By MARTIN SHERMAN 

In stark contrast to Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert was indicted on existing interpretation of the law, no “creative” legal precedents were needed to prosecute him, there were no claims of selective prosecution, or allegations of police investigatory misconduct.

…indictment is not evidence of guilt and does not detract from the presumption that the accused is innocent –Nathan Lewin -a leading US attorney with over 55 years’ experience in trial and appellate litigation in federal courts, March 6, 2020.

…the danger in the novel legal theories introduced by Mandelblit is stark. The criminal charges against the prime minister lack legal substance, and they threaten both the rule of law in Israel and the health of its democracy. – Prof Avi Bell, Tablet Magazine, February 28, 2019.

The coronavirus has largely overshadowed all other topics in the media and almost completely displaced any mention of Netanyahu’s upcoming legal challenges.

Bibi must be complicit in COVID-19 outbreak…
Read more…

The new method, called pooling allows for the simultaneous testing of some 60 patients, which should “greatly increase” the rate at which infections are identified. Photo: Technicians carry out a diagnostic test for COVID-19 in a lab at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel, on March 17, 2020

jns

Researchers at Israel’s Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and Rambam Health Care Campus have successfully tested a new method, called “pooling,” that they claim will dramatically increase the country’s ability to test for COVID-19. Because the method enables simultaneous testing of dozens of samples, its implementation will greatly accelerate the rate of COVID-19 testing and detection, according to the researchers.

COVID-19 testing in Israel is currently focusing on symptomatic individuals, because the current rate of testing—about 1,200 a day—does not allow for monitoring of asymptomatic carriers in the population, though such monitoring is vital to curb the epidemic.

To confirm the presence of COVID-19 virus in a sample, researchers must detect the virus’s unique genetic sequence in a sample. The test takes several hours, so testing individual samples thus generates a bottleneck. Read more…

By Diane Bederman

What is going on in America? What has happened to the Jews? Generation after generation an Amalek arises calling for our death; bringing forward blood libels against us. New ones, reused ones, revised ones. America is the home of the brave and the land of the free because of the Jews. The Founding Fathers brought the ethic the Jews delivered in the desert 3500 years ago, to the shores of America and then embedded it in their constitution. America sits on the teaching of the Jews.

Yet, here you are, dear Jews, standing with Jew-haters. Protecting and defending them. Ilhan Omar is not our friend. Rashid Tlaib is not our friend. Neither is AOC. Nor their friends Linda Sarsour and Louis Farrakhan. Please tell me you know this. And if you don’t, what rock has been your home these past four years? You are standing with people who hate Jews, and hate the ethic that underpins America. They hate America from the bottom up and you stand with them because you stand with the Democrat Party of the 2020’s. You stand with Bernie Sanders who hates Israel. You stand with Joe Biden, who is not now, nor has never been, especially as VP to Obama, a friend of Israel. But that doesn’t bother you. You are Progressives. You promote tolerance and inclusion and accommodation and diversity and open the borders to hateful teachings. It’s OK. It’s progressive and inclusive. You seem to think that you will be welcome in America, forever. Like the German Jews in Germany and the French Jews of France. How did that work out? Read more…

BREAKING:Percent of Deaths from the Coronavirus Compared to Deaths From the Flu in the US Reach 0.7% (155/22,000) –

by Joe Hoft March , GATEWAY PUNDIT   19, 2020<

When compared to other societal ailments, the coronavirus is receiving much more attention.  The common flu does more damage than the coronavirus but the world seems to be reluctant to focus on anything else.

According to overnight updates, the number of coronavirus cases in the US now stands at 9,464 cases.  The number of related deaths stands at 155: Read more…

The EU, focused on the problems of the Middle East and beyond, has failed to solve and prepare for its own. A dangerous prospect in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

By Eldad Beck, ISRAEL HAYOM

It was an impressive, formal and surreal event: On Monday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation, for the second time in five days. He declared that France is “at war” with the coronavirus pandemic and announced further closures and restrictions on the French population. It was surreal because Macron went beyond his authority and declared the borders of the European Union closed – not just France’s borders. Although few hours earlier the idea was touted publicly by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Macron made the announcement before a joint decision had been made by the leaders of the member states. Macron took up the reins of bloc leadership amidst a general sentiment that the EU had completely failed in dealing with the pandemic. A failure that has now placed Europe at the center of the global spread of the disease.

