Tag Archives: coronavirus

Liberal Senators Look to Funnel Money into Gaza

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On March 26, 2020, a group of six liberal United States senators sent a letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Authored by Elizabeth Warren with co-signatories including Bernie Sanders, Chris van Hollen, Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown (all even more liberal than Warren), the senators asked for $75 million to be sent to Palestinian territories to fight the coronavirus pandemic. A few days later on March 31st, Warren joined Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Barbara Lee in asking ask Pompeo to provide financial relief to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yes, that same Iran which is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Those were the only foreign entities which concerned Warren during the pandemic.

On April 2, she got around to caring about a US territory, Puerto Rico.

But Palestinians first.

The letter stated:

“Gaza, with a population of approximately 1.8 million people and one of the most densely populated areas of the world, has a weak public health system, and has been subject to a blockade and border restrictions since 2007…. Given the spread of the coronavirus in the West Bank and Gaza, the extreme vulnerability of the health system in Gaza, and the continued withholding of U.S. aid to the Palestinian people, we are concerned that the Administration is failing to take every reasonable step to help combat this public health emergency in the Palestinian Territories.”

As Joe Biden, would say, this is malarkey.

The public health system in Gaza is run by UNRWA, the United Nations agency specially devoted to Palestinian Arab refugees (now descendants of refugees). It is over-staffed and over-funded relative to the other UN agency, UNHCR, which cares for every other actual refugee in the world fleeing immediate wars and disasters. Under UNRWA, the Palestinian Arabs have longer life expectancy than the Arab and Muslim countries that surround them (they also have the highest literacy and lowest infant mortality rate.)

In regards to the “blockade and border restrictions,” the progressive senators failed to write that it was put in place by America’s ally, Israel, after the terrorist group Hamas took over Gaza. Sworn to Israel’s destruction, that terrorist group has waged three wars against Israel since it took over Gaza. It uses international relief money to stockpile weapons and brainwash children to kill Jews.

It is because a terrorist group controls Gaza, the Palestinian Authority which controls Areas A and B in the West Bank incites and funds violence against Israeli civilians and refuses to come to the peace negotiating table, and that UNRWA abuses its humanitarian mission that the United States has withheld money to the PA and UNRWA – not to the Palestinian people as crafted in Warren’s letter.

In regards to the coronavirus pandemic, Gazans are not so vulnerable. The people are among the youngest in the world, with a median age of 18 (it is 30 in Europe where the pandemic has hit hardest). They also rarely travel due to the blockade.

The statistics prove this out. Forty days after the left-wing senators wrote their appeal to funnel money to Palestinians, only two people in the area have died, in one of the lowest death rates from pandemic, at a rate of 0.4 per 1 million people. Israel has had 237 deaths, a rate of 27 per million or 67 times higher than Palestinians.

Puerto Rico has a death rate from the pandemic of 29 per million people (95 people), almost 75 times the rate of Palestinians.

Elizabeth Warren prioritized sending money to Palestinian Arabs who were never particularly at risk of dying from the coronavirus, before, above and beyond people from Puerto Rico and Israel who have been dying at much higher rates. She also singled out sending money to Iran, a country which calls for the destruction of Israel.

It is a sad state of the priorities of “progressives” in America.

Elizabeth Warren in Las Vegas, Nevada, November 17, 2019.
(photo: Carlo Allegri | Reuters)

Related First One Through articles:

What’s Wrong with UNRWA

UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

Bernie Sanders’ Antisemitic and Anti-Zionist Friends

The Insidious Jihad in America

The Democratic Socialists Tell Lies and Half Truths About Lobbyists

Fake Definitions: Pluralism and Progressive / Liberalism

Related First One Through video:

Jordan’s Queen Rania’s Hypocrisy on UNRWA

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Toronto Star Sanitizes Hamas During Pandemic

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On March 30, 2020, the Toronto Star wrote an article “Fearing Gaza coronavirus spread, Hamas preps for mass quarantines” which painted Hamas as a reasonable and responsible government caring for its citizens.

The article opened with a woman returning to Gaza from Egypt who was surprised that Hamas had set up quarantine facilities for people entering the territory, who then became alarmed when people in the neighboring facility tested positive for Covid-19. In the description, Hamas was simply referred to as a “militant group” and not a designated terrorist organization by the government of Canada which notes that “since 1990, Hamas has been responsible for several hundred terrorist attacks against both civilian and military targets.”

Not in this puff piece.

