By: Aryeh Savir

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Monday with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in a discussion that focused on the defunct peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The two discussed “regional security challenges and the importance of continued cooperation in addressing these issues,” according to a statement by the State Department.

Blinken addressed the US approach towards “a more peaceful, secure, and prosperous future for Israelis, Palestinians, and the greater Middle East.”

He also emphasized the Biden Administration’s “belief that the two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, living in peace alongside a viable and democratic Palestinian state.”

He also noted the US’ “continuing commitment to opposing unfair, one-sided actions against Israel in the multilateral arena.”

Ashkenazi and Blinken “acknowledged the steadfast partnership” between the US and Israel, and that the two countries “would work closely together on challenges ahead.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has yet to comment on the conversation.

The Biden administration has signaled its desire to amend Washington’s relations with Ramallah after a months-long disconnection with the Trump administration.

The Biden administration has already made preliminary contacts with PA officials.

Speaking during his confirmation hearing at the Senate in January, Blinken said that while President Joe Biden remained committed to a two-state solution with the Palestinians, “realistically, it’s hard to see near-term prospects for moving forward.”

In another development, it was reported that Jerusalem police were successful in thwarting a stabbing attack in the city on Monday.

The police received a report about a suspicious person on his way to the Mizmoria checkpoint in the south of the city. Police forces searched him until he was located.

The suspect, 27, from the nearby village of Tzur Baher, who noticed the policemen searching for him threw his knife at his side of the road.

In his initial interrogation, he claimed that he wanted to harm the security forces due to the death of his mother.

The would-be terrorist was arrested and taken for questioning in the Central Unit of the Jerusalem District.

An IDF soldier was lightly injured on Sunday night by a gunshot while manning a checkpoint near the city of Modi’in.

The 19-year-old soldier was evacuated to the Tel Hashomer hospital in serious condition. Further examinations determined he was in light condition.

The IDF stated that the soldier was injured by “erroneous gunfire.”

An initial inquiry shows he may have been shot by another soldier who was playing with his weapon.

  (TPS)

Saudis apparently react to Biden administration freezing arms deals signed with former President Trump

By Paul Shindman

Saudi Arabia will invest more than $20 billion to establish its own domestic military industry in an apparent move to reduce its dependence on the United States which recently announced it was freezing certain arms sales to the Kingdom, Reuters reported over the weekend.

Following the Biden administration’s suspension earlier this month of two large arms deals worth some $760 million for precision munitions that were signed during the Trump era, the Saudis announced a 10-year investment plan aimed at developing a local arms industry with the target of spending half of the defense budget locally by 2030.

Saudi Arabia’s defense budget for 2020 was $48.5 billion, most of it spent purchasing arms and munitions from the United States, but Biden objects to the Saudi-led coalition continuing its intervention in the Yemen civil war against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

On Sunday, the Saudis announced state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) signed a deal with American defense Lockheed Martin to form a joint venture to boost the Kingdom’s military capabilities.

“The joint venture is aimed at developing localization capabilities through the transfer of technology and knowledge and training of Saudi nationals to manufacture products and provide services to the Kingdom’s armed forces,” SAMI said in a statement.

Lockheed Martin makes major weapons systems, including the F-16 fighter jet, F-35 stealth bomber, helicopters, offensive missiles and missile-defense systems.

Lockheed Martin’s vice president Timothy Cahill said the deal marked a “major milestone” for the U.S. company.

“This agreement is in line with Lockheed Martin’s strategy to expand its partnership with the Kingdom by providing reliable defense and security solutions,” Cahill said in the statement reported by Reuters.

Saudi Arabia is looking to improve its ability to defend against missile and drone attacks both from the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran-backed militias in Iraq that have recently increased their attacks and appear to be emboldened by the Biden administration’s decision to re-evaluate its relations with the Saudis.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates signed a memorandum of understanding to “transfer technology and know-how and to build an integrated base for defense industries in the Gulf,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported.

