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Israel Update 14.7.22

US PRESIDENT BIDEN’S VISIT TO ISRAEL

 

President Biden’s remarks upon landing in Israel on Wednesday Transcript: here

 

 

He visited Yad Vashem to participate in a solemn ceremony and spoke at length to two Holocaust survivors. Video (6’15’’) View here

 

President Biden and Israeli P.M. Lapid signed a joint strategic declaration on Thursday, in which the US vowed to use “all elements in its national power” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.The declaration contains a US commitment to fully implement the terms of the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding on defence aid, and a recognition that a follow-on MOU should reflect new threats and circumstances. The statement expresses support for the Abraham Accords and Israel’s integration in the region. Read more here

The leaders of Israel, India, the US and the UAE announced on Thursday a pair of massive collaborative projects in the fields of food security and clean energy after they met at a virtual summit during US President Joe Biden’s visit to Jerusalem. Read more here

 

ISRAEL DEFENCE FORCES

 

The Saudi magazine Al Majalla, published from London, recently ran a positive cover story about Arab Israelis who serve in the IDF. “These are…Arabs who chose to volunteer to fight and even sacrifice their lives to defend the State of Israel. These young people, who include women, are proud to be part of the Israeli army.” “One of the young men, A-Raqib Imad, says proudly, ‘It’s a great honour to hold a weapon in one hand and the Quran in the other to defend my homeland, Israel.'”
Alaa Hassan Kaabia, who spent two decades in the army and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, said that in the IDF “there is no discrimination and there is total equality and integration.”  Read more here

 

Maj. Or Livni will be promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and has been nominated to be the first woman to head a light infantry battalion – the Caracal battalion. Read more here

 

 

SECURITY BARRIER

 

 

Col. (res.) Dr. Danny Tirza was the chief architect and planner of the West Bank security barrier, the construction of which began 20 years ago this month. He said that there were more than 3,000 Palestinian attacks originating from the West Bank from September 2000 until the end of 2006 resulting in 1,622 deaths. From 2007 to the present, there have been 141 attacks from the West Bank, that led to 100 deaths inside Israel. Read more here

 

 

CO-OPERATION

 

 

Sheba Medical Centre in Israel has launched a training and health-delivery programme for female Palestinian healthcare professionals to provide remote care for pregnant women in the rural Hebron area with the goal “to provide women with the medical care they need, wherever they are located,”- “Telemedicine allows us to bridge geographical, political and cultural gaps in the shared vision of optimal health outcomes.” Read more here

 

 

UKRAINE

 

Israel delivered 9 tons of humanitarian supplies to Kharkiv on July 6 including ligatures, bandages, hemostatic agents, occlusive dressings, surgical packs, hygiene kits, and nappies. Read more here

 

A new shipment of defensive aid to Ukraine has been sent by Israel including 1,500 helmets, 1,500 protective vests, hundreds of mine protection suits, 1,000 gas masks and dozens of hazmat filtration systems. Read more here

 

 

ISRAEL & GREECE

 

 

Israeli and Greek military aircraft held a joint aerial exercise over Israel’s skies on Tuesday, simulating refuelling and mid-air dogfights. During the drill, Israeli planes refuelled Hellenic Air Force fighter jets. Read more here

 

 

GILEE PROGRAMME

 

16 officers from the award-winning Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) programme recently returned home from Israel having completed the programme’s 29th peer-to-peer professional training sessions “to better deal with threats to public safety and improve security.”
Israel has hosted over 1,200 public safety officials since the start of the programme.Read more here

 

 

SURVEY

 

A June 2022 survey of Palestinians in Jerusalem, commissioned by the Washington Institute and conducted by the Palestine Centre for Public Opinion, shows (inter alia) that 48% of the city’s Arab residents say that, if they had to make a choice, they would prefer to become citizens of Israel rather than of a Palestinian state. 43% would prefer a Palestinian state and 9% would opt for Jordanian citizenship. Read more here

 

 

DRONES

 

Israel’s MCTECH RF Technologies deployed counter-drone systems to protect three live concerts and a beach party in Italy in June and July. 24 different drones attempted to infiltrate the restricted airspace during the events but were all intercepted and neutralized. Read more here

 

In recent months, Bahrain has been working with Israel’s Mossad and the Israel Security Agency to train its own intelligence officers. Israel has also agreed to provide Bahrain with both drones and anti-drone systems. Read more here

 

 

ELBIT SYSTEMS LTD

 

Elbit’s latest X-Sight augmented-reality helmet-mounted display system gives helicopter pilots a more advanced helmet than F-35 pilots. Read more here

 

 

Elbit Systems Ltd. has been awarded a contract valued at $660 million to provide intelligence systems for a European country. Read more here

 

 

 

MOBILE PHONE PROTECTION

 

 

