportedly thinks more restrictions would harm the economy and do nothing to help defeat the virus.
However, in a reported attempt to ameliorate the disagreements, Bennet met on Thursday with Israeli health officials: Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, Health Ministry director general Nachman Ash, head of the ministry’s public health services, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, and coronavirus czar Salman Zarka. The office also issued a statement:
According to the Prime Ministers Office. “The prime minister and the health minister stressed during the conversation that they give great importance to the position of the professional officials, even when it differs from the position of the policy-makers,” says the PMO.
AND SOME SHOULD HAVE
Another official was criticized for not saying enough. On Tuesday, America’s Vice-President Kamala Harris was a guest in a class at George Mason University’s Fairfax, VA campus in commemoration of National Voter Registration Day, when a student who identified herself as a Yeminite/Iranian non-American Moslem, said that American military aid for Israel should be stopped and accused Israel of “Ethnic genocide.” The student also expressed outrage at US funding of the Iron Dome.
According to the Jewish Press, the student said “I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers… Just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”
Harris reportedly listened quietly, nodding, as the student spoke. Then, according to the Times of Israel, Harris said to the student, “Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things that we’re fighting for in a democracy, right, a democracy is its strongest when everybody participates…: “VP Harris added, “…policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our own country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.”
According to the New York Post, “The exchange took place days after left-wing House Democrats forced the removal of language providing $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system from a continuing resolution to fund the government through early December.”
The Israeli press thought Israel felt betrayed by Harris who should have at least pushed back on the student’s statements and corrected them. The Jerusalem Post reported that US Vice President Kamala Harris applauded a student who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide,” saying, “your truth cannot be suppressed.” Some critics speculated VP Harris was showing her pro-Progressive streak allowing Israel to be cast as an enemy of freedom in the Middle East.
However, Haaretz reported that “Guy Ziv, an associate professor at American University who writes on Israeli history, posted in reply to the incident: "While it's understandable that Israelis would bristle at claims of 'ethnic genocide,' there's nothing in the VP's record to suggest that she agreed with anything this student said. Nodding and listening to a student's perspective doesn't mean embracing it.”
Journalists from various Israeli news outlets asked Harris’ office for a clarification but said they’d received no response.
C-19 ECMO
Israel is facing a crisis over the demand for patients requiring the life-saving ECMO machines. Some Israeli media outlets report that almost all of the machines in Israel are presently in use. According to interviews with doctors on Israel TV, a choice now has to be made which patient lives by getting the ECMO treatment and which will die.
The problem is two fold, said one pundit. On the one hand Israeli hospital officials claim that the vast majority of the patients needing ECMO, between 80-100 percent, depending on the hospital, are unvaccinated or without the third ‘booster’ shot. Should those people have had their vaccinations then the life-and-death decisions wouldn’t be necessary?
The pundit added, that the other problem is staff. According to a report on Israel TV’s Channel 12 News that showed footage of rows and rows of ECMO machines, the problem is not equipment but that there are not enough trained health workers to run the ECMO machines.
Whichever explanation one accepts, said one observer, the result is more people are dying then need to. Another observer said that perhaps the hospital chiefs meant more funds were needed for staff not machines.
The number of people on ECMO machines has risen dramatically with most of the unvaccinated patients in their twenties, thirties and forties, according to physicians interviewed for the report on Israel’s Channel 12 news. According to Channel 12 news, there are currently 53 patients on the ECMO machines.
A health expert explained that ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machines oxygenate a patient’s blood outside of the body, unlike ventilators that just assist with breathing. ECMO machines do the work of a person’s heart and lungs in order to allow them to recover from serious respiratory illness. Israel now has 641 seriously ill patients, with over 200 on ventilators.
But Israel has just finished the month-long High Holiday and Festive Holiday season. Schools have been closed most of the time and many offices. Because of this, testing has been done less often and results of new cases consequently lower. Israel reported only 3,819 new cases on Wednesday with an R rate of 0.78 and infection rate of 4.19, some of the lowest numbers in months. Health researchers from the Hebrew University expect the numbers to stay low as more people are vaccinated.