            (World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

By: TPS

Tel Aviv University researchers have developed a biological substitute for the treatment of tuberculosis, which in the future could serve as an alternative for the traditional “chemical” antibiotic therapy.

In the course of the new and groundbreaking study, led by Dr. Natalia Freund and the doctoral candidate Avia Waston at the Sackler Medical Faculty, the research group succeeded in isolating monoclonal antibodies, derived from single cells, which hindered the growth of tuberculosis germs in laboratory mice.

The antibodies were isolated from a patient who had contracted tuberculosis but had since recovered. This is, in fact, the first time in history that researchers have managed to develop a “biological antibiotic” and demonstrate that human monoclonal antibodies can act as a substitute for the traditional chemical antibiotics and protect mice from the pathogenic bacterial challenge.

The study was carried out in a collaboration with two additional laboratories from the US and China.

For the last century, antibiotics have served as the main treatment against germs, being both efficient and cheap. Antibiotics are chemical agents, which are designed to block and destroy specific cells, such as microbial cells. However, since some biological mechanisms are common to both human and microbial cells, the range of antibiotics that can safely be used without harming the patient is limited.

For example, cell wall components of many strains of microbes are common to human cells. Therefore, any damage caused to the microbial cell walls can lead to extensive damage to body systems.

Furthermore, in recent years, the number of microbial strains that are antibiotic resistant has increased, presenting new challenges of how to defend the body from microbes in the post-antibiotic era.

For these reasons, Dr. Natalia Freund and her laboratory team have spent the recent years searching for a biological substitute for known antibiotics.

Antibodies are proteins that are produced naturally by our immune response following infection or a vaccine. They harbor many advantages such as specificity, stability and safety. For these reasons, antibodies are in widespread use in the clinic for treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases and viral infections such as COVID-19.

The research team chose Tuberculosis, which is caused by infection of the bacilli Mycobacterium tuberculosis, as a test model, and were successful, for the first time ever, in devising an effective treatment on the basis of anti-bacterial antibodies naturally developed during infection.

Another reason for the choice of tuberculosis is, that although the vaccine against tuberculosis was developed 100 years ago, and is based on the attenuated bacillus bovis (BCG) strain, it is not effective in adults and does not prevent infection.

In addition, in recent years, more varieties of disease have developed that are resistant to the only treatment that is currently available, namely, treatment with antibiotics. Since tuberculosis germs are very infectious, transferred in the air and detrimental to the lungs, the spread of resistant strains of tuberculosis that modern medicine cannot combat is a real danger.

Currently, approximately one-quarter of the world’s population is infected by tuberculosis, with the rates of drug-resistant strains peaking to as high as 40% in some countries. In Israel, there are about 200 active tuberculosis cases per year.

Dr. Natalia Freund explained that “new ways to kill bacteria are urgently needed. Advances in biological medicine have enabled us to rout the germs in new ways that are not based solely on antibiotics, and therefore allow a solution to the challenge posed by resistant germs.”

“Our study is an initial proof of concept of employing monoclonal antibodies as an effective therapy in combating bacterial pathogens,” said Dr. Freund.

It should be noted that owing to the size and complexity of the tuberculosis bacillus, isolation of monoclonal antibodies to it has been extremely challenging. The researchers in Freund’s laboratory have succeeded in pinpointing a phosphate pump protein on the bacillus cell wall, which supplies energy to the bacterium and is highly specific and conserved to all tuberculosis strains.

The two types of antibodies the researchers have isolated, which block the action of the pump, inhibit the bacteria growth and reduced the bacterial levels by 50% in mice as compared with mice that were not treated with antibodies.

Furthermore, these antibodies have been found to be active against three different strains of the tuberculosis bacillus; and seeing that the antibodies are directed against the phosphorus pump, which is common to all strains of this bacillus, it is expected that the vaccine will be effective against many other strains that were not investigated, including those that are resistant to antibiotics.

