The World Health Organization’s decision-making body has a history of singling out Israel for criticism, fueling concerns of bias as the United Nations organization faces criticism of its response to the coronavirus pandemic. The World Health Assembly, WHO’s policymaking body, has only one item on its agenda directed at a specific country—Israel—according to research by Human Rights Voices (HRV) and the Touro Human Rights Institute, which monitor bias at the U.N. READ MORE
In a flight of fancy and an almost superfluous reminder of his irrelevance, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested this week that a dream cabinet for Joe Biden should he win in November would include a rather odd choice for ambassador to the United Nations: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). AOC’s lack of foreign-policy knowledge is not the main reason to mock this suggestion. When asked this week whether the camp of the presumptive nominee had reached out to her in the wake of the withdrawal of her choice for president—Sen. Bernie Sanders—from the race, the congresswoman admitted that it hadn’t. READ MORE
Several Jerusalem neighborhoods with high coronavirus infection rates will be locked down starting Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said early Sunday. The order to close off parts of the capital starting at noon Sunday was approved by the government following an late-night cabinet meeting and days of discussion on how to contain the spread of the virus in the capital, which has led Israel in number of confirmed cases with nearly 2,000. According to Health Ministry data, about 75 percent of the infections in Jerusalem have occurred in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, most of which will now be locked down. READ MORE
ARUTZ SHEVA Returning travelers to be isolated in ‘coronavirus hotels’At the meeting, it was decided to reopen the doors to Israelis returning home. However, all those returning to Israel will be required to remain in one of the “coronavirus hotels” operated by the Defense Ministry and funded by the Israeli government. All of the returning travelers will remain in the “coronavirus hotels” for 14 days.
As Jews around the world celebrate the festival of Passover this week, the ironies are painful. The festival celebrates the pivotal biblical event that followed Pharaoh’s refusal to free his Hebrew slaves. The last and most terrible of the 10 plagues inflicted as punishment upon the Egyptians, the death of the firstborn in every family, passed over the houses of the Hebrews who then left Egypt for freedom and their destiny as a Jewish nation. Today, of course, the plague of the coronavirus has not passed over the Jewish people—a proportion of whom are suffering and tragically dying alongside others of all faiths and none. READ MORE
A Jewish public defender in Humboldt County has filed a lawsuit alleging a judge verbally assaulted him during a camping trip, called him “Jew boy” and then shoved him into a lake. Rory Kalin, a deputy in the Humboldt County public defender’s office, said Superior Court Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis peppered him with insults during a short ride on Lake Shasta in a rented boat. Eventually the judge shoved the fully-clothed lawyer over the stern, the filing claims. READ MORE
One of the world’s oldest Jewish newspapers announced that it was going into liquidation on Wednesday, with staff members learning on the eve of the Passover holiday that they were to lose their jobs. The Jewish Chronicle, which began publishing in the UK in 1841, announced on its website that its Board had taken the decision to seek a creditors voluntary liquidation of Jewish Chronicle Newspapers Ltd, the paper’s parent company…News outlets that are heavily dependent on their print editions have been badly hit by the coronavirus crisis, as revenue from advertisers has been slashed. READ MORE
The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis may have shaken the world’s economy to its core, but Israeli tech still managed to close a record-high quarter. Israeli tech companies raised a total of $2.74 billion across 139 deals during the first quarter of 2020, a record amount, according to a joint report released on Sunday by Tel Aviv-based research firm IVC Research Center and the Israel office of international law firm Zysman, Aharoni, Gayer & Co. (ZAG-S&W). The painful effects of the coronavirus are likely to be felt from the second quarter onward, but during the first quarter, Israeli tech companies raised 76% more funds than in the first quarter of 2019. READ MORE
Jason Walters self-radicalized and allied himself with the Dutch Jihadi group Hofstad Group, whose spiritual head Mohammed Bouyeri killed Dutch film producer and open critic of Islam Theo Van Gogh. Jason was imprisoned for nine years for throwing a grenade at police while trying to evade arrest. In prison, studying philosophy helped him understand how illogical jihadi extremism was, but it was a screening of Schindlers List that finally made him realize all extremism is the same, whether jihadi or Nazi.
In progressive America, an official elected in a predominantly Jewish district in the country’s largest city can be punished for asserting an indisputable historical fact if it happens to offend the sensibilities of hard-left activists. In this case, Kalman Yeger, a councilman from Brooklyn, in a back-and-forth about Rep. Ilhan Omar, tweeted that, “Palestine does not exist. There, I said it again. Also, Congresswoman Omar is an antisemite. Said that too.” Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly issued an ultimatum to Yeger demanding he apologize, or else. After he refused, NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson booted Yeger from—what I assume is a wholly useless—city immigration committee. READ MORE
…“About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children.” “So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated,” he continued. Herd immunity, Wittkowski argued, would stop a “second wave” headed for the United States in the fall. READ MORE
GATESTONE Coronavirus: Elderly Europeans Denied TreatmentIn addition to the ethical questions raised by the rationing of healthcare according to age, the denial of medical attention to the elderly, many of whom have paid into the social welfare system all their lives, also casts a spotlight on the shortcomings of socialized medicine in Southern Europe, where austerity measures imposed by the European Central Bank have resulted in massive budget cuts for public healthcare.
BILL MAHER In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that China should be held responsible for allowing the conditions that scientists have long warned could lead to a pandemic.
ArchitectGuy on Israel 