In this Star article, Hamas is on the front lines battling disease, not Jews, stating “Hamas is racing to build two massive quarantine facilities — hoping to prevent the disease from spreading and overwhelming Gaza’s already shattered health system.”

According to the article, the system is in dire condition with quotes like “The health care system is in shambles — a result of the blockade, three wars between Hamas and Israel and chronic underfunding due to infighting between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Authority in the West Bank,” and “high rates of obesity, smoking and stress-related disorders appear to make Gaza’s population especially vulnerable.”

For starters, UNRWA, the organization that manages the healthcare in Gaza for the vast majority of the population is over-funded and over-staffed relative to the other global refugee agency UNHCR, by a wide margin. The people in Gaza have among the lowest mortality rates and highest life expectancy in the world, close to wealthy Arab kingdoms like Qatar and Kuwait.

Over 65% of the population in Gaza is under 25 years old, one of the youngest populations in the world with a median age of just over 17 years old. Only 6% of the population is over 55. This very young population has a very low risk of dying from Covid-19 which is most deadly for people over 70.

No matter. After stating that the healthcare system is underfunded and people are highly vulnerable, The Star burnished the credentials of Hamas’ leader: “After seeing images of the makeshift facilities, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, ordered the group’s military wing to build two new quarantine centres.”

Here are some other recent quotes from Sinwar, as translated by MEMRI:

  • “But I say this loud and clear: God forbid, if a time comes when we have no choice but to watch our citizens breathe their final breaths, and when there are no ventilators – I say to [Israeli Defense Minister] Bennet that we will make six million Israeli settlers [Jews throughout Israel] unable to breathe.“
  • “Umm Muhammad, do not worry about the resistance in Gaza. The whole world is hit by the coronavirus, but the members of the Al-Qassam [Brigades] are working day and night to complete their preparation for the liberation [of all of the land of Israel].”

Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, speaks to foreign correspondents in his office in Gaza City, May 10, 2018. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

The Toronto Star wrote a puff story about the Hamas leadership acting responsibly trying to care for a population desperately short of funds because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of a highly vulnerable Gaza population. This in sharp contrast to the facts of the terrorist group leader making ongoing threats of war against the Jews of Israel while his over-funded and uber-young population ask for additional billions of dollars for theft and military purposes.

Oh, Canada.:(

Collecting protection money through rocket fire: cartoon by Palestinian cartoonist Ala al-Luqta entitled “Through protection money (in the original: khawa): Gaza is connected to a ventilator in the form of a rocket” (PALDF forum, April 2, 2020)

Related First One Through articles:

Quantifying the Values of Gazans

Looking at Gaza Through Swedish Glasses

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately

The United Nations Can Hear the Songs of Gazans, but Cannot See Their Rockets

Cause and Effect: Making Gaza

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The U.N. Doesn’t Care About Middle-Aged White Male Victims of Covid-19

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The Covid-19 pandemic is attacking every person on the planet but the United Nations only cares about some of them.

UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres spoke in New York City on March 31, 2020 about the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19. It was a shameful display of political correctness in the face of statistics.

Antonio Guterres, speaking to RFI and its sister TV channel, France 24. © RFI

He led with a call to aggressively combat the virus saying “I am particularly concerned about the African continent.”

He then added “Second, we must tackle the devastating social and economic dimensions of this crisis, with a focus on those most affected: women, older persons, youth, low-wage workers, small and medium-sized enterprises, the informal sector and vulnerable groups, especially those in humanitarian and conflict settings.”

The head of the global agency addressed a global scourge and selectively highlighted segments of humankind for his concern – seemingly everyone who is not a middle-aged white male.

It is worth reviewing the people who have been most impacted by the coronavirus.

Worldometer maintains a tally of the death toll and those who have contracted the virus. At the time of this writing, April 05, 2020, 11:33 GMT, here are the plain facts:

  • The greatest number of deaths in proportion to the population are happening in EUROPE. Spain, Italy, Andorra and San Marino are seeing fatalities of 266, 254, 220 and 943 per 1 million, respectively. Belgium and France have deaths of 125 and 116 per million, respectively. In Africa, the hardest hit country is Algeria, with 29 deaths per million. The continent’s largest country by population, Nigeria, had 0.02 deaths per million. The Europeans are dying at ten times the rate of Africans.
  • The fatality rate for men in confirmed cases is 4.7% while for women it is 2.8%. Men are 68% more likely to die than women.
  • Older people are indeed the most likely to die from Covid-19, with those over 80 years old having a 14.8% mortality rate. People in their 70’s and 60’s have a 8.0% and 3.6% mortality rate, respectively. But for the youth, there are extremely few deaths. For those between 10 and 39 years old the rate is 0.2% and there have been no cases of anyone under ten dying. Meanwhile people in their 50’s die at almost seven times the rate of 20 to 40 years old.