In view of the success of the study, Dr. Freund’s laboratory is investigating the possibility of extending the “biological” substitute for antibiotics to include other diseases.

“The model that has proven successful in this study will enable us to extend our future work to include other diseases such as pneumonia and staphylococcus infections,” Freund concluded.

(TPS)

Levin warns Israelis that the Biden administration is deeply hostile to Israel.

By: Caroline Glick

Mark Levin, the conservative Jewish American radio broadcaster with more than 14 million daily listeners, has a gloomy forecast for the future of American media coverage of the United States, of Israel and of ties between the two countries.

Ahead of the launch of the Hebrew-language edition of his bestselling book, Unfreedom of the Press, Levin tells Israel Hayom that to understand the nature and depth of the danger that the U.S. media poses to democracy in America, you have to understand the way that the U.S. media treats Israel.

“I think the American people — forget about the elites — I think the American people and the Israeli people have such a connection, and such a love for each other,” he says.

“We get in this country from our media … that Israel is an apartheid society; it’s a racist society. It’s the same things they say about our country, they say about Israel. So it’s kind of hard to write a book — what I called Unfreedom of the Press — and ignore what’s going on in Israel.”

“It’s also hard to ignore it as a Jew,” he adds. “I see the overlays. I see the animus towards Israel, the animus towards the United States.”

For decades, Israelis and Israel’s supporters in America complained about the anti-Israel bias of the U.S. media. But in Unfreedom of the Press, Levin explains that the problem is far worse than mere bias.

The vast majority of media outlets in the U.S., including all the major television networks aside from Fox News, are fully mobilized to advance a radical ideological agenda that is deeply hostile both to Israel and to the United States.

And since his book was first published in 2018, the situation has only grown worse in terms of the media’s hatred of Israel and its supporters, and their rejection of core American values, including freedom of expression, freedom of religion and liberty itself.

Levin explains that to advance their anti-American agenda, the media work to silence, censor and block conservative voices — from former President Donald Trump to the last of his supporters.

Deeply concerned about the future of democracy in the U.S., Levin worries that the widening censorship in the U.S. will be copied by the Israeli media — which Levin argues is even more ideologically uniform and uniformly radical than the American media.

He argues that the way to fight against distortions and false claims, and to counter the media censors, is take a page from the anti-Israel activists’ playbook.

Levin recently shut down his Twitter and Facebook accounts in response to both platforms’ aggressive censorship of conservative leaders and private citizens. He urges conservatives in the U.S. and Israel to do the same.

“We need to BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] them. We need to have a BDS movement against big tech. And if not big tech, then their advertisers.

“We need to BDS these major television networks, just like the left does.”

Levin warns Israelis that the Biden administration is deeply hostile to Israel. Biden’s foreign-policy team is comprised of the most hostile officials from the Obama administration “and then some.” Israel, he says, must be prepared for the storm in relations that is blowing its way from Washington.

(www.JNS.org)

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

Israel has more concerns about the sea, particularly with its newfound riches offshore which represent soft targets.

By: WIN Staff

The Israeli Navy identified a “potential threat” on Monday morning, sinking a suspicious vessel near the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces reported.

“Earlier today, IDF naval troops spotted suspicious naval activity in the maritime zone along the Gaza Strip, which posed a potential threat to Israeli Navy vessels,” the IDF said in a statement.

The IDF says the vessel was spotted off the shore near Khan Younis, an Arab city located on the southern end of the Strip near Egypt.

Israel has more to worry about on the sea, particularly with its newfound riches offshore, which need to be defended.

Israel’s Leviathan field began pumping gas in December 2019. Egypt’s petroleum and mineral resources minister will in fact visit the Leviathan rig on Monday. He met with Israel’s prime minister on Sunday in Jerusalem, where it was agreed the countries would build a natural gas pipeline from the Leviathan field to liquified natural gas terminals in northern Egypt.

The IDF gave no indication that the Egyptian minister’s visit and the suspicious vessel were connected.