Even so, Israel has also imposed a new regulation on the Green Pass requirements. As of Monday, Oct 3, unless someone can show they’ve have all three vaccines their Green Pass will expire. The Green Pass allows people into events, gyms, pools, and other highly-regulated facilities. The Minister of Education also announced that should a teacher not be able to show they’d been vaccinated with the booster they will not be allowed into the classroom.
Nearly two million Israeli students returned to class on Thursday with nearly 100,000 in quarantine. Students had to show a negative test result, either from a home test or from a facility before being allowed into the classroom. However, Education officials were concerned that only 81% of the parents have claimed the free home testing kits needed for kids to gain entry to school.
According to the health ministry, many parents won’t send their children to school in the coming days fearing a positive test result would require a need to quarantine the children, resulting in their parents losing workdays.
Around the world 234,072,325 cases of Covid-19 have been reported, with 4,788,397 deaths, and 24,873,079 active cases, according to ncov2019.live/data. The USA is still number one with 44,199,496 cases, 713,953 deaths, and 9,850,841 active cases. Israel is number 30 with 1,277,270 cases, 7,732 deaths, and 49,142 active cases.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Faucci, US chief medical adviser, said in an interview with Israel Galei Zahal Army radio, that the US is receiving information from Israel on the booster. He said that the US was interested in the results of the booster on IDF troops and also said that “Israel’s trailblazing move to offer the third vaccine doses to its population will ultimately prove justified and eventually be adopted by the United States…I think ultimately there will be enough data to show that Israel is doing the right thing….I am very favorably disposed to what the Israelis have done and we get a lot of good information from them,” he said.
DIPLOMACY
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid had a historic meeting with Bahrain’s crown prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in Bahrain on Thursday. Lapid was in Bahrain to open an Israeli embassy in the capital Manama. The nations’ representatives were also to meet and confirm water, environment, sport deals, and direct flights between the two countries.
This was the highest-level Israeli visit to the Gulf state since the countries established formal relations last year, according to Reuters. Lapid met with the crown prince in Rome in June.
Bahrain and Gulf neighbor United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel last year in a U.S.-brokered deal known as the Abraham Accords that built on shared business interests and worries about Iran. Sudan and Morocco followed suit.
Later on Thursday, a Bahrain’s Gulf Air airplane landed in Tel Aviv, marking the first commercial flight between Bahrain and Israel.
Also, in Iraq on September 24th, some Iraqi activists called for Baghdad to join the Abraham Accords, and normalize ties with Israel. This happened at a conference of over 300 Iraqis from across the country who had gathered in the Kurdish capital of Erbil. Iraq has formally been at war with Israel since 1948. According to the New York Times, the conference was sponsored was a little-known nonprofit group based in Brooklyn The Center for Peace Communications, run by an Iraqi-born American Jew named Joseph Braude, the center’s founder and chief executive.
“We knew that this would trigger enormous controversy and a backlash,” said Braude. “We nonetheless did it because the people in Iraq who wanted to do this asked for our help…I feel like this is a long term effort.”
Three arrest warrants were issued following the conference, according to media reports, for Wisam al-Hardan, a tribal leader, Iraqi Culture Ministry official Sahar al-Ta’i, and Mithal al-Alousi, an Iraqi parliamentarian who advocates normalization with Israel. However it is unclear if anyone has been arrested. After death threats, mainly from pro-Iranian Shiite sources, all of the speakers have now recanted the conference’s call for normalization.
TECHNOLOGY
Gauzy, an Israeli company that develops lighting and shading systems for industrial and home applications has signed an agreement with BMW, the German automobile maker, and LG, the South Korean electronics maker, to use smart glass technology in their products. BMW will use the glass to control headlights and LG plans to use the glass on buses that can dim the light by up to 99 percent. The glass can also be used to make full-blown displays for advertising and entertainment.
