Israel freezes Palestinian Authority tax revenue again
MEMO | April 27, 2020
A court in Jerusalem decided on Sunday to freeze NIS450m ($128m) of Palestinian Authority tax revenue collected by Israeli customs, Quds Press has reported. The decision followed a lawsuit submitted by dozens of Israelis whose relatives were killed in resistance action against the military occupation during the Second Intifada.
The Israel Law Centre — Shurat HaDin — filed the complaints for the plaintiffs and asked the court to freeze NIS7.1bn ($2.16bn) of taxes collected on behalf of the PA by the Israeli customs authorities. The court decided to freeze NIS450m as a first stage, noting that the total sum could reach more than NIS2bn.
PA Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein Al-Sheikh described this as “theft and piracy”. In February last year, the Israeli government enforced a 2018 law calling such a revenue freeze, claiming that this money was paid as stipends to the families of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and those who had been killed by the occupation.
Shurat HaDin alleges that it is “at the forefront of fighting terrorism and safeguarding Jewish rights worldwide” and is “dedicated to protecting the State of Israel.” In November 2017, it was revealed that it had “admitted to being a front for Mossad, Israel’s deadly spy agency.”
Why Outside Air is Safe and Park Closures Should End
Cliff Mass Weather Blog | April 18, 2020
During the past month, the fear of coronavirus had spurred political leaders to close parks and nature areas throughout the country.
In Washington State, all state parks and state lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources are closed through at least May 4. Here in Seattle, all major city parks were closed last weekend and parking lots for city parks are still shuttered. Picnicking, barbecuing, and any sports are illegal in Seattle parks. In California, hundreds of state parks, including many major beach areas, have been closed, and parking has been blocked off for all state recreation facilities.
All of these closures are predicated upon the assumption that coronavirus infection is a serious threat in outside air and that virus spread is significant outdoors. As documented in this blog, such an assumption is not consistent with the best science. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that restriction of public access to parks and natural areas threatens both the physical and mental well being of the population and thus is counterproductive. Many politicians claim that parks must be closed to prevent large groups from gathering and spreading the virus. As we will see, such worries appear to have little basis in fact.
Torrey Pine Beach north of San Diego Is closed
Is Outside Air Safe?
After searching through the literature and talking to a number of doctors and researchers, I could not find a single paper suggesting significant outdoor transmission of COVID-19 or any coronavirus. But there is a huge literature and long historical experience suggesting that outside air is immensely safer than indoor air within constrained spaces. Here are a few examples and some quotes from medical experts on this point:
- Qian et al., 2020: Examined 1245 confirmed cases in 120 cities in China and identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases.
- Nishiura et al., 2020: Transmission of COVID-19 in a closed environment was 18.7 times greater compared to an open-air environment (95% confidence interval).
- Lidia Morawska, professor and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.”: Outdoors is safe, and there is certainly no cloud of virus-laden droplets hanging around… Firstly, any infectious droplets exhaled outside would be quickly diluted in outdoor air, so their concentrations would quickly become insignificant. “In addition, the stability of the virus outside is significantly shorter than inside. So outside is not really a problem… It is safe to go for a walk and jog and not to worry about the virus in the air”
Influenza patients were moved into the sunny, outside air to promote recovery during the 1918-1919 pandemic.
- There is deep experience during other pandemics that placing patients outdoors greatly enhanced their recoveries and lessened spread to others. In fact, during some pandemics (like 1918-1919) open-air hospitals were built and patients were moved outside into the sun, with very positive impacts. To quote one paper on the subject (“The Open Air Treatment of Pandemic Influenza”, which documented the reduction of mortality and morbidity in the open air: “more might be gained by introducing high levels of natural ventilation or, indeed, by encouraging the public to spend as much time outdoors as possible.”
- There is an extensive literature that ultraviolet radiation from the sun can quickly degrade the viability of viruses in the air (e.g., Schuit et al. 2020: The Influence of Simulated Sunlight on the Inactivation of Influenza Virus in Aerosols). As noted by Lytle et al., 2005: “Sunlight or, more specifically, solar UV radiation (UV) acts as the principal natural virucide in the environment.” Duan et. al. 2003 found that “UV irradiation can efficiently eliminate the viral infectivity”
- A fascinating study of virus transmission in dorms at the University of Maryland compared students in rooms with poor ventilation, with those who kept their windows open all the time (Zhu et al., 2020). Those with open windows had one-fourth the rate of respiratory infections. Some did complain of being cold, though.
- Virus particles rapidly disperse in the open air as noted by Case Western Reserve University Hospitals infectious disease specialist Dr. Amy Edwards: “When someone coughs or sneezes, most of the virus drops to the ground within 6 feet pretty quickly. That’s why doctors recommend social distancing. If a few particles remained in the air, they would be killed off by UV light in the sun, or blown away by the wind”
I could quote a lot more literature and from additional specialists, but you get the point. Being in fresh, outside air, particularly when the sun is out, is clearly a good place to lessen one’s exposure to COVID-19.
The risk of transmission of COVID-19 is extraordinarily less in outside air compared to within buildings. There is essentially no background concentrations of the virus in outside air. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun is destructive to the virus. There is rapid dispersion of any source of virus (e.g., an infected coughing individual) by the wind in the vast outside volume of air. And there is a substantial literature that concentration matters: the more exposure to viral particles the greater the chance of infection. Viral concentrations will be very low outside, if they are measurable at all.
Another issue is humidity. Viral transmission is degraded by high humidities and enhanced by lower humidities (check out this excellent recent review article: Moriyama et al. 2020); several papers suggest that relative humidities above 40% degrade transmission. During the cool season, humidity inside building tends to be very low (check my earlier blog for an explanation), but outside humidities are generally much higher. For example, below is a plot of the relative humidity in Seattle over the past three years. Outside relative humidity only rarely drops below 40% around here. Inside RH is often below 40% during the cool season.