Over the last few years, Hamas has been developing its maritime capabilities. In 2014, Hamas naval commandos infiltrated an Israeli beach. The five commandos attached an explosive to a bulldozer and threw a grenade at a tank. All were killed by IDF gunfire.

Israel’s Channel 20 reports that the IDF needs 21 assault and defense ships to defend its maritime interests but is far short of that. Including the four new Saar 6 ships to be added by the end of the year, Israel will have only 15 ships.

In another development, following joint IDF, Israel Security Agency (ISA) and Israeli Border Police operational and intelligence efforts, a terror squad suspected of carrying out an attempted car-ramming and shooting attack against IDF troops was apprehended days after the attempted attack.

The attempted attack occurred on Jan. 9, adjacent to the village of Ya’bad, west of Jenin, but the information of the terrorists’ capture days later was only cleared by the IDF for release on Monday.

Following ISA intelligence efforts and a large-scale operational effort conducted by the “Duvdevan” Unit, the Paratroopers Reconnaissance Unit and special forces in the Israeli Border Police, the terror squad was apprehended in the village of Qabatia, north of Nablus, or Shechem, a number of days after the attempted attack.

The investigation of the attempted attack revealed that the two assailants who were present in the vehicle had intended to shoot at IDF troops operating in the area.

The two assailants arrived in the area with a loaded “Carlo” submachine gun, a locally made weapon, and had clearly intended to carry out an attack.

(World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

By: TPS

The Palestinian Authority (PA) paid more than half a billion shekels in salaries to terrorists in 2020, about 3.25% of its annual budget, a new report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) shows.

Analysis of the PA’s budget by PMW has found that the payments, totaling at least 512 million shekels ($156,280,000), were rolled into the budget for “PLO institutions.”

The PA paid NIS 502 million in 2018 and NIS 517 million in 2019 to terrorists.

In 2020, the budget category of the “Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs” was removed completely, yet statements made by PA and PLO officials throughout the year confirmed that the PA continued to pay hundreds of millions of shekels in stipends to terrorists.

“It was clear that the PA had decided to pay terrorists in a roundabout way so that there would be no reference to the salaries at all in their budget,” PMW noted in its report. “The change was likely made to avoid international condemnation for the payments in a year in which the PA has received extra aid payments to help mitigate the costs of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

PMW has called on the International community to demand that the PA specify in future reports where the funds given to the PLO are going.

“This is not only necessary in the interest of transparency, but it is critical in order to monitor and eventually stop the PA’s ongoing incentivizing and funding of terror,” PMW explained.

Maurice Hirsch, Adv., Director of Legal Strategies at PMW and co-author of the report commented that “the PA’s 2020 terror reward payments prove at least two things. Firstly, that the PA believes that a simple accounting trick can fool the world and world leaders into believing that the leopard has changed its spots and is no longer incentivizing and rewarding terror.”

“Secondly, that despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, the PA’s priorities were, and remain, paying salaries to terrorists, including mass murderers, even over providing basic medical supplies for its population,” he said.

Further proof that the PA payments to the PLO include payments to the terrorist prisoners was found in the PA budget monthly reports on PLO “transfer expenditures” for 2020.

The monthly “transfer expenditures” which include salaries to terrorists were similar from January through November 2020. However, in December the expenditure suddenly spiked, corresponding to the PA’s announcement that it was paying the salaries of the terrorist prisoners for three months.

This was necessary because on December 30, 2020, Israel’s Anti-Terror legislation came into effect, which prohibits any banking transactions for the purpose of payment of a reward for an act of terror.

This means that the PA can no longer use the banks operating in the PA for the payment of the terror salaries. Fearing it would not be able to pay the prisoners their salaries, it advanced the payments for January and February.

The payments are made to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners, with the amount awarded increasing annually in accordance with the length of jail term. Therefore, a terrorist who has served 30 years or more is awarded some NIS 12,000 a month, approximately four times the average salary for a worker in the Palestinian territories, making terrorism “a lucrative career choice,” PMW noted.

(TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

Israeli Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz and Egyptian Minister of Energy Tarek El Molla met on Sunday and discussed joint energy ventures, including energy projects for the Palestinian Authority.

The ministers met in Jerusalem in a meeting that was described as historic and discussed the promotion of cooperation in the field of energy between Israel and Egypt, which will ensure energy security for the two countries.

They agreed to work on an intergovernmental agreement to run gas from Israel’s Leviathan gas field to the Liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Egypt.

Against the background of increased cooperation in the field of energy and the establishment of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), established by Steinitz and El Molla, the ministers expressed their support for building a strong and well-connected energy infrastructure throughout the Eastern Mediterranean to optimize the potential of natural gas reserves in the region.

The ministers also referred to the importance of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, as well as the global climate targets, including the reduction of emissions by 2050 and other environmental targets.

The ministers also discussed the various opportunities for increasing energy independence for the Palestinian Authority, including through projects such as the development of the maritime field in Gaza, the construction of the Jenin power plant, and the supply of natural gas to the PA.

The two “acknowledged that strong energy cooperation between the two countries contributes to energy security and energy diversification, while further strengthening the ongoing regional dialogue through the EMGF, regarding the development of the regional gas market while exploiting the full potential of gas resources in the region, and setting the platform for a multifaceted and complete trade center in the region” Israel’s Ministry of Energy stated.

Italy, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Palestinian Authority are members of the EMGF.

Some 35 trillion cubic feet of gas have been found in Israeli waters, worth some $500 billion.

These crucial discoveries are enabling Israel to become energy independent and have also turned Israel into a major player in the international energy-exporting market.

The Israeli government is expected to earn NIS 17 billion in royalties from the gas discoveries. Additionally, the windfall profits levy is expected to reach up to 10 billion a year by 2040.

The Israeli government approved in December 2019 the export of a total of 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from the Leviathan gas field, and 25 bcm from Tamar, over the next 15 years.

The expected amount of exported natural gas is valued at approximately $15 billion.

In a historic event, Israel began pumping gas to Egypt in January 2020.

This also allows Israel to export some of its natural gas to Europe through Egypt’s LNG facilities and promote Egypt’s status as a regional gas hub.

Israel further has a signed deal with Greece and Cyprus to build a natural gas pipeline that will supply gas from the East-Mediterranean region to continental Europe.

(TPS)

Edited by: TJVNews.com

The Israeli cabinet on Monday approved a proposal for the state to recognize the Yemenite, Mizrachi and Balkan children affair and for the transfer of financial compensation to the families that were hurt in the early years of the state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “I have submitted for Cabinet approval a decision on financial compensation for the families that were hurt in the Yemenite, Mizrachi and Balkan children affair. This is among the most painful affairs in the history of the State of Israel. The time has come for the families whose infants were taken from them to receive recognition by the State and Government of Israel, and financial compensation as well. The compensation will not atone for the terrible suffering that the families went through and are going through. This is unbearable suffering. The families, whose suffering is too great to bear, must receive a little of the consolation that they are due. I would like to ask the Education Minister to include the Yemenite children affair in the textbooks of Israeli schoolchildren; this affair must be recognized. I thank the ministers and MKs, and former MK Nurit Koren, who were active on this issue, and Prime Minister’s Office Director General Tzachi Braverman who successfully led this issue.”

Finance Minister Yisrael Katz said: “In this decision, the Government of Israel recognizes a painful affair that has been seared into the annals of the state, the investigation of which has yet to be concluded. We will act to fully utilize the rights of the members of the grief-stricken families, who have carried this pain with them until today. Thus we will begin to heal, if only a little, the wounds of history. Alongside this, we will work to move forward on commemorating the glorious history of Yemenite Jews, which is entwined forever in the history of our people.”

In the framework of the decision that has been approved, the Government of Israel expresses regret over the events that occurred in the early days of the state and recognizes the suffering of the families whose children were part of this painful affair.