But the United Nations made a special call out for the young women in Africa when older white men in Europe are dying by the minute.

When it comes to economic losses, there is a direct correlation to educational level, with those with college degrees having the most job security, while those without a high school diploma fairing the worst. It is also true that more women are now graduating college than men in the United States, a fact for all races. As such, women will continue to gain in job security relative to men.

The day after Guterres made the comments above, he said “The COVID-19 crisis reinforces the importance of science and evidence informing Government policies and decision-making.” Meanwhile he has shown no ability to use evidence to inform his thinking or direct his concern.

The United Nations demonstrates the maxim that political correctness makes no room for factual evidence.

Related First One Through articles:

The CoronavirUS is Not Us Versus Them

A Plague for Others

“Coastal Liberal Latte-sipping Politically-correct Out-of-touch Folks.”

Older White Men are the Most Politically Balanced Demographic By Far

NY Times, NY Times, What Do You See? It Sees Rich White Males

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A Plague for Others

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When Covid-19 first began killing people in China it felt like a disease far away, a distant threat so remote it did not register. When it later arrived in Iran, the focus became the curious relationship between China and Iran, not that the disease was going global. Then it came to Italy, and just a short time later it was in almost every country.

Yet even as the virus found local victims, people chose to manufacture distance. This was only deadly for the elderly. It killed those with compromised health. There was no true need to worry, as the vast majority of people who tested positive for the coronavirus suffered from a mere cold.

That attitude was best captured in an interview with a teenager enjoying spring break in Florida “If I get corona, I get corona. I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.”

This was a plague for “others” and the guidelines calling for “social-distancing” was not relevant for them.

It is something to consider during this holiday of Passover, when plagues came for the Egyptians.

The Quarantine of Goshen

The story of the plagues which helped free the Jews from slavery in Egypt 3,300 years ago had two parts: the first nine plagues and the final one.

During the initial plagues, the land, animals and people of Egypt were attacked broadly with a variety of vermin and afflictions, except for the Jews as God protected them. However, for the final plague, the killing of the first born, the Jews were asked to take specific actions to facilitate their protection. They were to take a lamb, paint its blood on the doorposts of the house, roast the lamb and eat it; a slew of activities which were unnecessary for the first nine plagues. Clearly God was capable of inflecting a plague on segments of the population as He had done nine times before but for the final plague, God wanted the Jews to take a part in their own salvation.

The story of the tenth plague unfolds in three parts. First, Moses addressed Pharaoh in Exodus 11: 4-8 saying that God will kill every first-born in Egypt except for the Jews “in order that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.” This plague was specifically designed to highlight the “other.” All people are not the same and will not be impacted the same way.

But the story and message seem to morph. In Exodus 12: 1-20 God addressed the Jews through Moses and Aaron with a detailed plan of the various steps the Jews needed to take during their last night in Egypt, and it wasn’t so much about how to pack. Tucked among the twenty sentences was a critical line “And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will pass over you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” The key to avoiding the impact of the plague is “blood on the houses,” an item that was mentioned in passing six sentences earlier as part of a long list of things to do.

God had gone from not asking the Jews to do anything during the first nine plagues, to putting forth a long list of tasks, one of which was – incidentally – key to avoiding the impact of the plague.

In the third part of the revelation of the tenth plague, Moses addressed the Elders in Exodus 12: 21-27 and provided a much more direct plan for salvation: “Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and to the two doorposts. None of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For when the LORD goes through to smite the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and the LORD will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite your home.” Moses went to the crux of the matter to get the people to focus, directly connecting the blood on the doorposts to salvation. He also elaborated on God’s command telling people to stay inside – to self-quarantine – during the deadly plague.

The story of the deadly plague evolved in a curious fashion. At first Moses told Pharaoh that the plague will be very selective – it will only come for the first-born and only from Egyptians, because “the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.” God sees that the people of Egypt and Israel are different and will act accordingly.

But it becomes less clear that this is actually true. God doesn’t seemingly recognize any difference as He asks the Jews to paint the outside of their homes with blood. It is the home markings that God sees. If Jews wandered the streets that night, they would presumably have died, which is why Moses clarified that no one should leave their houses. The distinction between Egyptians and Israelites that Moses discussed with Pharaoh was one of direction, not of personhood.