Recently, there has been a lot of media attention regarding a simulation of particle dispersion from a coughing runner, with recommendations not to run directly behind him/her and particularly in the wake region behind the runner. There was some dramatic imagery (see below), but the risk from sick runners is really quite small.
First, there are not many runners coughing and sneezing while running–when someone is sick with the virus they have great fatigue and if they were asymptomatic carriers they would not be coughing! (Note: there are some folks that cough after intense exercise). Furthermore, the large virus-laden droplets tend to fall quickly and the smaller particles/droplets tend to follow the streamflow around an obstacle (that’s you). Most importantly, the droplets ejected from a sick runner would rapidly disperse in the free atmosphere and the UV radiation would work to lessen the viability of a virus. Yes, there is a slipstream of air immediately behind a runner in which concentrations could be greater…. but how many people are running immediately behind a sick runner? Even in the video, little of the particles reach the face of the runner following immediately behind. Folks, this is a very small risk.
So let’s get back to the policy decision to ban folks from parks and why it is illogical and contrary to common sense.
Hopefully, you are convinced that outside air is immensely more healthful with far less COVID-19 risk than the air we breathe inside of buildings. You really want folks outside for that reason alone.
But what about social distancing? If that is good, you want folks to spread out as much as possible. Thus, they should be ENCOURAGED to get their fresh air in vast open public spaces and particularly ones with lots of air motion (i.e. wind).
But yet that is exactly the opposite of what our political leadership is doing. Here in Seattle, the Parks Department closed the largest parks in the city (like Magnuson, Lincoln and Discovery) last weekend, parks that afford great opportunities for social distancing (see map). Many of these large parks (red X in the above figure) are near the water and experience stronger winds that are particularly favorable for virus dispersal. In contrast, the city left the smaller parks open, concentrating folks in small areas. Just as bad is the closing of park parking lots, which forced folks to leave their cars outside of parks and to walk in narrow corridors (less social distancing) to enter the parks.
Magnuson Park was closed and everyone is forced to walk on the crowded path to the left.
In California, vast beach areas are closed, again forcing folks to stay indoors or crowd onto limited walkways.
All these park closures are based on fears of transmission within groups enjoying the parks. But such closures do not make sense. First, there is little evidence of viral spread in outdoor spaces, even when crowded. Second, there is little evidence for such crowding in Washington State and California parks in other than the most isolated incidents. I have been to several Seattle parks during the past weeks– folks are generally careful and respectful, without large collections of folks in close proximity. Obviously, park officials can make it clear that closely packed large crowds are not appropriate and that there will be warnings and citations if such crowds occur. To put it succinctly, park closure is a solution in search of a problem that has never been shown to exist. And it hurts exactly the people it is meant to help.
More Issues
Going to parks is extraordinarily good for physical and mental health. Being outside exposes folks to the sun’s UV rays that facilitate production of vitamin D, which bolsters the immune system and reduces the chance of infection by COVID-19 and other pathogens. Recently, I got a call from a UW professor of medicine who is working on exactly this important relationship with COVID (he needed global UV/solar radiation data), confirming the above. Vigorous exercise and even walking enhance the immune system, reducing chances of infection. And exercise and fresh air have a very positive effect on mood, reducing stress and anxiety–both of which weaken the immune system,
And in a progressive city like Seattle, or in the progressive states of Washington or California, there are simple equity ideas that should be compelling. Closing parks or making entry difficult hurts low income people the most. Folks that live in small apartments or in crowded environments greatly enjoy the physical and emotional release of our wonderful large parks. They are the ones who are most deprived by the park closings, both mentally and physically, in comparison to those with large homes and extensive garden areas. And the closing of parking lots deprives the elderly and physically handicapped from the healthful conditions in our parks and the emotional salve of enjoying the outdoors. I have noted the demographic shift in the park when the parking lots were closed.
In some ways, this is all about risk. There is an extraordinarily small risk of catching COVID-19 while enjoying parks and natural areas. I mean really, really small. But park closures provide substantial risks that clearly threaten one’s physical and mental health. Our society is not particularly good in qualifying and acting upon risks, and the park closures are a prime example of this failure.
Sunset at Shoreline’s Richmond Beach Park.
Parking is closed and many cannot enjoy this view anymore.
Governors Inslee, Cuomo, and Newsom have all stated that in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis it is essential to “follow the science.” It is time that they follow their own advice, reopening all the parks and nature areas, including the restoration of all parking facilities and access.
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Addendum: A few commenters (and some politicians) have said that the parks should be closed because a few individuals did not practice sufficient social distancing in their evaluation. So should everyone be punished and denied access to the parks because of a very small minority (the overwhelming number of park visitors are not gathering in groups)?
Such communal punishment seems something out of a non-democratic society. Plus, the dangers of isolated groups in the outside air is totally speculative and not based on any evidence. Consider the situation on the highways. Because some people are speeding and endangering others, do we stop EVERYONE from driving. Of course not. We warn them and give them tickets. We can do the same thing in parks.
PSS: There are reasonable measures that could be done in parks, like closing active playgrounds and perhaps the bathrooms. Places where many people are physically touching the same objects.
The Covid-19 pandemic exposes deep flaws in America’s broken healthcare system
By Margaret Flowers | RT | April 26, 2020
The coronavirus crisis is demonstrating why it’s time we replaced a system that exists purely for profits with one that puts public health first.
When it comes to the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, the United States is off the charts compared to other countries. Although the USA comprises five percent of the global population, 32 percent of Covid-19 cases and 25 percent of deaths worldwide are there. By contrast, China, where the novel coronavirus originated, has one-tenth of the number of cases and deaths, despite having a population that is four times larger.
A disaster scenario is playing out across the United States, particularly in New York City where scores of refrigerator trucks have been brought in to hold the dead, hundreds of people are dying in their homes without medical attention every day, mass graves are being used to store bodies while mortuaries are overwhelmed, and health professionals lack basic personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and dialysis machines.