The EU completely failed to identify the threat posed by the coronavirus and did not come up with a practical, European-wide, response to deal with the quick spread of the disease. Instead of coming together to formulate a uniform health policy, the Europeans wasted time complaining about the US administration’s decision to stop air links between the US and the EU. The Europeans, previously infuriated by Trump’s decision, followed suit a week later and closed their own borders, without confessing their mistake.
Read more…

By Lloyd Marcus, AMERICAN THINKER

A usually level-headed Christian conservative lashed out on Facebook, scolding everyone they thought was not taking the coronavirus seriously enough. Fake news media has successfully infected many with irrational fear.

Hearing Gov. Larry Hogan on my car radio announcing his executive order to close bars, restaurants, gyms, and theaters sounded like the script of a 1950s horror movie. “We will stop the spread of this deadly disease!” dramatically proclaimed Hogan. Litle more than 100 have died in the U.S. and under 9,000 worldwide. According to the CDC, during the 2018-2019 flu season, an estimated 16.5 million people got sick and 34,000 died in the U.S.

When Hogan mentioned plans to restrict church gatherings, a chill went up my spine. In the United States of America, government is mandating that people not attend church. Wow!

Read more…

TOI reports: Report says all six of those in serious condition in Israel are elderly people with preexisting medical conditions; 96.3% of those diagnosed have light symptoms or have recovered

Six infections are defined as serious, 13 moderate, and 498 are light. Twelve patients in Israel have already recovered.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 19/03/20 10:59

Covid-19 testing

So far, 529 people in Israel have been infected with Covid-19, according to updated data released by the Ministry of Health this morning, Thursday.

Six infections are defined as serious, 13 moderate, and 498 are light. Twelve patients in Israel have already recovered from the disease.

279 of those infected are hospitalized. 86 of the patients are in “home care”, 36 are being treated at the hotel, and it has not been decided what the treatment format of 116 of the patients will be.
Read more…

Jewish tradition sanctifies life and honors the elderly. But the Trump administration has yet to put forward any coherent ethical position about how older Americans will be treated in a coronavirus health care crisis

By Jonathan S. Tobin, HAARETZ

An elderly patient treated in an emergency structures set up to ease coronavirus procedures outside the hospital of Brescia, Northern Italy. March 10, 2020Claudio Furlan,AP

“Discard me not in my old age; as my strength fails, do not abandon me” (Psalm 71)

Events in Italy — one of the countries where the suffering from COVID-19 is taking a particularly heavy toll — provides a sobering example of what may happen as the coronavirus continues to spread.

Numerous reports speak of Italian medical facilities being overwhelmed. As a report in the Atlantic by political scientist Yascha Mounk notes, doctors are unable to care for everyone who seeks treatment. There is also a critical shortage of ventilators needed to help those in the greatest danger.
Read more…

The low numbers continue a trend, in which cumulative settler starts down by over 20% during the three years since US President Donald Trump took office.

By Tova Lazaroff, JPOST MARCH 18, 2020

A view of the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim February 25, 2020.  (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)

The number of West Bank settler housing starts dropped by a third (32%) and the number of completed homes decreased even more (39%) in 2019, despite a surge in the advancement of building plans and the publication of tenders for such construction.

The numbers are based on data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics this week, which show that there was a greater drop in West Bank settler construction in 2019 compared to regions within sovereign Israel.

Nationwide, the construction numbers were also down but only slightly, with a 2.2% decrease in the amount of housing starts and a 0.1% drop in the number of finished homes, according to the CBS.
Read more…

97% of deaths are due to  Other Serious Health conditions which are agravated by the coronavirus.

By Joe Hoft, GATEWAY PUNDIT

Since early March Italy became the epicenter of of the coronavirus epidemic.

As of Wednesday morning there have been 31,506 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy and 2,503 deaths.

But new data from the Italian government shows that the people dying from the coronavirus are either the elderly or have other complications.

Read more…

Around 56 pilgrims alleged that they have faced atrocities in the neighbouring country and have pleaded to the Indian government to provide them shelter.

By Vineet Upadhyay, Express News Service

People gather on the banks of river Ganga to pay obeisance in Haridwar. (File photo| PTI)

DEHRADUN: A group of 56 Hindu pilgrims from Pakistan,who arrived from the neighbouring country last week, does not want to go back. Members of the group told that they will request the government of India to extend their visa limit of one month and provide citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019.

