The COVID-19 Virus continues to haunt every nation, every people– nearly every corner of the globe. In so doing it has crippled life as we know it with stay-at-home and quarantine orders. Not only has it disrupted life, including freedom of movement and assembly, it has been crippling economies. Certain sectors, however, are flouring to fill the new need of mitigation and cure for this potentially deadly disease that makes no discrimination of whom it infects.
One of the issues surrounding the mortality rate is indeed that some 15% or so of COVID-19 sufferers will need the assistance of acute medical care and a portion of those folks will need ventilators in order to have a chance to survive. Moreover, to reverse or at least slow the calamity this virus has brought on society, we have the necessitated stay-at-home and quarantine orders, restrictions on travel, general movement and work (thus adversities to the economy).
People who have railed against Jews in general and Israel more specifically in this modern age are still wearing their same stripes and accusations in this regard. No “kumbaya, we are all in this together” notions from them…including figures found on main stream media news outlets, TV shows, leaders in various political and religious groups, and even entertainers—they still point a crooked and decrepit finger of accusation at Israel or Jews that this COVID-19 is either
- The Jews/Israel’s fault
- The Jews/Israel’s design, to hurt their enemies
- The Jews/Israel’s design to profit from by then generating the fix (which assumes giving much credit to what Israelis are capable)
The Boycott, Divest, Sanction—BDS—movement that has for decades now been maneuvering to wipe Israel from the map via academic, financial, PR, and political strangulation, has never accounted for their own enjoyment of and use of a variety of technology, agricultural, and biomedical (and more) innovations that Israel has developed in its short 70 or so year history.
Now, however, their public drumbeat of Boycott Israel and its products and services, must be met with a genuine question of, “Is it worth your life?” (Because it is clearly worth the lives of the pawns they use, specifically the Palestinians.)
Here are some COVID-19 mitigations Israel produces or are in the process of innovating to help the entire planet through this crisis:
- Medtronic, the world’s largest manufacturer of medical equipment, also has ventilators. Last week, the CEO of the company’s Israel division, Yaron Yitzhari, made the decision to release all of Medtronic’s patents for the production of ventilators, in order to enable any company wishing to manufacture them to use Medtronic’s blueprints, for free (Cohen, Simon. com, 1 April 2020).
- The Israeli Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation and Maintenance Center at Tel Hashomer, outside Tel Aviv, a subordinate of the IDF’s Technical and Logistics Directorate, produces Merkava tanks and other armored vehicles, builds command and control centers and upgrades other vehicles and communications systems for the army. In recent days, however, the center’s assembly lines have been converted to help fight the war against Israel’s number one enemy: coronavirus. It took 12 hours to alter the assembly line and they are making 1,400 protective goggles per day. Other initiatives are also taking shape, including an engineering project to manufacture ventilators made from medical equipment located in one of the factories (Heyom, Isreal, org, 31 Mar 2020).
- Microsoft’s research and development center in Israel, in collaboration with Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom (MADA), The Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), and the Israeli Air Force, is working to develop a low-cost ventilator that can be mass-produced in labs, without the need of dedicated factories. The ventilator Microsoft Israel is developing uses a manual respiration balloon and operates it autonomously. The product is open source, meaning that all of its assembling instructions will be open to the public, both in Israel and worldwide. The ventilator is being developed at Microsoft Israel’s research and development center’s Garage Innovation Lab, which is providing university students with the equipment and materials needed to develop the ventilator (Pick, Aldi, CTEC, 29 Mar 2020).
- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) announced March 20 the immediate donation of more than 6 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets through wholesalers to hospitals across the U.S. to meet the urgent demand for the medicine as an investigational target to treat COVID-19. The company from Tel Aviv also looking at additional ways to address the global need. Teva will donate 6 million tablets to hospitals by the end of month and more than 10 million within a month. Teva’s portfolio consists of over 3,500 products in nearly every therapeutic area. About 200 million people around the world take a Teva medicine every day and are served by one of the largest and most complex supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry (Atlantic Jewish Times, 26 March 2020).
- While over 20 reputable companies world-wide are working towards a vaccine, Israel is one of the leaders. It is likely in this race that it will be about 6 months for a viable vaccine…yet effective treatments are being brought to bear in the meantime including the Hydroxychloroquine therapy with is showing real promise as well as antibody serums and treatments being experimented with now. As this progresses, it is likely that just as with the annual flu virus, annual Covid vaccines will be a new norm—and Israel will be on the forefront of producing a high quality and effective products to serve the world market.
So, my question again to the BDS enthusiasts, since you will not put down your cell phone, or take your ailing family members off insulin, or discontinue various heart therapies, or even quit streaming some of your favorite shows,
Are you going to put your money where your mouth (or your life) is when it comes to Israeli products regarding COVID-19, donated or sold, in the marketplace—which will save lives—possibly even your own?
Remember, we have been told that Israel is a blessing to the nations. We can take time study together and go over the centuries of tangible proof of this proclamation. But here and now is the COVI-19 crisis at hand, which Israel is on the forefront of helping solve.
Often Christian organizations quote Genesis 12:3..I will bless those who bless Israel….BUT, let us also go back one phrase….to Genesis 12:1 and let’s look at the entire notion G-d rendered:
Gen. 12:1-3 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Shavua Tov,
And, A blessed first day of Passover to all.