High summer is here. The thermometer is hovering in the mid-30s and the sky is a lovely clear blue (thanks to the reduced air traffic since the corona restrictions!). The difficult and disrupted school year is over and 1.6 million Israeli school children are on vacation, many of them enjoying summer camps around the country. The ceasefire with Hamas seems to be holding except for some sporadic incendiary balloon attacks. Our new government has been sworn in and has survived its first month. Netanyahu left the official Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem yesterday (don’t worry, he will not be homeless – he has a multi-million dollar residence in Caesarea). We also have a new President, Yitzak Herzog, who was sworn in this past week. There have been no more major fires in our area though there was a small one about two weeks ago adjacent to my home which thankfully was extinguished very quickly by the fire fighters (see picture below). All in all, things have been relatively quiet the last few weeks and we are enjoying a respite from traumatic events. I do wonder however if this is an illusion, just the lull before the storm. We all know this ‘quiet’ could end any minute, but in the meantime we are all grateful for every day of peace we can get.
CORONA IS BACK
Since the beginning of July Israel has seen an uptick in the number of new corona cases, most of which are caused by the Delta Variant brought in by travelers from abroad. From a period during which daily new cases were in only double or single digits, and even a few days with none, we have now reached a situation where there are over a thousand new cases every day, and climbing daily. The Delta Variant is much more transmissible than the earlier variants, but because 50-60% of those infected have had both vaccine shots, there have been relatively fewer serious cases and few have died.
This rise in cases, however, has led to the government to re-impose the requirement to wear masks indoors. Unfortunately, many people are disregarding this, except in places like hospitals, medical centers and care homes where there is more enforcement. The intended reopening of our borders to tourists has been delayed indefinitely and travel to certain destinations banned. Now they have also reintroduced the Green Tag system allowing only the vaccinated or recovered to enter indoor gatherings of over 100 people.
In spite of government pleas to stay home this summer, some 30-50,000 Israelis are passing through Ben Gurion airport daily, reluctant to cancel family visits and vacations. As one person put it “it is in the Israeli DNA to travel abroad for vacations”, not the least because the cost of a holiday abroad is far less than that of a holiday in Israel. For all that, travelers risk getting stuck abroad or having their flights cancelled, and the regulations are changing on an almost daily basis. For now the government is not intending to go back to having lockdowns or other regulations that affect the economy, but rather is stepping up the vaccination program. We are now vaccinating children in the 12-15 age group. Immunosuppressed individuals are receiving a third booster shot and there is talk of giving a booster also to the over 65s in the near future. It appears that those of us who received vaccines in January are now only about 50% protected as the efficacy of the vaccine is diminishing with time. Some pharmacies are now selling home testing kits in a pilot trial in preparation for the possible use of them in schools when they reopen in September.
Israel is getting some criticism for giving third shots when many around the world are still awaiting their first. Our government has first responsibility towards its own citizens and we tax-paying Israelis have paid for many years a large chunk of our salaries towards our health care services. Nevertheless we have however already donated large numbers of vaccines to various poor countries. Not only that, Israel did a deal with Pfizer in order to receive vaccines early in return for generating data on their effectiveness and side effects. We were able to do that because we have a well-organized health system that was able to access vaccines, carry out the vaccination program quickly and efficiently so that we could gather data and pass it on. The world should be thanking us for being the world’s ‘guinea pigs’!
Israel has received a lot of criticism for not vaccinating the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but under the current agreements the Palestinian Authority is responsible for providing health care to its citizens. Israel has no legal or moral requirement to do so. Last month Israel did offer the Palestinian Authority approximately one million doses of vaccine but they refused to accept them, claiming they were too close to their expiry date. As we say here, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. There was nothing wrong with these surplus vaccines and in fact Israel exchanged them with South Korea which will give us the same number of vaccines from their future shipments – exactly the same kind of deal that was offered the Palestinians (1). The Palestinian leadership is responsible for ordering, receiving and distributing vaccines to their people, but the large amounts of aid money they have received has been used to line the pockets of the leaders or buy weapons with which to attack us, instead of building a functional health system. Even so, in order to protect ourselves, we have vaccinated the some 300, 000 or so Palestinian workers who come into Israel from the West Bank and Gaza each day.