Dr Mike Pappas, a doctor there, has described the difficulties he and other health professionals are facing. The shortage of PPE means doctors and nurses are reusing masks and gowns and are sometimes working without them. They are wearing trash bags over their bodies to protect themselves and their patients from becoming infected. In an interview, Dr Pappas spoke about the stress of not having enough staff, having to clear hallways and the cafeteria to make bed space, and the reluctance of hospital administrators to buy more ventilators.
As people in America struggle to wrap their heads around the twin crises of the rampant pandemic and collapsing economy, it is easy to blame the Trump administration for its failures to take rapid and effective action to contain the spread of infection and provide financial support. In reality, the roots of the crises precede Trump. The US would have fared poorly during a pandemic under any president.
It’s the system, stupid
The current disaster exists in large part because the US healthcare system is the opposite of what is needed. It is fragmented, discriminatory and designed for corporate profits, not the wellbeing of the public. Even before the pandemic, the United States had the highest number of preventable deaths compared to other wealthy nations and a declining life expectancy.
Nearly every facet of the system, which is twice as expensive as other developed countries, is designed to extract profit whether it is the hundreds of private health insurers that compete for the healthiest enrollees while avoiding those with health conditions, or the pharmaceutical corporations that charge whatever the market will bear. Even hospitals are shutting down essential departments such as obstetrics and pediatrics to make space for more lucrative areas like cardiology and orthopedics.
Two-thirds of US bankruptcies are caused by medical bills
There are now more than 30 million people without health insurance. In the past five weeks, as more than 26 million people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time, five million of them lost their health insurance. The number of uninsured is expected to rise by more than 13 million by June. On top of that, tens of millions of people with health insurance can’t afford care because of the thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs they must pay before their insurance benefits begin.
Even if a person has health insurance, there may not be anywhere to go for care. Over the past 45 years, as the US population grew by over 100 million, the number of hospital beds shrunk by about 600,000. Hospitals closed in rural areas because they could not bring in enough revenue to keep their doors open. Another 453 rural hospitals are teetering on the edge of closure out of the 1,844 that remain. In cities, hospitals that served poor communities for over 100 years are being shuttered to make way for luxury housing or retail space in gentrifying areas.
Another flaw that has been exposed by Covid-19 is the supply chain for goods and equipment. In February and early March, when patients went to hospitals with symptoms of the virus, there were few to no tests for diagnosis because the US chose to create its own tests rather than purchasing them from the World Health Organization. There have been severe shortages of protective gear. States have been fighting with each other to get basic kits as suppliers raise prices by as much as 1,000 percent.
This situation has made the call for a national improved Medicare for All healthcare system grow louder. If the US already had Medicare for All, many of the problems being experienced would not exist. Under the Medicare for All system, as defined by the congressional bill in the House of Representatives, every person in the US would be covered from birth to death without requiring payment before care is given.
This would alleviate the real fear Americans experience of financial ruin. For example, in March a nurse sought care and testing for Covid-19 symptoms and subsequently received a bill for $35,000 even though she was never admitted to the hospital. Two thirds of personal bankruptcies in America are because of medical bills.
Put people before profits
There’s a more fundamental case for a more socialized approach: it works better. A look at healthcare systems around the world that have performed well during the pandemic finds universal coverage, central planning, and the principle of health over profit are essential features. Even countries that are suffering from economic sanctions are doing a better job of containing the spread of infection than the United States.
Under a national improved Medicare for All, hospitals would not be closing their doors or shutting down departments that don’t generate high revenues in favor of more lucrative ones. Every hospital and health facility would receive a budget to cover operating costs and capital expenses. The days of investment companies buying up hospitals, running them into bankruptcy and leaving them stranded would be over.
Another key feature would be that the federal government would purchase pharmaceuticals and medical supplies in bulk to lower the cost and ensure states have what they need. Bidding wars and price gouging would cease to exist.
The US is an outlier in this pandemic in terms of the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, and an expert predicts the next winter will be even worse as the flu season begins. But the US has been an outlier for a long time for spending the most on healthcare and still having poor health outcomes. Around the world, the countries that have handled the pandemic well, such as China, South Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, share common features of their healthcare systems: central planning, universal coverage and a focus on public health.
Whether America finally adopts a similar system depends on what people do to demand it, but there certainly has not been a more opportune time to make that demand.
Margaret Flowers is co-director of Popular Resistance and is an adviser to the board of Physicians for a National Health Program. Follower her @MFlowers8
Palestinians hunker down for Ramadan, facing a virus that doesn’t discriminate but an occupier that does
By Jonathan Cook | Palestine DeepDive | April 25, 2020
As the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins, the coronavirus outbreak in Israel and the Palestinian territories is proving how inevitably intertwined the two populations’ lives are, while also underlining the extreme differentials of power between them.
While 15,000 Israelis have tested positive for Covid-19 so far, the numbers infected in the occupied territories are still measured in the hundreds – though that, in part, reflects the difficulties for Palestinians of getting tested. The Palestinian Authority is desperately short of equipment, including testing kits, to deal with the virus.
Research suggests that most infections of Palestinians have originated in contacts with Israelis. Israel is much further advanced along the contagion curve because of its population’s access to international travel, the country’s greater exposure to tourism and its integration into the global economy.
Israel’s tight restrictions over Palestinians’ freedom of movement – from the complete blockade on Gaza to the walling-in of the West Bank – as well as its colonial-style control of the Palestinian economy have ensured the late arrival of Covid-19 to the occupied territories.
But it has also guaranteed that the Palestinian leaderships – both Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank – will be weakly positioned to cope when contagion kicks in more forcefully.
And just such a major outbreak is all but inevitable in the West Bank. Ramadan may well provide the trigger.