By creating a physical barrier between users’ phones and outside hackers, Tel Aviv-based startup Cirotta aims to give protection to mobile phones. Their anti-surveillance case locks onto a smartphone and is “almost bulletproof” in safeguarding it from hardware hacks.Read more here

 

 

LEGO

 

 

The new store on the third floor of Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Centre is the first official LEGO store in Israel. Read more here

 

 

 

UBER

 

 

Uber is expected to relaunch operations in Israel, bringing back its booking platform to hire licensed taxi drivers only, some five years after a court blocked the company’s initial activities in the country. Read more here

 

 

FOOD TECH

 

Israeli food tech startup ChickP has developed a high foaming creamy milk replacement for dairy-free cappuccinos, using milk made from chickpea ingredients. Read more here

 

 

THE NATURAL WORLD

 

17 endangered sea turtles that were rescued by Israel after suffering major injuries were released last week back into the Mediterranean after months of rehabilitation at Israel’s Sea Turtle Rescue Centre. Read more here

 

 

ASTRONOMY

 

 

A research team led by Israeli scientists at Tel Aviv University has found two new giant planets in remote solar systems, more than 600 light years away. The planets are made mostly of gas and are about the size of Jupiter which is 1,300 times bigger than planet Earth. Read more here

 

 

 

SPORT

 

The 21st Maccabiah Games will be opened in Israel on Thursday. Over 10,000 competitors from 60 countries will participate in over 30,000 competitions across 42 sports.  The Russian and Belarusian Maccabi delegations have withdrawn. Read more here

 

Tom Cruise and a host of celebrities and sportsmen, including Gareth Southgate & Joe Root, wished good luck to the GB Maccabiah Team. Read more here

 

As a result of Israeli rhythmic gymnast Daria Atamanov (16) winning  two gold medals and a silver at the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, Israel finished top of the table in the rhythmic gymnastics with three medals. Read more here

 

ART

 

Three previously unknown (and unfinished) sketches by celebrated 20th-century artist Modigliani were discovered at the University of Haifa’s Hecht Museum hidden beneath the surface of one of his paintings. Read more here

 

DANCE

 

An Israeli teen senior dance team, The Chopskicks from the Nirit Dance Studio in Modiin won the gold medal in the hip-hop commercial mega crew category of the 2022 Dance World Cup finals in San Sebastian, Spain, for their hip-hop performance “Zombieland”. Read more here

 

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

Alan M. Dershowitz: Why does the Palestinian cause get so much attention, when there are much more compelling causes around the world such as those of the Kurds, Uyghurs, and other stateless and oppressed people? There are more demonstrations on university campuses against Israel than against Russia, China, Belarus and Iran. Why?
The answer has little to do with the Palestinians, and everything to do with Israel, as the nation state of the Jewish people. It is a political manifestation of international anti-Semitism…This is not to say that is wrong to support the Palestinian cause. It is to say that it is wrong – and bigoted – to prioritize that deeply flawed cause over other, equally or more deserving, causes. The Palestinians have been offered statehood in 1948, 1967, 2000-2001, 2005 and 2008, and have rejected it. As the former leader of the Palestinian people, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, put it: We want there not to be a Jewish state more than we want there to be a Palestinian state.
What they call the “Nakba” was a self-induced catastrophe. Many current Palestinian leaders and followers fault their predecessors for not accepting the two-state solution offered by the UN 75 years ago, as several have told me. Read more here

 

 

Khaled Abu Toameh: Most of the Arab countries long ago turned their backs on the Palestinians and they can only blame themselves for ruining their relations with the rest of the Arab world. It is ironic that while the EU and the Biden administration continue to talk about providing financial aid to the Palestinians, the Arab countries offer a lot of lip service but, with the exception of Algeria, channel hardly any money to the PA treasury. Consequently, for the past few decades the Palestinians have become almost entirely dependent on American and European taxpayer money… The Arabs are clearly not as naive as the Americans and Europeans, who are continuing to pour millions of dollars annually on the Palestinians without conditions and without demanding accountability. Read more here

 

 

 

Former Kuwaiti Information Minister Sa’ad Bin Tefla Al-Ajmi wrote in the Saudi daily Independent Arabia on July 8, 2022:  “Opposing Hamas in Gaza, or the PA in the West Bank, can result in disaster and loss, torture and death…According to independent investigations, 57 Palestinian activists have been tortured to death in the PA prisons and in Hamas’ prisons in Gaza. Human Rights Watch likewise states that the PA and Hamas systematically employ torture in their prisons. As for corruption, it has even reached the point of [stealing the international] aid money that is intended for the needy.”
“The number of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship [i.e., Israeli Arabs] is currently 1.5 million….How many of these Palestinians have given up their Israeli citizenship in favour of a Palestinian one since the signing of the Oslo Accords [and the forming of the Palestinian Authority] in 1993? The answer is: not even one.” Read more here