IRANIAN THREAT
Iran recently held elections which resulted in the election of Ebrahim Raisi as President. Currently serving as the Chief Justice, he will be sworn in as President on the 8th of August. Raisi is considered to be even more hard-line than his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani, and is a close ally of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khomeni. Raisi is accused of crimes against humanity as one of the four on a prosecution committee which was responsible for the execution of tens of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 (2). Since that time Raisi has held several positions in the judiciary including Chief Justice and is undoubtedly responsible for ordering the arrest, torture and execution of many more political opponents. He is expected to promote a tightening of Sharia Law in Iran, including the ‘segregation of the sexes’, the Islamicization of the universities, the revision of the internet and the censorship of western culture, and the cutting off of the hands of thieves.
Israel, has condemned Raisi’s election and said it would be a “regime of brutal hangmen” with which world powers should not negotiate a new nuclear deal. Israeli Prime Minister, Bennett, said in a statement, “(His) election is, I would say, the last chance for world powers to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement, and understand who they are doing business with” (3).
In April talks began in Vienna between Iran and six world powers led by the USA aimed at reviving the 2015 Nuclear Accord. Without making any discernable progress the talks were adjourned at the end of June. Iran’s delegation chief, Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state TV that “We are now closer than ever to an agreement but the distance that exists between us and an agreement remains and bridging it is not an easy job…We will return to Tehran tonight” (4). A few days ago Teheran announced that it will not resume talks until the new President takes office.
It doesn’t really matter since the talks are doomed anyway. Iran is not interested in a negotiated peace. Again and again, almost daily, it threatens to annihilate the ‘little Satan’ Israel and after that, the ‘big Satan’ the Western World led by the USA. To that end, and with the support of Russia, Turkey and China, Iran is continuing to enrich uranium and recently it has begun to make uranium metal containing 20% enriched uranium, such as is used for making warheads. They also broast that they can enrich uranium up to the 90% needed for a nuclear bomb. There is no need to enrich uranium past 3-4% for peaceful uses.
Iran has however been plagued by a whole series of mysterious fires and explosions in military installations, power stations, ports and sites where uranium enrichment is being carried out, thus causing delay and disruptions to their plans. There have also been a number of serious cyber attacks. Teheran alternately claims that these incidents are ‘accidents’ or are being carried out by Israel. Israel of course is not admitting any responsibility but clearly the frequency and nature of these events makes it abundantly clear that they are not ‘accidents’. It is also possible that dissident factions within Iran are carrying out these attacks, with or without outside help.
Nevertheless Iran continues to threaten Israel and is accelerating its uranium enrichment activities. It seems inevitable that as they approach nuclear capability Israel will be forced to carry out a pre-emptive strike which would unleash a full scale war with Iran and its proxies. Consequently the IDF is asking the government for a budget increase of some billions of shekels (5).
Iran is continuing to spread its influence across the Middle East. Lebanon and Iraq are on the verge of total collapse, Syria is fragmented and Jordan is destabilizing, very largely because of the influence of Iran in supporting dissident extremist factions. When these governments implode and fall, guess who will step in to ‘rescue’ these states. Iran, of course. Iran is destabilizing the entire Middle East, strengthening its power and creeping closer and closer to our borders. In an effort to shore up the shaky Jordanian regime, Israel recently signed an agreement to double the amount of water supplied to Jordan (bringing it to around 100 million cubic meters a year), and boosting Jordanian exports to the Palestinian Authority (6). Jordan, like most of the Middle East, is experiencing one of the most severe droughts in its history.
Last night (19 July) Israel attacked an Iranian-linked military research facility in Al-Safirah, located east of Aleppo, in Syria, supposedly meant for ballistic missile/chemical weapons research and production. A few hours later two rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, it is thought by Palestinian activists and not Hezbollah. Red alert sirens were triggered in some northern Israeli towns but one rocket fell into the sea and the second was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome system. Israel returned artillery fire upon the source of the rockets.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS
A new alignment of nations is taking shape in the Middle East with Iran at the center of one group of nations and Israel at the center of another.
On the 29th of June Israel’s new Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, was the first Israeli minister to visit the United Arab Emirates where he opened an Israeli Embassy in Abu Dhabi and a Consulate in Dubai. He also met with the UAE Minister for International Cooperation and Dubai Expo 2020, Director General Reem Al Hashimi, and they visited the Israeli Pavilion, still under construction, at the site of the upcoming Dubai Expo which will be held in October 2021, after being postponed for a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. On the 14th of July the UAE opened its new embassy in Tel Aviv. The UAE Ambassador to Israel, Mohamed Al Khaja, said, “It marks a new paradigm for peace and a model for a new collaborative approach for conflict resolution” (7). The Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, are a demonstration that Muslims and Jews can work together to our mutual benefit.