In recent years about 80,000 Palestinians – from a West Bank population of nearly 3 million – have received permits to work either in Israel or in Israeli settlements, with a few tens of thousands more entering “illegally” through missing sections of the wall. For most families, such work is the only hope they have of earning a living.
The Palestinian economy is entirely dependent on Israel. Palestinians cannot leave the West Bank without permission from Israel, which is often hard to get.
Israel imposes costly and lengthy bureaucratic controls on Palestinian exports, making it nigh-impossible for Palestinian firms to compete in the global market-place.
And World Bank studies show that Israel has plundered most of the West Bank’s key resources, making it impossible for Palestinians themselves to exploit those resources. Israel even controls the flow of tourists into Palestinian areas.
But Palestinian workers’ dependence on Israel is now placing them in harm’s way. Although many are likely to catch the virus in Israel while working, Israel is refusing to take responsibility for their welfare.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is able to do little itself because many of the workers are from Area C, the two-thirds of the West Bank that Israel fully controls under the long-expired Oslo Accords. The PA has no access to these areas.
Difficult choice
The Ramadan holiday is likely to severely exacerbate the problem of the virus spreading in the occupied territories.
Last month, as Israel intensified its lockdown to prevent contagion in the run-up to its week-long Passover holiday in the second week of April, Palestinian workers were given a choice. Either they committed to continue working in Israel for several more weeks, often in jobs defined as “essential”, such as food production, or they had to stop work and return to the West Bank until the lockdown ended.
Many chose to keep working and stayed in Israel, while many more worked off-radar, without permits, by sneaking in and out through one of the many gaps in the wall.
This latter group, among the poorest members of Palestinian society, is posing a particular problem for West Bank officials. These workers are at high risk of catching the virus, and can spread it without the PA knowing.
For this reason, groups of Palestinians are reported to be patrolling the missing sections of wall to stop such workers entering Israel. Paradoxically, there are even cases of them trying to patch up breaks in the wall on Israel’s behalf.
The Israeli government has supposedly put in place regulations to keep the Palestinian workers safe: firms must take their temperatures daily, ensure social distancing is maintained on production sites, properly house workers and make sure no more than four sleep to a room.
But the government is leaving it to the firms to comply. There are no inspectors. Media investigations show that the rules are being widely flouted, leading to the rapid spread of the virus among Palestinian workers.
Any who try to leave Israel to avoid catching Covid-19 are being threatened by their employers that their work permits will be revoked, leaving them without work long term.
And now many are heading home to the West Bank to spend Ramadan with their families. Israel has refused to conduct any testing, so a proportion will be bringing – unknown to them – the virus home.
But these workers and their families are not just facing an imminent health crisis that Palestinian medical services are in no shape to withstand. They are also being hit harshly in the pocket by Israel’s lockdown policies.
Palestinians who work in Israel are often the only breadwinner, providing for an extended family that lives close to the poverty line. For the forseeable future there will be no income for the tens of thousands of workers who joined the lockdown in the West Bank before Passover, for those who caught the virus in Israel and were forced home, and for those returning for Ramadan.
Israel is also taking no responsibility for their welfare, even though many have worked for years in Israel and have had to pay a substantial proportion of their wages each month into a sick fund run by the Israeli government.
The fund amounts to more than $140 million, and has grown so large because Israel makes it almost impossible for Palestinians to make a claim.
Israeli human rights groups have pressed Israel to release the funds to Palestinians who are not able to work to help them through this health and economic emergency. So far the Israeli government has done nothing.
Trying to fill the void
The Palestinians under Israeli rule in occupied East Jerusalem face their own set of problems.
Despite claiming that all of Jerusalem – including the Palestinian parts of the city – are Israel’s “united capital”, Israeli officials have continued an apartheid-like approach in the city that treats Palestinians, who are classified by Israel simply as “residents”, very differently from Jews, who are Israeli “citizens”.
The numbers of Palestinians who have officially tested positive so far in Jerusalem is still low, at several dozen, but that probably reflects the fact that until recently there were almost no clinics carrying out testing in Palestinian neighbourhoods.
Many Palestinian areas have not been sanitised by cleaning crews, as Jewish areas have been, nor has there been significant enforcement by Israeli police of lockdown measures or mask-wearing regulations – a surprise given that Israeli police are usually very diligent in patrolling Palestinian areas and making arrests.
Israeli authorities have also been slow to put out information in Arabic about the virus and on safety measures – either for 330,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem or for the 1.8 million Palestinians who live inside Israel and have a very degraded form of Israeli citizenship.
Experts say the lack of an awareness-raising campaign in Palestinian areas will likely lead to a rapid rise in cases over Ramadan, if extended families follow traditional practice and spend more time together.
Palestinian officials in Jerusalem have tried to fill the void by disseminating information, organising sanitisation operations and helping to set up a testing clinic. Israel has cracked down on any such activities, including by violently arresting the Palestinian governor of Jerusalem and the PA’s Jerusalem affairs minister.
Instead Palestinian charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have formed into a “Jerusalem Alliance” to try to pick up the slack left by Israel.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem are likely to be especially vulnerable to disease. Three-quarters live below the poverty line, and less than half are formally connected to the water network. Planning restrictions mean there is widespread overcrowding.
East Jerusalem’s three Palestinian hospitals are also in poor shape, bedevilled by large debts courtesy of Donald Trump, who cut $25 million in financial aid in 2018.
The Israeli health ministry has also failed to provide protective equipment and funds to these hospitals to deal with the coronavirus crisis. They have found an unusual ally in Jerusalem’s mayor, Moshe Leon. He has berated the Israeli government, apparently fearful that West Jerusalem hospitals will be overwhelmed if Palestinians cannot get help from their own hospitals.
More precarious still is the situation of Palestinian neighbourhoods, like Kfar Aqab, that were effectively split off from East Jerusalem after Israel built a wall putting them on the West Bank side. That has made city services difficult to access for some 100,000 Jerusalem residents.
