Israel Update 21/12/22

 

Chanukah Sameach to all my readers!

 

THE UK

 

 

British P.M. Rishi Sunak plans to visit Israel next year for its “landmark 75th birthday.” During his address at a recent business lunch, Sunak also confirmed that the UK will vote against an upcoming UN General Assembly resolution that requests the International Court of Justice to weigh in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Read more here

 

 

Sledgehammer-wielding protesters from “ Palestine Action” who caused extensive damage to Teledyne Labtech Ltd., an American-owned weapons plant, in Powys, Wales because of its alleged links to Israel, have been condemned by locals. One man who lives near the factory said: “It’s ridiculous and pathetic. How will this help them?” Another man told us: “I know the company makes circuit boards, but it’s stupid, I don’t agree with what they’re doing at all….The Israelis need the radar to spot the rockets they keep launching into Israel, so I’d say it’s a worthy cause (the work done at Labtech)….It’s local people that are worst affected, the number of good employers around here is few and far between.” The 4 perpetrators were arrested and remanded into custody without bail so will spend Xmas and the New Year behind bars. Read more hereRead more here

 

CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 

The only country in the region that has a growing Christian community is Israel, where the Christian population grew by 1.4% in 2020 and where their religious freedom is guaranteed. In Syria in 2011, there were 1.7 million Christians. Today there are fewer than 450,000.    In Iraq in 2003, there were 1.5 million Christians. Today there are under 120,000. In the West Bank and Gaza, the Christian percentage has plummeted from 11% in 1922 to 1% in 2017. Read more here

 

 

ATTACK

 

The Israel Security Agency is investigating a recent car crash in Tel Aviv as a terror attack, after a Palestinian man, 31, illegally staying in Israel, crashed a car into a motorcyclist. The Israeli motorcyclist, Gilad Tanami, who was moderately injured, said he “knew it was a terror attack. I looked up and saw a car accelerating in my direction.” Read more here

 

 

GAZA

 

 

The IDF has released photos showing rocket launch sites positioned next to three schools in Gaza City commenting that “Hamas purposely puts civilians and pupils in danger by using them as human shields.” Read more here

 

 

 

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

 

 

On Sep. 28, Fatah Revolutionary Council member Muhammad Al-Lahham told official PA TV that 90% of the terrorist “martyrs” of 2022 were Fatah members.
He also credited Fatah with murdering 20 Israelis, commenting that “this is a source of honour” for President Abbas’ Fatah movement.
A Fatah video highlights a member of the PA military intelligence who murdered an Israeli, and a member of the PA Preventive Security Forces who shot at Israeli soldiers together with other terrorists. Read more here

 

 

Waed is Fatah’s magazine for children ages 6-15. The messages for Palestinian children spread through the last eight years of Waed confirm that the PA/Fatah end game remains Israel’s destruction and replacement by “Palestine.”… The children are taught that they have the responsibility to bring about the future world without Israel. If no action is taken to combat the PA/Fatah education to hate and terror, it will continue to be the driving force for Palestinian violence for generations. Read more here

 

Fatah is the party to which the P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas belongs.

 

 

INCLUSIVITY

 

Three IDF soldiers are the first with autism to embark on an officer’s training course.Read more here

 

 

COVID-19

 

 

Some 15% of the world’s most influential studies on COVID-19 vaccines were written by Israeli scientists, according to new research that highlights the massive Israeli contributions to a field that has been crucial in dealing with the three-year-old pandemic. Read more here

 

 

UKRAINE

 

 

Israel is to donate 17 generators to Ukraine for use in the south eastern Kherson region which has been largely plunged into darkness by Russian bombardment. Read more here

 

 

Oren Milstein, co-founder of Israeli company StemRad, a developer of radiation protection suits for space explorers, emergency responders, and nuclear industry workers, and Scott Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, travelled to Kyiv to donate the first batch of 20 wearable kits to help shield first responders against potentially lethal gamma radiation in the event of a nuclear accident. The anti-radiation shields are currently being tested in space on NASA’s Artemis 1 rocket. Read more here

 

 

A delegation from Ukraine’s Azov Regiment  has recently visited Israel, meeting with officials and IDF reservists and speaking about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. A co-leader was Azov officer Ilya Samoilenko,  one of the soldiers who barricaded themselves beneath the Azovstal steelworks during attempts to protect Mariupol earlier this year. Read more here

 

 

TURKEY

 

 

The world’s largest wave power plant is set to be built by Israel’s Eco Wave Power (EWP) on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. The 77MW plant will be based on a modular array of steel floats hinged to piston-equipped arms that pump in time with the rise and fall of incoming waves. EWP is to soon start installation of a pilot in the Port of Los Angeles. Read more here

 

 

CULTURE

 

 

The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra played their first concert in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. The entire programme is at this You tube link with Hatikvah at 12 mins 45 seconds. View here

 

 

