Prepared for the Conference of Presidents | |
| DAILY ALERT |
Tuesday, April 7, 2020 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
115 Jewish people in Britain have died from coronavirus, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said Monday - up from 85 announced on Friday. (Jewish Chronicle-UK) See also The Jewish Community in Devastated Spain - Faygie Holt Isaac Querub, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, where more than 13,000 have died from the coronavirus, said that among the 13 Jewish communities, some 80 people have the virus and 6 have passed away. (JNS) Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has approved the withdrawal of one billion euros from the country's sovereign wealth fund to help fight the coronavirus epidemic, President Rouhani's official website said on Monday. (Reuters) Brig.-Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali said the U.S. government may have been behind the creation of the coronavirus. "The U.S. is believed to have taken a deliberate measure (in creating coronavirus) with the highest probability," he noted. Jalali called for "a fact-finding committee...by the countries that are independent of the influence exerted by the other states, such as the U.S., in order to study the aspects of the subject." The Iranian general called for the establishment of an international monitoring committee to control the activities of the 25 American laboratories with biosafety level 3 and 4 across the world. He also proposed a global campaign to push for the closure of the biological research laboratories in various countries that are exempted from international monitoring. (Tasnim News-Iran) Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems have developed cutting-edge coronavirus symptom detectors using radar and camera technology, enabling medical teams to screen patients from another room, thereby greatly enhancing their safety. The Defense Ministry announced that its National Emergency Team has developed prototypes to measure the vital signs of patients, including pulse, respiratory rate and temperature, and pick out patterns that indicate a likely coronavirus infection. Currently, medical teams have to examine patients directly through close contact and at longer intervals, putting them in danger of infection. (JNS) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
As of Tuesday morning, the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Israel was 9,006 and 60 people had died, the Israeli Health Ministry said. 153 people are in serious condition, including 113 patients on ventilators, while 181 are in moderate condition. Hospitals are treating 708 patients, while 6,484 people are fighting the virus at home. Another 819 are in specially designated hotels. (Ynet News) See also Spread of Coronavirus in Israel May Be Slowing Almost all of those who have died from Covid-19 in Israel have been elderly and suffered from pre-existing conditions, according to hospital officials. A top medical expert said Sunday that new cases had been doubling every 6 days until recently, and were now doubling only every 11 days. Experts are also pointing to the relatively slow rise in the number of patients on ventilators. (Times of Israel) As a plane laden with medical aid from China touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport on Monday, it was revealed that much of the cargo had been donated by former tourists and academic exchange alumni who have fond memories of Israel. Additional flights coming to Israel with medical goods from China would also be carrying donations, alongside goods that Israel is buying. "There are so many Chinese people who want to help Israel," said Betty Xi, a visiting scholar at Peking University and a graduate of Israel's Bar-Ilan University. She raised $10,000 in 72 hours, mostly from people who have become academics after postdoctoral fellowships in Israel. "We have such good memories of being at Bar-Ilan in Israel and were so deeply influenced by the spirit of the university, so we really wanted to do something for the university," she said by telephone from Beijing. She recalled that Israeli help was received in China when the coronavirus crisis was at its height there. Yossi Ben Shitrit, strategic adviser to the Israeli consulate in Shanghai, said people are inundating the diplomatic mission with medical materials for shipping to Tel Aviv. "We got donations from several entities. There are very rich people in China who were willing to donate, people who love Israel. In China it's opposite to other places in the world, in that there isn't anti-Semitism but rather lots of admiration for Israel and Jews." (Times of Israel) Noam Sobel, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science's Department of Neurobiology, notes that coronavirus victims experience a sudden inability to smell and has built a website to help people keep tabs on their odor-assessing abilities. At smelltracker.org, users select five items they have in stock at home and are happy to smell daily. Choices include honey, peanut butter, vinegar, freshly chopped garlic, and toothpaste. They receive a reminder to sniff each item each day, and adjust on-screen sliders to rate its strength and pleasantness. If their sensitivity to an odor changes significantly, the site warns them. (Times of Israel) Ten hotels across Israel have been converted into housing for coronavirus carriers with mild symptoms, as well as for those in isolation after having returned from abroad. Additional hotels are being added each day. The goal of the hotel project, run by the IDF, is to ease the burden on hospitals as the number of Covid-19 cases rises. Before they can be released, each resident must test negative twice. (Media Line-Jerusalem Post) Lisa Nandy, the UK Labour Party's new shadow foreign secretary, is the former chair of Labour's Friends of Palestine group and has supported an arms embargo against Israel. She has also been outspoken against anti-Semitism in her party. "Anti-Semitism, let's be honest, is a particular sort of racism," Nandy said last month. "Unless it is addressed, it will poison everything that we do." (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
A crisis engulfed our community over the past month. Covid-19 strains resources, threatens lives and well-being, and strikes at the fabric of the Jewish community. The Jewish community is working together to meet these challenges and fill the void created by the enforced isolation. By sharing what we have, by responding to all who need our help, we are recognizing our obligation to do acts of lovingkindness that will bring relief from the current crisis. The members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations may differ when it comes to political leanings or religious affiliations, but we approach this challenging time more united by common purpose. We stand together in the face of this plague, as Jews have done for millennia, working together to repair a world ripped apart by disaster. Arthur Stark is president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, where William Daroff is CEO and Malcolm Hoenlein is executive vice chairman. (JNS) Imagine if FDR had offered a multi-million-dollar aid package to Germany before the Nazi surrender in 1945. Or if Truman had air-dropped food, medicine, and cash on Japanese cities before Emperor Hirohito announced his country's surrender. But today, pundits and politicians are advocating sending aid to Iran, a sworn enemy of the U.S., to combat the coronavirus. They are also urging the release of aid for the Palestinians, whose leaders range from hostile (Fatah) to terrorist (Hamas). These proposals would aid and empower our enemies, and undermine rather than serve U.S. interests at a critical moment. While Israeli missile companies convert their production lines to make ventilators, Hamas' money is used to make more missiles. As Michael Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, put it, "Hamas is doing almost nothing for the people of Gaza....All the money needed today to confront the coronavirus is going towards rockets." Demands that the U.S. dial back its "maximum pressure" campaign on the Iranian regime ignore the fact that Iran is engaged in a disinformation campaign to convince the world that the coronavirus originated in the U.S. as a biological weapon. There should be no Marshall Plan for Iran as long as the present regime continues on its belligerent track. The writer is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology. (National Review) Observations: Iran in Crisis: Corona, Sanctions, Uranium - Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and Dr. Michael Doran (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser:
Dr. Michael Doran:
Brig.-Gen (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the IDF Military Intelligence Research Division and director general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry, is director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. Dr. Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served in the departments of State and Defense, and on the U.S. National Security Council. This report is from a special online experts' briefing hosted by the Jerusalem Center on March 26, 2020. |
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