Israel has been progressively abandoning responsibility for these areas – in an effort to raise the Jewish majority in the rest of Jerusalem.
Nonetheless, it has been reluctant to allow the PA to fill the void. The Covid-19 crisis is gradually revealing Israel’s intention towards these “outside” neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. On Thursday, Israel sent in the army to pull down coronavirus information notices that had been put up by the PA.
The Israel army has no role in Jerusalem, but does operate in the West Bank. The new action suggests Israel is preparing to formally reclassify areas like Kfar Aqab as no longer part of Jerusalem.
Apartheid wins out
Things are only slightly better for the fifth of Israel’s population who belong to its Palestinian minority. These 1.8 million second-class citizens are descended from Palestinians who managed to avoid Israel’s ethnic cleansing operations in 1948, when Israel was established on the Palestinians’ homeland.
Israel has created a strange hybrid apartheid system, in which Jewish citizens live almost entirely separate from Palestinian citizens. The two populations are educated separately, and many areas of the economy are segregated too.
But one area where Palestinian and Jewish citizens are highly integrated – coming into regular contact – is in the health sector.
In fact, Palestinian citizens are over-represented in the medical professions, in large part because it is one of the few significant areas of the economy that is not defined in security terms and is therefore relatively open to the Palestinian minority.
One in five doctors in Israel is a Palestinian citizen, a quarter of nurses are, and a half of all pharmacists.
But despite the strong showing of Palestinian citizens in health services, the Israeli government’s apartheid instincts have won out.
In February Israel established an emergency team to handle the pandemic. It devised a national strategy for testing, quarantines, hospitalisations, awareness-raising and the lockdown policy.
However, not one expert from the Palestinian minority – or from the occupied territories – was included on the committee, leaving it entirely ignorant of the special conditions relevant to Palestinian society, in either Israel or the occupied territories.
The Israeli health ministry also refused to meet with the minority’s own national health committee, established by Palestinian doctors and researchers in Israel to help tackle the virus in the Palestinian community.
These failures explain the long delay in Israel producing any information on the virus in Arabic, and the similar delay in setting up testing stations in Palestinian communities. Limited action came only after concerted protests from Palestinian legislators in the parliament.
After a very low initial rate of infection, Palestinian citizens are now the fastest growing group in Israel testing positive for the virus – and that despite continuing low levels of testing.
Ramadan is expected to exacerbate that upward trend dramatically as families shop for food and eat meals with extended families. Mosques are already closed, and Muslim leaders have told worshippers to pray at home. In a last-minute effort to avert a new epidemic, the Israeli government has banned shops and businesses opening during the hours of darkness, as would normally occur during Ramadan.
As in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Palestinians in Israel are vulnerable. Two-thirds of families live below the poverty line – more than three times the rate of Jewish families. There is massive overcrowding in Palestinian communities, after decades in which Israel has refused new building permits for Palestinians.
And health services are poor or non-existent in many Palestinian communities, especially in dozens of Bedouin villages Israel has refused to recognise. In these communities, Bedouin are also denied water and electricity.
Further, Israel’s main ambulance service, Magen David Adom, rarely operates in Palestinian communities, though its staff alone have training to deal with coronavirus. It is unclear how the private companies serving Palestinian communities will cope if there is a major outbreak.
And as is the case in other Palestinian communities, Palestinian families in Israel are also particularly exposed to the economic consequences of lockdown. Many work as casual labourers, and have lost their work during the past weeks.
The coronavirus outbreak was a test of Israel’s ability to put aside its security and demographic obsessions and deal with the Palestinians not just as fellow human beings but also as allies in a struggle for the health of both peoples. In that test, Israel has failed dismally.
Craig Murray Defence Fund Launched
By Craig Murray | April 24, 2020
I know of four pro-Independence folk who were last week phoned or visited by Police Scotland and threatened with contempt of court proceedings over social media postings they had made weeks back on the Alex Salmond case. Then on Monday, a Scottish journalist I know had his home raided by five policemen, who confiscated (and still have) all his computers and phones. They said they were from the “Alex Salmond team” and investigating his postings on the Alex Salmond case. He has not to date been charged, and his lawyer is advising him at present to say nothing, so I am not revealing his name.
Then on Tuesday morning, a large Police van full of police pulled up onto the pavement right outside my front gate, actually while I was talking on the phone to a senior political figure about the raid on my friend. The police just sat in the van staring at my house. I contacted my lawyers who contacted the Crown Office. The police van pulled away and my lawyers contacted me back to say that the Crown Office had told them I would be charged, or officially “cited”, with Contempt of Court, but they agreed there was no need for a search of my home or to remove my devices, or for vans full of police.
On Thursday two plain clothes police arrived and handed me the indictment. Shortly thereafter, an email arrived from The Times newspaper, saying that the Crown Office had “confirmed” that I had been charged with contempt of court. In the case of my friend whose house was raided, he was contacted by the Daily Record just before the raid even happened!
I am charged with contempt of court and the hearing is on 7 July at the High Court in Edinburgh. The contempt charge falls in two categories:
i) Material published before the trial liable to prejudice a jury
ii) Material published which could assist “jigsaw identification” of the failed accusers.
Plainly neither of these is the true motive of the Crown Office. If they believed that material I published was likely to have prejudiced the jury, then they had an obvious public duty to take action BEFORE the trial – and the indictment shows conclusively they were monitoring my material long before the trial. To leave this action until after the trial which they claim the material was prejudicing, would be a serious act of negligence on their part. It is quite extraordinary to prosecute for it now and not before the trial. … continue
Monitoring the Public After Coronavirus
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 23, 2020
It is too early to say when or even whether the siege initiated by the coronavirus will end, but many Americans and Europeans are speculating over what kind of countries will emerge on the other side. National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, who exposed illegal spying on American citizens, recently predicted that there would be a “slide into a less liberal and less free world,” that the surveillance systems being created to monitor the spread of the disease would become an “architecture of oppression.” To be sure he has a point in that governments have historically used crises to expand their powers. After the crisis is over, the emergency power granted to manage the activity of the people tends to be retained.