Narayan Das, a pilgrim from Badeen area of Karachi said, “We are in no position to go back. The Pakistani authorities did not allow us to bring enough money as they think we would not go back. We face ruthless persecution in that country and were snatched of everything. We have pleaded to the Indian government to provide us shelter.”

Locals after realizing the plight of the group collected money, clothes and other essentials and gifted to the group for their trip to Ahmedabad. Hira Bai, another pilgrim from Pakistan said, “Our family members have been killed, daughters snatched away for religious conversion and properties taken over. It is worse than death over there. We have some hope under the new law by the Indian government.”
Read more…

The coronavirus is pushing a wealthy region with high-tech health care toward a humanitarian disaster

By Marcus Walker and Mark Maremont, WSJ March 17, 2020 10:31 am ET

A funeral this month in Bergamo.  Photo: Cozzoli/Fotogramma/Ropi/Zuma Press

BERGAMO, Italy—Ambulances here have stopped using sirens. The frequent blaring only adds to local fears. Besides, there are few other vehicles on the road in Italy’s national lockdown.

Most are headed to the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, a large, modern medical facility in a prosperous Italian city that has been overwhelmed by the coronavirus disease. There aren’t enough ventilators to intubate all patients with Covid-19 who have severe breathing trouble. The intensive-care unit is taking almost no patients older than 70, doctors said.

A normally disused section of the hospital is filled with the critically ill and the hissing sound of oxygen. Patients lie quietly, with worried or exhausted faces, visible to others in the series of half-open rooms. Each focuses on the struggle to breathe. There are patients with airtight oxygen helmets over their heads, like transparent buckets taped at the neck.
Read more…

T. Belman.  This tug of war between banning hate speech and allowing free speech need not dictate either option.  Rather than argue its one or the other, both can be upheld.  The market place of ideas as the ring in which ideas are pitted against one another is appropriate in a utopian world but doesn’t suffice in a world beset with propaganda, financed by billionaires, countries and well financed hostile ideologies.

I see nothing wrong in removing from that market place such clearly odious things as Mein Kampf.  It is imperative that societies protect their core values rather than to put everything up for grabs.  Democracy is not a suicide pact.  Lofty priniples are important but they must give way to survival.

The retailer is trying to do two contradictory things: Ban hate literature but allow free speech.

By David Streitfeld, NYT

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon quietly banned Adolf Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf” late last week, part of its accelerating efforts to remove Nazi and other hate-filled material from its bookstore, before quickly reversing itself.

The retailer, which controls the majority of the book market in the United States, is caught between two demands that cannot be reconciled. Amazon is under pressure to keep hate literature off its vast platform at a moment when extremist impulses seem on the rise. But the company does not want to be seen as the arbiter of what people are allowed to read, which is traditionally the hallmark of repressive regimes.

Booksellers that sell on Amazon say the retailer has no coherent philosophy about what it decides to prohibit, and seems largely guided by public complaints. Over the last 18 months, it has dropped books by Nazis, the Nation of Islam and the American neo-Nazis David Duke and George Lincoln Rockwell. But it has also allowed many equally offensive books to continue to be sold.
Read more…

What’s the secret to its success?

By Dennis Normile, SCIENCE MAG Mar. 17, 2020 , 8:00 AM

Europe is now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Case counts and deaths are soaring in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, and many countries have imposed lockdowns and closed borders. Meanwhile, the United States, hampered by a fiasco with delayed and faulty test kits, is just guessing at its COVID-19 burden, though experts believe it is on the same trajectory as countries in Europe.

Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control. “South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Korea’s success may hold lessons for other countries—and also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence. Read more…

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. Wall Street Journal

Experts now agree the virus’s spread can be slowed but not contained. It will take its place among mostly seasonal respiratory infections. After a time, recurrent outbreaks will be moderated by a large number of potential carriers who have immunity from their last infection.

And then we can ask some questions. The cost to Americans of the economic shutdown is vast. What are they getting for their money? Essentially less excess demand for respiratory ventilators and other emergency care than can currently be supplied.