The Cabinet approved the outline for NIS 162 million in financial compensation for the families that were hurt, which will be allocated as follows: NIS 150,000 for the family members of a child that died for whom notification – including cause of death – was not delivered to the family in real time, or of a child who died and whose place of burial has not been located, or whose place of burial was located after long delay.

Compensation of up to NIS 200,000 was approved for members of the family that was hurt, in the event that the most recent commission concluded that the fate of the child was unknown.

It was also decided that family members, that were determined by one of the three commissions that dealt with the affair (the committee of inquiry on revealing the Yemenite children, the committee on clarifying the fate of the missing Yemenite children and the state commission of inquiry on the disappearance of Yemenite immigrant children from 1948-1954) that their child died or whose fate is unknown, will be able to file an application for financial compensation during June-November 2021. The decision was formulated by the Finance and Justice ministries.

The Yemenite Children Affair refers to the disappearance of an estimated 1,500 to 5,000 babies and toddlers of new immigrants to the newly founded state of Israel from 1948 to 1954. The majority of immigrants arriving in Israel during this period were from Yemen, with considerable numbers coming from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and the Balkans, as was reported by Wikipedia.

According to low estimates, one in eight children of Yemenite families disappeared. Hundreds of documented statements made over the years by the parents of these infants allege that their children were removed from them. There have been allegations that no death certificates were issued, and that parents did not receive any information from Israeli and Jewish organizations as to what had happened to their infants, as was reported by Wikipedia. However, Yaacov Lozowick, Chief Archivist at the Israel State Archives, has documented records showing that while the fate of a small fraction of the “missing” children cannot be traced, in the overwhelming majority of cases the children died in the hospital, were buried, and the families notified, although these illnesses, deaths, and family notifications were handled with enormous insensitivity. In Lozowick’s opinion, “There was no crime, but there was a sin.”

Widespread accusations continue that the infants were given or sold to childless Holocaust survivors in a covert systematic operation, according to the Wikipedia report. Conclusions reached by three separate official commissions set up to investigate the issue unanimously found that the majority of the children were buried; having died from diseases. The last of these enquiries, the Cohen-Kedmi Commission’s report of 2001, as with its two predecessors, relied almost exclusively on documentation provided by the entities under investigation.

Where there was conflict between official documentation and witness’s oral testimonies, the Commission relied on the documentation, and the Commission failed to investigate the possibility of private interests engaged in illegal adoption, according to information on Wikipedia. “Many of the records and protocols of the three investigative Commissions, particularly those conducted behind closed doors, are not accessible to researchers or the public. The truth about the whereabouts of the children is still buried, denied and suppressed.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu described the issue as ‘an open wound that continues to bleed’ for the many families not knowing what happened to the children who disappeared.

By: TPS

Pre-Passover conservation work began at the Western Wall in recent weeks during the last lockdown by injecting a preservative with the aid of syringes similar to those used by medical staff.

Every six months, before Passover and the High Holy Days, Western Wall Heritage Foundation engineers and Israel Antiquities Authority conservators conduct thorough inspections of the 2,000-year-old Western Wall stones at the prayer plaza to ensure visitors’ safety.

The work being carried out at the site is subject to religious strictures established by the rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, after consultations with great rabbis of the time, nearly eighteen years ago, particularly Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.

Mordechai Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, said that “over 12 million people visit the Western Wall Plaza each year. Although this year, in the shadow of COVID-19, people are increasingly ‘visiting’ the Western Wall virtually, we are already preparing for the return of visitors to the Wall.”

Yossi Vaknin, Head conservator for the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Western Wall area, explained that “the Kotel’s 2,000-year-old stones are subject to natural weathering and we are making sure to strengthen them.”

“Our routine biannual inspections enable us to track the condition of every single stone. We have an ‘identity card’ for each of the hundreds of stones in the plaza and monitor dozens of features. Our most recent survey revealed that it was necessary to treat the ‘peel’, or outer layer, of several stones,” he said.