This new alignment of nations seems to approximate the alliances spoken of in Ezekiel 38, when a coalition of nations including Gog and Magog, Meshek, and Tubal ( Russia), Persia (Iran) , Cush (Ethiopia), Put (Libya), Gomer (Europe), Beth Togarmah (Turkey) will come up against Israel, Sheba and Dedan (the nations of the Arabian peninsula (see the map). I am not saying this war is necessarily imminent but just that the stage is being set.
CONDO COLLAPSE IN FLORIDA
No doubt you will all have heard about the terrible collapse of the Champlain Towers condo in Florida, but you may not know that a significant number of those killed and still missing are Jews, including at least 20 Israelis. Within 24 hours Israel had sent a task force to Florida to help and, later, the IDF’s National Search and Rescue Unit, along with members of the Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit of United Hatzalah, an Israeli emergency medical services unit, together with volunteers from ZAKA, the response organization that specializes in gathering bodies and body parts for Jewish burial also arrived at the site (8).
Even before these teams arrived on the ground the Israeli Home Front Command generated 3D digital models of the building which, together with information gathered from surviving family members, produced highly accurate information where each missing person could be expected to be found (8). This was extremely valuable in speeding up the search and providing closure to at least some anxiously waiting families.
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/Byl1EFY300
FLOODS AND FIRES, HEAT AND DROUGHT
As our news broadcasts are full of reports of extreme weather related events, including extreme heat and wildfires in NW USA, Canada, and Siberia, and terrible floods in Germany and China, you are not perhaps aware of the situation developing here in the Middle East. Below is a map of air temperatures around the world for June 6th, 2021. In the Gulf States, Iran and Iraq temperatures that day were well over 50C (122 F) as indicated on the map by the dark red color.
The red depicts the region where temperatures reach over 50 C (= 122F)
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148430/heatwave-scorches-the-middle-east
The heat of June 6 is by no means an isolated event. There have been at least two heatwaves this summer where temperatures have topped 50C in parts of the Middle East for extended periods of time, and we are yet to reach the hottest part of summer. The severe heat and record breaking drought are being compounded by inadequate infrastructure, power cuts and political instability. An unknown number of people have died and farmers are losing livestock and crops. Especially hit are the hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to survive in tents or temporary structures.
The Haaretz newspaper in Israel said this “In the space of little more than a month, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates and other countries bordering the Gulf have suffered two blistering heat waves. In back-to-back doozies, temperatures pushed past 50 degrees centigrade (122 degrees fahrenheit), once early June and again in the first days of July. Bahrain experienced its hottest June in nearly a century” (9).
South China News reported that “Widespread power cuts in Iraq brought hundreds of people onto the streets of the capital Baghdad on July 2, 2021, to protest against the outages. The country has been struggling to cope with a prolonged heatwave, as daytime temperatures in much of the country soared to 50 degrees Celsius (122°F) or higher. The power cuts have left many Iraqis without electricity and air conditioning (10).
Thankfully, Israel is having a fairly normal summer so far, albeit one with temperatures a few degrees above average. Over the last decade or so every summer has been hotter than the one before, so the ‘average temperatures’ are higher than they were. Of course we still have at least 2 months of summer to go and the late summer and autumn period is when we usually have the highest temperatures and are most prone to heat waves. Our desalination plants are providing us with plenty of water for domestic, agricultural and industrial use and we are even selling surplus supplies to neighboring countries. Desalination however is dependent upon large supplies of electricity and is an expensive option both financially and ecologically. I am reminded how vulnerable we all are on our supplies of electricity. Just about everything we do, from brushing our teeth, keeping cool or charging our cell phones requires a constant supply of electricity. What if that supply were cut off?
Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Jeremiah 17: 5-9
REFERENCES:
- https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/israel-and-south-korea-to-exchange-vaccines-672981
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-19/israel-offers-palestinian-authority-covid-vaccines/100228200
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebrahim_Raisi
- https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/voa-news-iran/iran-says-nuclear-talks-be-adjourned-consultations-capitals
- https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-said-asking-for-major-budget-increase-to-enable-attack-against-iran/
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/8/jordan-israel-agree-to-water-deal-more-west-bank-trade
- https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/uae-embassy-opens-in-tel-aviv-marking-new-paradigm-for-peace-673784
- https://www.jpost.com/international/israeli-expertise-brings-closure-to-surfside-disaster-in-matter-of-days-673362
- https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-the-middle-east-is-burning-this-threat-could-turn-it-into-scorched-earth-1.9983358
- https://www.scmp.com/video/world/3139947/iraqis-suffer-under-scorching-heatwave-amid-power-cuts