“Death of Pharaoh’s First Born” painted 1872 by Lawrence Alma -Tadema (1836-1912)

Plagues and deadly viruses may present as threats for “others” but that is delusional. Neither youth nor religion will serve as shield, and leaders as far back as Moses understood that directing people to self-quarantine in their homes is the best precaution.

Related First One Through articles:

Taking the Active Steps Towards Salvation

The CoronavirUS is Not Us Versus Them

Defeating Haman’s Big Ten Sons and Modern Antisemitism

Kohelet, An Ode to Abel

Ruth, The Completed Jew

A Sofer at the Kotel

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The CoronavirUS is Not Us Versus Them

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The hyper-partisan world we live in is pushing a terrible narrative of some people against others in the actual battle between a micro-sized virus combating all of humanity.

Progressives’ Claim of Poor Vs. Rich

Far left media like The New York Times have been writing over the past years about income inequality and wealth inequality and are viewing the coronavirus through the same lens.

The papers write that the poor are “bearing the brunt” of the pandemic and are being “left behind.” Those word choices are simply untrue. Everyone is being assaulted by the pandemic. Rich people are not sitting in the back while poor people are on the front lines fighting the disease to help their wealthy patrons. There are highly educated doctors on the front lines battling for everyone’s benefit, not waiters. The rich aren’t “leaving anyone behind” as everyone who comes into contact with an infected person is being tested.

While lower income professions like fast food establishments do have people working in close proximity and therefore more susceptible to catching the virus, it was a wealthy lawyer from the New York City suburbs who first became sick and spread it to his neighbors. People with lower income have lost their salaries as retail stores and restaurants have closed, but the small business owners who run those locations are actually losing money during the pandemic, not just not making money.

The poor are definitely more vulnerable in not having savings to manage when they are suddenly without wages, but the Times wrote about the pandemic as class warfare. It seemingly believes that elite society has opted to throw low wage workers out of their jobs to keep the wealthy from getting sick.

Trump’s Chinese Virus Vs. Coronavirus

Trump has run on a mantra of “putting America first.” Labeling one’s adversaries with negative names and stereotypes often makes one feel superior and this global adversary affords Trump the ability to play to his theme.

Trump called the virus the “Chinese Virus” because it started in China, rather than Covid-19, the coronavirus of 2019. Doing so provided the president an opportunity to advance an isolationist stance in shutting the borders and keeping people at home against a foreign invader.

Trump is not alone in taking such precautionary steps, but the renaming of the virus was a way of furthering a particular narrative. The shame is that the virus attacks all people and a cure will help all humanity.

Anti-Zionists Conjure U.S.- Israel Coronavirus Conspiracy

During the early months of the coronavirus outbreak in December 2019 and January 2020, the hardest hit countries were China and Iran leading many Arab news outlets to charge that the United States and Israel were waging biological warfare. Some far-left celebrities even accused Israel and Donald Trump’s Jewish son-in-law from developing the virus so that they could get rich from selling the vaccine.

Lost in the discussion is that it SARS-CoV-2, is the latest in a strain Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which have gone on for years, this one being the 2019 variant which is more contagious. Many pharmaceutical companies around the world have been working on developing vaccines for all strains of SARS for many years.

A virus does not know rich or poor, American or Chinese, Israeli or Arab. It attacks all human beings with the same vigor. It is tragic that a pandemic not only doesn’t serve as a means to pull humanity together, but is used as a vehicle to score political points and further distance people from one another in a time of forced social distancing.

It is a sad commentary on the fabric of decency today.

Related First One Through articles:

Ten Good Men

Rumor Contagion on Coronavirus in Congress

The Media Cares Much More About Journalists Than Children

There are Standards for Unity

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Ten Good Men

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This weekend, March 13, 2020, will witness the first weekend without an Orthodox Shabbat minyan in Westchester County NY in probably 150 years, as the coronavirus pandemic hit this community very directly. It is so severe, that the National Guard is being deployed in New Rochelle. Other shuls around the state, country and world are also canceling their organized services.

Quarantine zone in New Rochelle, NY, with the Young Israel of New Rochelle at center

The concept of at least ten men gathering for prayer together is considered to originate in Genesis 18, where Abraham argues with God to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction.  In verse 23, Abraham asks God “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?” He proceeds to argue that a large city should be spared if there are 50 good people living there. When God agrees, Abraham pushes further to lower the threshold to 45, then 40, 30, all of the way down to 10 people at which point he stops. He seemed to acknowledge that the minimum viability for a city is ten good people.