He stressed that their “work on the historic wall is nondestructive. We do not drill into the stone, but delicately inject dissolved stone into the gaps and fissures. Limestone-based grout is injected into the fissure as a liquid, and when dry, the crack is repaired. It is the best possible method of ‘healing’ the stones and the ultimate defense against weathering for the most important stones in the world.”

One of the main contributors to the weathering of the Temple Mount’s walls is the ecosystem that forms an integral part of the landscape of the ancient Western Wall.

“The Western Wall is a unique ecological environment that supports its own life forms,” says Vaknin. “A lot of plants have taken root in the Wall’s stones – particularly thorny capers, golden drops and golden henbanes. Added to this, many birds nest in the Wall, including the common swift which arrives every year, ravens, and doves. As part of our conservation work, in recognition of the importance of the site’s unique flora and fauna, we also preserve this ecosystem while guaranteeing the stones’ stability, thus ensuring that the Western Wall will remain strong for at least 2,000 more years.”

(TPS)

By: Josef Federman

Forget about oil and arms. Coronavirus vaccines are emerging as the newest currency of choice in the Middle East.

Israel’s reopening of its economy, combined with a murky prisoner swap with Syria and the arrival of a batch of vaccines in the Gaza Strip, have all underscored how those with access to the vaccines have political power in the turbulent region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been at the forefront of this trend, pinning his re-election hopes on the success of his campaign to vaccinate Israel’s adult population. At the same time, he has offered rewards to those who vaccinate and punishments to those who don’t.

Israel has jumped out to the world’s fastest vaccination campaign, administering at least one dose to more than half its 9.3 million people and the required two doses to about a third in less than two months. In contrast to the long waits seen in Europe and the U.S., vaccines are plentiful and available almost on demand to anyone who wants one. Clinics have even offered free food and cappuccinos to help lure reluctant holdouts to come in and get the jab.

Netanyahu’s efforts finally seem to be bearing fruit, and the number of new coronavirus infections and serious cases is dropping. That enabled the government on Sunday to lift a number of restrictions, reopening stores, shopping malls, and many schools after a two-month lockdown. In the coming weeks, all schools and restaurants are expected to reopen, just in time for the March 23 election.

“The timing is good for him,” said Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at Israel’s Hebrew University.

Much will depend on Netanyahu’s “agenda setting,” Rahat said. “He will talk about the vaccines all the time,” he said, while others will focus on his missteps over the past year.

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs and businesses during a series of lockdowns, and there is widespread public anger over the flouting of lockdown restrictions by the ultra-Orthodox religious community, one of Netanyahu’s key political allies. Many say Netanyahu waited too long to close the country’s main airport, allowing fast-spreading variants of the virus to infect the unvaccinated.

Sticking to his script, Netanyahu on Saturday unveiled his “green pass” program, which will allow the fully vaccinated to attend cultural events, fly abroad and patronize restaurants and health clubs. These services and amenities will remain off limits for those who do not get immunized.

“I ask everyone who has not been vaccinated – go be vaccinated. You will have the Green Pass and you will also be able to benefit from it,” Netanyahu said during a photo op at a Tel Aviv-area gym.

Netanyahu reportedly showed little hesitation in agreeing to pay Russia some $1.2 million to buy coronavirus vaccines for archenemy Syria as part of a deal last week to release an Israeli woman held captive in Damascus.

(AP)

By: TPS

One of the world’s oldest known Esther scrolls, also known as a megillah, has found its final home in Jerusalem after recently being gifted to the National Library of Israel (NLI), which has the world’s largest collection of textual Judaica.

Esther scrolls contain the story of the Book of Esther in Hebrew and are traditionally read in Jewish communities on the festival of Purim, which will take place on February 25-28 this year.

Scholars have determined that the newly received scroll was written by a scribe on the Iberian Peninsula around 1465, prior to the Spanish and Portuguese Expulsions at the end of the 15th century. These conclusions are based on both stylistic and scientific evidence, including Carbon-14 dating.