In the latest sign of the warming ties between Israel and Morocco, an Israeli musical was recently performed in Rabat in Hebrew, a first for Morocco or any Arab country. Read more here

 

 

EGYPT

 

 

Reportedly, Egypt is earning a “huge fortune” from exporting Israeli natural gas to Europe at a price that is at least three times higher than the price it pays to Israel. “Egyptian profits from Israeli gas, which it imports annually, amount to about $3.5 billion, which…constitutes more than 10% of their foreign currency reserves,” The reason is that the price of gas exported to Egypt was set at the end of 2019, when prices were at their lowest levels, but Egypt now sells Israeli gas at market prices that have peaked in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war. Read more here

 

 

ARCHAEOLOGY

Two of the many recent discoveries:

 

Archaeologists have uncovered a cache of 2,200-year-old silver coins near the Dead Sea, which they say is the first physical proof that Jews fled to the Judean Desert during the upheaval and persecution under Hanukkah villain Antiochus IV Epiphanes. As told in I Maccabees 2:29, in the period prior to the Maccabean Revolt, righteous men were exhorted to leave everything and flee to the desert. Read more here

 

 

 

A group of children recently found a 2,000-year-old oil lamp at Kibbutz Parod in Galilee, shedding light on the ancient Jewish community that lived in the area. Read more here

 

 

INNOVATION

 

 

Orca Security, an Israeli cloud security company was recently chosen as Amazon Web Services’ global security partner of the year for 2022 in recognition of its contribution to the web giant’s cloud computing platform and its customers.  The company collects data used to identify bugs, malware, incorrect settings, weak passwords, leaks and risks without the need for installations that increase workloads and affect system performance. Read more here

 

 

 

Israeli startup Autotalks, a maker of smart vehicle communication systems, has announced a partnership for the first deployment of its chipsets at roadside traffic signals along Germany’s autobahn, the country’s federal highway, aimed at improving road safety and lowering the risk of accidents. Autotalks develops chipsets based on sensor technology, which allows vehicles to communicate or “talk” with one another and connect to road infrastructure. Read more here

 

 

 

ROBOTICS

 

 

According to “his” inventors at Unlimited Robotics, “Gary”  is the first robot in the world that has two fully functioning arms, and is fully autonomous, meaning that “he” functions with minimal human intervention, as distinct from the more common automatic robot. “He” can master a new task in a matter of days that might otherwise take months. Read more here

View Gary at Beilinson Hospital: View here

 

 

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

 

Bones have a natural ability to heal themselves across small fractures — in humans, five mm or less. For bigger defects, doctors use a range of solutions, often grafting bone from elsewhere in the body or using implants. But researchers at Tel Aviv University say they can get bones to overcome their natural limit and grow across large distances to fix themselves. A successful trial with mice, reported in peer-reviewed research involved a specially developed water-based gel. Read more here

 

 

GENE EDITING TECHNOLOGY

 

 

In a dramatic breakthrough with the potential to halt the destruction of some seven billion unwanted male chicks globally each year, Israeli scientists have produced a gaggle of hens all called Golda that are the first in the world to lay eggs that only produce females. The technology has been in development for seven years. Read more here

 

 

RETAIL TECH

 

 

An Israeli company that employs Machine Learning to cut food waste in the retail sector has signed an agreement with the Dutch Hoogvliet chain, which has 71 stores across the Netherlands. Wasteless has developed a dynamic pricing mechanism based on expiration dates and the pace at which a specific product is being sold. An additional two retailers in the Netherlands are set to start using the tech next year. Read more here

 

 

 

TOURISM

 

 

In another sign of Israel’s growing acceptance in the Arab world, Israeli Tourism Ministry officials are set to attend the Best Tourism Villages conference in Saudi Arabia organized by the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s Tourism for Rural Development Programme. The UNWTO declared Kfar Kama, a Circassian town in the Lower Galilee, one of its “best tourism villages” for 2022 while Neot Smadar, a kibbutz in the Negev with just over 200 residents, was added to its Upgrade Program, which will allow it to “receive support from UNWTO and its Partners” in developing tourism. Read more here  Paywall

 

 

CHANUKAH

 

Israel’s largest bakery Roladin is famous for its sufganyot (doughnut) collection at Chanukah.  See some examples here

and one of the ads: View here

 

The Lego store in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Centre is displaying what may be the largest Lego menorah in the world. Photo here

 

 

OTHER SEASONAL

 

 

The annual Xmas tree lighting in Jerusalem’s Old City saw local and visitors of many faiths embrace the winter festivities with music, lights and food. Read more here

 

 

Jerusalem’s local Santa Claus, Issa Kassissieh, sent Xmas greetings to the world from a hot air balloon above the Old City. Read more here

 

 

After two quiet pandemic years, Bethlehem has welcomed the return of Xmas visitors. Streets are bustling with tour groups and hotels are fully booked. Read more here