This demand will come largely from the elderly and chronically ill, who would be competing for these resources with the usual large number of old and ill people already suffering from acute respiratory distress as a result of routine flu and cold infections. A silver lining will be fewer cold and flu victims overall thanks to social distancing to fight Covid-19.
Read more…

T. Belman. A list equally damning, could be prepared for Hillary Clinton. Just imagine how much more devastating the lists could be if  their financial crimes were added to their list.

And yet the American Jews tolerate all this and support them because they are progressive.

A long destructive track record of undermining Israeli security.

By John Perazzo, FPM March 16, 2020

Joe Biden has made a habit of describing himself as a loyal, stalwart friend and ally of Israel. At a campaign stop earlier this month, for instance, he declared: “I’m so proud of the Obama-Biden administration’s unprecedented support for Israel’s security.” But a careful examination of Biden’s track record reveals his long and extremely troubling history of undermining Israel’s security and public image. Some lowlights:

1982: Biden’s Angry Exchange with Menachem Begin

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on June 22, 1982, an animated Senator Biden, banging the desk in front of him with his fist, warned then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin that if Israel did not stop establishing new Jewish settlements in the West Bank,[1] U.S. aid to that country might be cut off.

Read more…

A rational rebuttal cannot overcome an irrational argument, so it is understandable that Attorney General Mandelblit was ‘unconvinced’ by the 22 page brief signed by four of the most eminent laywers in the USA.

By Edwin Black,  INN  17/03/20 17:42 | updated: 17:28

“Seeking favorable publicity or offering it to a candidate or public official simply cannot be a crime in a democratic nation that reveres a free press.” This was the clear warning in the well-documented conclusion of the “Legal Memorandum,” submitted in October 2019 to Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, opposing the prosecution of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for media bribery.

The 22-page brief, studiously authored in mid-September in Jerusalem by famed American constitutional and Jewish rights attorney Nathan Lewin, was co-signed by four eminent attorneys: Alan M. Dershowitz, Abraham Bell, Joseph Tipograph, and Richard D. Heideman.

The brief failed to convince Mandelblit.
Read more…

By Fletch Daniels, AMERICAN THINKER

Political correctness is not just harmless virtue-signaling navel-gazing by a bored “elite” first-world populace.  It is both a weapon and a disease that kills.

On January 31, on a day when the entire national press corps was fully focused on unserious impeachment theater, President Trump declared a national health emergency and implemented a travel ban to and from China.

Apparently unhappy that Trump wasn’t curled up in the fetal position, all the usual suspects on the left screamed bloody murder, convinced he was trying to distract from their important issue.  Only a couple countries followed suit, since most were afraid they would be labeled as xenophobic or branded with the dreaded scarlet R.

Joe Biden called it “hysterical xenophobia.”  He’s still thundering about Trump’s xenophobic bans during his occasional lucid moments.
Read more…

Arab propaganda is one of biggest scams ever perpetrated, and Mahmoud Abbas is still at it

By Victor Sharpe, RENEW AMERICA | March 15, 2020

The Holocaust denying head of Terror, Inc (aka Mahmoud Abbas, and titular head of the Palestinian Authority), repeatedly outdoes his erstwhile mentor and arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, by spewing more of the Arabian Nights hallucinatory diatribes at the United Nations Security Council.

It goes as follows:

“We are the descendants of the Canaanites that lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago and continuously remained there to this day.”

We should remember that the grisly, blood soaked Arafat had claimed that the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, were also descended from the Philistines. But then the followers of the ‘religion of peace’ will tell you that even Adam was a Muslim. Loony tunes for loony people!
Read more…

Days of denials and continued travel to and from China gave the virus time to spread; with Persian New Year later this week, authorities still not limiting movement in country

By Jon Gambrell, TOI

A firefighter disinfects a square against the new coronavirus, in western Tehran, Iran, March 13, 2020. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Appearing before the cameras, sweating profusely and coughing, the man leading Iran’s response to the new coronavirus promised it was of no danger to his country.

“Quarantines belong to the Stone Age,” Iraj Harirchi insisted.

A day later, he was in quarantine from the virus.

Harirchi’s story is a microcosm of what has happened in Iran in the pandemic. Roughly nine out of 10 cases in the Middle East come from the Islamic Republic, which has reported nearly 15,000 infections and 853 deaths amid fears that cases may still be underreported. While most infected people recover, the virus spreads rapidly and can kill the elderly and those with breathing problems or other underlying illnesses.

Read more…