Much depends on the lessons learned from what is being done to contain the virus currently. If testing and “keep your distance” does not succeed in checking the spread of the disease and restoring a version of what once was normal life, harsher and more permanent measures might prevail. Alexander Dugin foresees a “military-medical” dictatorship developing.
The rapid spread of the virus has also spawned some unusual conspiracy theories. One claims that the virus was actually developed in the United States, stolen from a lab by Chinese scientists and then released in China before being allowed to propagate worldwide as part of a communist conspiracy to destroy the economy and political system in the U.S. Another has cast Bill Gates as the villain, claiming that he had a hand in the appearance of the virus as part of a nefarious plot to take over global health care. The megalomaniacal Gates certainly is to blame for using his wealth and status to promote a universal “health” surveillance system for the post-coronavirus world, but that he might have been behind the appearance of the virus itself is certainly a bit of a stretch. Still other theories connect the appearance of coronavirus to 5G telecommunications technology.
The reality of to what degree the national security state that already exists tightens its grip based on a continuing medical emergency pretty much depends on how the virus itself reacts to summer heat and the measures being taken to contain it. Meanwhile, there have been some decidedly extreme proposals about what the United States and other nations might consider doing to seize and maintain the high ground in the battle against a still proliferating, highly contagious and lethal disease.
The key to stopping the spread of the virus, most authorities would agree, is to test and monitor nearly all the public, to force them if needs be to maintain distance from individuals who are already infected. There have been several proposals for how to do that ranging from testing nearly everyone and issuing health ID cards based on the results, with those individuals considered contagious or especially vulnerable being subject to quarantine or some form of further isolation. One over-the-top plan would make the health status of individuals recorded and updated on a chip readable by government scanners that would be permanently embedded in everyone’s body.
The plan that appears to have the best possibly of being adopted is being promoted in a joint venture by Apple and Google that appears to have White House support. Bloomberg reports that “Apple Inc. and Google unveiled a rare partnership to add technology to their smartphone platforms that will alert users if they have come into contact with a person with Covid-19. People must opt in to the system, but it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world’s population.”
The monitoring would be done by central computers and once the principle is established that phones can be manipulated there are no technical or practical limits to what other tasks could be included. That means that the observation made by protagonist Winston Smith in George Orwell’s “1984” has finally been realized. Smith was doing the mandatory half hour of exercise daily in front of his television, but when he began to slack off a voice from the TV set admonished him. He then accepted that in theory the government was actually capable of surveilling everyone all the time and might in fact be doing so. Well, George and Winston, we have finally arrived at 1984.
Even if coronavirus fades into obscurity, government might plausibly exploit the fear created by it to push hard that a surveillance mechanism be continued and even expanded to prevent its recurrence or the development of future pandemics. That is what the “science” tells one is the right thing to do, at least according to some scientists, but it ignores individual liberty of association, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. The U.S. and other governments have long demonstrated that when it comes to individual freedom versus the ability of the state to impose a statist uniformity, the rules makers will always win out. 9/11, for example, produced the Patriot and Military Commission Acts that have considerably abridged personal liberty in America, even though the threat of terrorism was overstated at the time and has considerably receded ever since. Yet, unfathomably, the Patriot Act has survived and keeps getting renewed by Congress.
Predictably perhaps, presidential son-in-law and jack of all trades Jared Kushner, fresh from his failure to bring peace to the Middle East, has been placed in charge of a White House task force that will determine how and when to develop a pandemic surveillance system which will also link those ill to hospital centers for mandatory screening and treatment. The argument being made is that tracking nearly everyone would enable the identification and quarantining of those who are sick in nearly real time, controlling the spread of future viruses that has up until now been impossible. That the information would be collected into a national data base appears to be part of the program and it would, of course, include information on the patient’s location and activities.
As social media is already being manipulated and controlled by the government working hand-in-hand with the oligarchs who own and operate the sites, the ability to further isolate members of the public so as to preempt the development of any genuine resistance to state policies might well be seen as highly desirable. It would be a gift to a developing police state to be able to know where everyone is at any given time and be able to intuit what they might be doing. Real troublemakers could be further identified and singled out for special attention.
And one should note that it all comes at a time of great vulnerability to both revolution and repression, when representative government is under siege in many countries, unable to control the narrative as it once did. Donald Trump in a tweet barrage last Friday called on his followers to “liberate” Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia because he disapproved of the policies on coronavirus and gun control being advanced by their respective governors, all Democrats. Calling for the overthrow of state governments is illegal, a call to insurrection, but Trump apparently believes that having survived one impeachment attempt he is now untouchable. If many Americans begin to take Trump’s exhortations literally, it could be a sign that the admittedly dystopian political equilibrium in the U.S. is about to spin out of control.
Daily Mail Falsely Brands Riots Against Police in Paris Suburbs as ‘Anti-Lockdown’ Protests
Sputnik – April 20, 2020
On 19 April, riots broke out in the suburbs of Paris following an accident where a 30-year-old motocyclist was seriously injured after he collided with a police car, with circumstances of the incident still being reviewed.
The Daily Mail has misleadingly branded anti-police clashes in Villeneuve-la-Garenne near Paris as “anti-lockdown” riots in the headline of its Monday article, while linking the skirmish to Emmanuel Macron’s recent extension of social-distancing orders.
The riots erupted in response to an incident in the evening of 18 April, when a 30-year-old motorcyclist was seriously injured after colliding with the open door of an unmarked police car. The man, whose leg was severely fractured in the incident, was successfully operated on on Sunday but was planning to file a complaint against the police.
According to the local authorities, the police opened the car’s door in order to detain the man, who was riding at a high speed. However, according to witnesses’ accounts and videos on social media, the door could have been opened deliberately in order to stop the motorcyclist. The incident is currently being investigated.