Sages used this story as the foundation to decide on a quorum and instituted a policy of ten men over the age of thirteen to be the baseline for a minyan where certain prayers and activities could take place, such as reading from the Torah.

But this week – the week after the holiday of Purim which saw the world turned upside down 2,400 years ago – is witnessing the flipping of a minyan on its very foundation. Whereas Abraham called for ten good men to save a city, the pandemic is prohibiting ten good men from assembling together. While the lack of ten doomed two cities, hundreds and thousands of good people are getting sick and under quarantine.

When Abraham argued with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, he did not ask if ten people were assembled in one place together; he just cared that there was a decent number of righteous people living in the area. So we ask and pray today, at a time when people are not able to congregate at their synagogues but must daven at home, may God realize the breadth and depth of good and righteous people living in our towns and bring peace and health to everyone.

Related First One Through articles:

Abraham’s Hospitality: Lessons for Jews and Arabs

Kohelet, An Ode to Abel

The Loss of Reality from the Distant Lights

Ruth, The Completed Jew

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Rumor Contagion on Coronavirus in Congress

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Yes, it’s me.

Like many news articles, there are facts, assumed facts, projections and innuendo to sell papers and serve as click-bait. Because coronavirus has captured people’s imaginations, it has become a wonderful vehicle to instill fear and capture headlines.

A friend of mine – who has mostly been kept anonymous by media outlets to protect the family’s privacy – has tested positive for coronavirus. The news media is correct that he lives in New Rochelle, is a lawyer and is in the hospital. His wife and son have also tested positive but are home and feel relatively fine as does the neighbor (lives on the same street, a number of homes away) who drove them to the hospital. Only the 50-year old lawyer is in the hospital as he had some prior medical issues which made him much more vulnerable to the strain.

It is also true that he attended the Modern Orthodox synagogue, the Young Israel of New Rochelle, on Shabbat February 22 and a funeral and bat mitzvah on Sunday February 23rd. It was there that he came into contact with many people who would later attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C. the following week. Some of those people at the conference went on to lobby members of Congress, so AIPAC sent a warning memo to members of Congress.

This was done as an act of major precaution, and there is virtually no reason to fear.

The synagogue in New Rochelle is a large one. Many of the people who are now self-quarantined – myself included – were just in the same building or same room as the infected man. The term “contact” is sometimes used very broadly as it has been now to be the most cautious, but 99% of the people who attended services on February 22 and 23 were not within ten feet of the man and feel perfectly fine.

I attended the funeral at YINR on the 23rd, for a parent of a friend from elementary school and high school. I did not see the infected man at that time but was merely in the same 50 foot-by-50 foot room with him for an hour, as were my parents.

On Saturday February 29th, I decided last minute to go down to AIPAC when I learned of three guys from my shul in a different community in Westchester county driving down to D.C. with an empty seat. During the car ride I reached out broadly to see how I could register for the conference and find a place to stay. Coincidentally, the victim’s wife responded to me that she had cancelled her trip to AIPAC as her spouse was feeling sick; she suggested I try to book their Marriott hotel room. I was unable to get into that hotel which was adjacent to the convention center but found one a few blocks away.

No news about coronavirus in Westchester had broken at that time. I hugged, shook hands and conversed with several hundred people at AIPAC on Sunday and Monday, some of whom went to lobby in Congress. I did not lobby, and returned home Monday afternoon in the car with the same three men with whom I drove down. We got back to Westchester at 8:30pm.

Vice President Mike Pence (head of coronavirus task force) addressing AIPAC March 2, 2020 (photo: First One Through)

Initial news of the virus in the community broke the following morning just before 7:00am as my son was getting ready to head on the bus to school. Additional information would flow throughout the day about who had gotten sick and the need to self-quarantine.

I have remained at home, as have my sons who attend two of the schools which were closed because of the virus. None of us has shown any signs of illness, but we are following the guidelines of the health commissioner as a matter of best practices.

Of course, I am not the only one who attended Young Israel of New Rochelle over the weekend of February 22/23 who then went on to AIPAC but I’m sure my story is fairly common: the “contact” we had with the sick man was neither close nor direct. That is true for my interactions with most of the 18,000 people at AIPAC and, in turn, the people at AIPAC with members of Congress.

But stoking fear and the urge for ad revenue seems too great for most. Don’t fall for it.

Please pray for the people who are indeed sick, including Eliezer Yitzchok ben Shifra.

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