The megillah is written in brown ink on leather in an elegant, characteristic Sephardic script, which resembles that of a Torah scroll.

The first panel, before the text of the Book of Esther, includes the blessings recited before and after the reading of the megillah, and attests to the ritual use of this scroll in a pre-Expulsion Iberian Jewish community.

According to experts, there are very few existing Esther scrolls from the medieval period in general, and from the 15th century in particular.

Torah scrolls and Esther scrolls from pre-Expulsion Spain and Portugal are even rarer, with only a small handful known to exist.

Prior to the donation, this scroll was the only complete 15th century megillah in private hands.

The medieval scroll is a gift from Michael Jesselson and family, continuing long-standing family support of the NLI and its collections. Michael’s father, Ludwig Jesselson, was the founding chair of the International Council of the Library and a strong advocate of the Library for decades.

Dr. Yoel Finkelman, curator of the NLI’s Haim and Hanna Salomon Judaica Collection, said that the new addition is “an incredibly rare testament to the rich material culture of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula. It is one of the earliest extant Esther Scrolls, and one of the few 15th century megillot in the world.”

“The Library is privileged to house this treasure and to preserve the legacy of pre-Expulsion Iberian Jewry for the Jewish people and the world,” he added.

   (TPS)

“The ‘Saturday Night Live’ libel has already been used to promote anti-Semitic words and deeds. ‘SNL’ and NBC should apologize and disown this dangerous and misleading assertion,” states StandWithUs.

By: Israel HaYom Staff

Jewish groups and Israeli officials on Sunday accused NBC’s iconic American late-night variety show “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) of spreading anti-Semitism after one of its skits joked that Israel has been vaccinating only its Jewish citizens.

“Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m going to guess it’s the Jewish half,” Michael Che, co-host with Colin Jost of SNL’s news parody, “Weekend Update,” said on the most recent broadcast.

The joke did not go over well.

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Gilad Erdan tweeted, “I’m a big fan of humor but perpetuating anti-Semitism is just not funny. Your ‘joke’ is ignorant. The fact is that the success of our vaccination drive is exactly because every citizen of Israel—Jewish, Muslim, Christian—is entitled [to] it. Apologize!”

Israel Nitzan, who serves as the country’s consul general in New York, slammed SNL for “spreading anti-Semitic lies and misinformation. Fanning the flames just to get a laugh is not only wrong; it’s irresponsible. Israel has made the vaccine available for its entire population equitably, regardless of gender, race or religion.”

A furious American Jewish Committee began circulating a petition on Sunday demanding that SNL apologize for the joke.

“Saturday Night Live’s joke isn’t just untrue—it’s dangerous, a modern twist on a classic anti-Semitic trope that has inspired the mass murder of countless Jews throughout the centuries,” the AJC petition said.

Ellie Cohanim, the deputy special envoy to combat anti-Semitism in the Trump administration, tweeted, “Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for all health and social-welfare needs. Contact ‘SNL’ and NBC and demand they apologize for their modern-day blood libel against Jews.”

The pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs also launched an apology-demanding campaign.

“This may have been an uninformed comment, lacking in understanding of Israel’s diverse population or, worse, a blood-libel and a lie dressed up and played for laughs,” the petition read. Israel’s health-care system is available and equal to all and an example of coexistence. Those who allege otherwise tend to be extremist groups, who have already relished this ‘joke’ on social media. The SNL libel has already been used to promote anti-Semitic words and deeds. ‘Saturday Night Live’ and NBC should apologize and disown this dangerous and misleading assertion.”

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) also called on NBC to apologize for the anti-Semitic segment.

CAMERA’s Israel director Tamar Sternthal urged “NBC and ‘SNL’ to apologize for the blatant anti-Semitic smear, and to make clear that Israel is providing equal access to the coronavirus vaccine for its entire population, Jews and non-Jews alike.”

(www.JNS.org)

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.