Following the incident, riots broke out in the Parisian suburb of Villeneuve-la-Garenne and continued through Sunday. They erupted again on Monday night, with protesters alighting cars and furniture on the streets and firing fireworks, while local law enforcement rushed into the areas. The videos of the incidents have been extensively circulating on social media.
‘Eco-fascism’ Troubles Climate Alarmists
By Robert Bradley Jr. | MasterResource | April 14, 2020
“We’re the virus.’ How eco-fascism hurts climate action,” rang the title of a ClimateWire piece by Jennifer Hijazi of April 8, 2020.
Her article begins:
Sharp declines in emissions from the coronavirus pandemic are a vivid illustration of the challenge of addressing climate change, rather than a silver lining, according to experts.
As the health crisis drags on, there’s a growing effort to recast the downward trajectory of carbon dioxide as a warning about the depth of action that’s needed to slow global temperature increases. It comes as extreme reactions to the pandemic, like grounded airplanes and empty streets, have been widely interpreted as a beneficial side effect that’s resulted in less pollution.
And ends:
A parade of stories emerged in the early days of the pandemic pointing to the virus’s seemingly positive impact on the environment — some of which were fake.
Celebrating the environmental benefits of the pandemic’s response comes dangerously close to rooting for a virus that could kill 1 million people or more, some experts caution.
Others say it resembles eco-fascism.
She then describes eco-fascism, which surely includes Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren; Al Gore in Earth in the Balance; and scary-eyed Bill McKibben (and a lot of others, including Thomas Friedman, and Paul Krugman, on their angry days). [1]
Eco-fascism is a totalitarian ideology that advocates for authoritarian governance for the greater environmental good. Some who ascribe to the philosophy sometimes say that human population control — often in the most marginalized communities — is needed to preserve the planet.
Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion had to disavow fake flyers bearing its logo that read, “Corona is the cure humans are the disease.” One tweet that gained attention on social media said: “Earth is recovering. We’re the virus.”
Falling emissions are often wed to difficult times. Dale Jamieson, professor of environmental studies at New York University, noted that periods of suffering, like the Great Recession of 2008, usually result in temporary pollution dips.
“But of course, it’s not anywhere along the lines of the solution path,” he said, referring to climate change.
Extreme narratives that celebrate the environmental benefits of the pandemic can damage efforts to address rising temperatures, even if they’re not prevalent. That’s especially true if it creates the impression that environmentalists are seen as “anti-people,” Klopp said.
“It is important for people to speak out at this moment, but they should not be framing this as the pandemic is our [climate] policy response,” she said. “They should be framing this as the pandemic is teaching us why our policy responses as a planet are inadequate.”
The Progressive Left is at war with itself. Instead of incrementally getting to where they want to go in a period of general prosperity, the Pandemic has offered up a destination that deep ecologists have celebrated. It is, rightfully, a PR disaster for climate alarmism.
—————–
[1] Jeff Sparrow, author of the book Fascists Among Us (2019), also described the environmental civil war: “It’s not difficult to imagine ‘eco-authoritarianism’ or what Naomi Klein calls ‘climate barbarism’: a politics centred on the state making “our way of life” sustainable as the environment disintegrates. Future governments committed to this project will be able to draw upon the vast array of coercive powers they’ve acquired over the past decades: draconian anti-protest laws; secret trials and imprisonment; the deployment of the army to quell civil disturbances; and so on.”
Ninth Circuit Denies Lawsuit Over Damage to Home in Police Raid
By Nathan Solis | Courthouse News | April 9, 2020
The Jessen’s rural farm home in central California sat on a dead-end street, surrounded by almond orchards.
On June 11, 2016, David Jessen said while he was out, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department called to tell him someone had broken into his home. Several hours later he would return to find his home destroyed after a SWAT team, two helicopters, a K-9 unit and a fire truck barreled toward his front lawn to arrest the burglar.
On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit upheld a ruling that Fresno County and the city of Clovis are not liable for negligence claimed by David and his wife Gretchen Jessen’s lawsuit, because the damage to their home was caused by the officer’s “discretionary acts.”
The Jessens claimed in their 2017 lawsuit that the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department and Clovis Police Department happened upon the ideal setting for a training exercise at their home when they received a call from a construction crew about a man who was found sleeping in a nearby vacant house.
The man left without any protest, but the construction workers say they heard the sound of glass breaking and say the man broke into the Jessen’s home, according to the civil complaint.
The lawsuit claimed the dead-end home was the perfect setting for a training exercise because there would be no nearby neighbors or civilians who would congregate to watch the SWAT team and helicopters converge.
David Jessen said after he arrived at his home and told an officer that two unloaded shotguns and a loaded .357 magnum were hidden in the house, the officer told him the man inside threatened to shoot anyone who entered. Jessen and his family were asked to wait elsewhere.
After taking his family to a friend’s house 10 minutes away, Jessen drove back to unload some farm equipment and found law enforcement cars lining the road to his house for a quarter of a mile, plus two ambulances, a fire truck and two helicopters circling above.
This use of police force would eventually destroy the home, according to the complaint. Jessen said just before police cleared out, an officer handed him a card and said, “We have insurance for this.”
Police ripped out several wrought iron doors, according to the complaint, and pulled out a wall off the foundation, teargased six rooms, shattered a glass sliding door, broke several windows and 90 feet of fencing and flash-bombed two more rooms.
The Jessens say the man, identified later as Chanley Un, stole an ice cream bar, some milk and half a tomato.
The sheriff’s department claimed in a 2017 statement that officers found Un in a room within reach of the guns.
The couple sought $150,000 due to the damage to their home, which they said could no longer be lived in due to the excessive teargas use and other damage.
The appellate panel made up of U.S. Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, a Bill Clinton appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith Jr., a George W. Bush appointee, and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Eugene Siler Jr., a George H.W. Bush appointee, sitting by designation from the Sixth Circuit, upheld the ruling in an unpublished and unsigned memorandum.
The panel agreed that the Jessens did not establish a triable issue on the municipal actions taken by the officers and that the departments “do not have a custom of turning simple operations into full-scale training operations,” which the district court ruled out due to a lack of evidence.
“The record evidence shows that defendants have a general policy of obtaining warrants prior to entry, of using reasonable force, and for the reasonable use of tear gas. The Jessens failed to establish a triable issue that any of these policies caused any constitutional injuries, or that there was a ‘persistent and widespread’ violation of these policies amounting to an unconstitutional custom or practice,” the panel wrote.
The panel said the Jessens also could not prove that the two police departments who arrived at their home to retrieve the barricaded man did not have the proper training.
“Even assuming, without deciding, that defendants’ training policies are inadequate, there is no evidence that ‘the need for more or different training [was] so obvious’ that defendants were deliberately indifferent to the Jessens’ rights,” the panel wrote.
The fact that an officer sought to explain and justify each piece of property damage after the incident shows the officer exercised some discretion in his role as the operation team leader and there was no evidence that one officer had final policymaking authority delegated to him, according to the 6-page memo.
Under the case Conway v. County of Tuolumne, the California Court of Appeal found “discretionary act immunity applies to the selection of the means to effectuate an arrest, including the decision to deploy a SWAT team in effectuating an arrest, and the subsequent decision to deploy tear gas.”
“Under Conway, Defendants are immune from liability, and the district court properly granted summary judgment for Defendants on the Jessens’ negligence claim,” the panel wrote.
In a statement for Fresno County, a spokesperson said they are “very pleased with the decision by the Ninth Circuit again confirming that the Sheriff’s Office acted reasonably and in the interest of public safety under all the circumstances.”
Emails sent to the Jessen’s attorney were not immediately answered for comment.
Ashrawi: While the world works on saving lives, US and Israel working on killing peace
WAFA – April 12, 2020
RAMALLAH – Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hanan Ashrawi, said today that Israel was “cynically exploiting” the international community’s focus on protecting humanity from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to implement its extraterritorial and expansionist colonial agenda.
She said the Israeli politicians “are busy negotiating a coalition agreement centered on permanent colonization and annexation at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and rights.”
“While the world is preoccupied with combating COVID-19, the joint Israeli-US committee set up to implement the US administration’s disastrous so-called plan has found the time and energy to work on annexation and prioritize it over saving lives,” Ashrawi said in a statement.
“The clear support and sponsorship of the US administration of these dangerous plans is further proof of the disruptive and irresponsible role of the Trump administration at all levels.”
She blamed the US administration’s “partnership with Israel on the issues of annexation and permanent occupation for making the situation on the ground completely untenable.”
Following is the full text of Ashrawi’s statement:
Israel is cynically exploiting the international community’s focus on protecting humanity and the world economy from the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to implement its extraterritorial and expansionist colonial agenda.
Israeli politicians are busy negotiating a coalition agreement centered on permanent colonization and annexation at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and rights.
While the world is preoccupied with combating COVID-19, the joint Israeli-US committee set up to implement the US administration´s disastrous so-called plan has found the time and energy to work on annexation and prioritize it over saving lives. The clear support and sponsorship of the US administration of these dangerous plans is further proof of the disruptive and irresponsible role of the Trump administration at all levels.
Israeli annexation is not a possibility the world should be worried about. It is a reality unfolding on the ground to the grave detriment of future generations in the region and at the expense of the standing and relevance of multilateral efforts and international law. Israel is taking practical steps to permanently and irreversibly undercut the realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights to freedom and independence, thus ensuring permanent conflict in the region.
Israel has scaled up land grab, settlement and Wall construction, nightly raids and other illegal measures and crimes to satisfy the insatiable appetite of colonial expansion. This agenda is now the common ground on which unity government discussions are based, dissolving any pretension that main Israeli political actors have differences on the policies of ensuring permanent colonization, enacting annexation, and enforcing apartheid-like policies. This dangerous agenda is neither new nor surprising.
It is what the Palestinian leadership has warned from for years. Regrettably, the international community has abdicated its responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its pervasive illegal actions and shameful impunity. This inaction has emboldened and empowered the Israeli political establishment to abandon all pretense of commitment to the internationally agreed-on solution of two states on the basis of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.
The current US administration’s ideological and practical partnership with Israel on the issues of annexation and permanent occupation has made the situation completely untenable.
Despite its focus on combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the international community is well aware of what is transpiring on the ground, including Israel’s obstruction of Palestinian efforts to combat the virus effectively.
This was evident in the recent European Union statement announcing increased assistance to Palestine to help fight the virus. However, rhetorical diagnosis of the threat to peace and international obligations will not be enough to avert the complete breakdown of the world agenda for peace. Serious and deterrent international action is required to stop Israeli actions and plans. Time has run out on complacency and platitudes.
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Aaron Siri’s Book: Vaccines, Amen
By Maryanne DemasiMaryanne Demasi | Brownstone Institute | June 15, 2026
For decades, vaccines have been treated as the sacred cow of modern medicine. I was taught that they were the holy grail. To question them was heresy. To raise concerns about safety was to risk professional exile.
Aaron Siri makes it clear in Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines that the story we’ve been told about vaccine science rests far more on belief than proof.
“No child should be sacrificed on the altar of the religion of vaccines,” Siri writes, as he turns his focus to America’s overcrowded childhood immunisation schedule.
I assumed little in this book would surprise me. I’ve spent years reporting on drug safety, regulatory capture, and the corruption of science. But Siri showed me how wrong I was.
Siri is not a doctor or a scientist. He is an attorney, and this, he says, is his advantage. In court, rhetoric won’t save you. Evidence does. As he puts it, he doesn’t get to say “trust me” the way many doctors do. “I need to prove claims with real data.”
And he does. … continue
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