by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 20th
On March 18, Israel delivered hundreds of kits for detecting the coronavirus into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, together with equipment for medical protection. This is the same Gaza Strip from which Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have been firing thousands of rockets at Israel for the past few years, and launching party-balloons carrying hidden bombs as recently as last week. In February alone, more than 40 rockets were launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leaders, who are pursuing their efforts to prosecute Israelis for "war crimes," have been concealing from their own people and the international community the fact that Israel is assisting them in the war on the coronavirus.
For Palestinian leaders, it seems that the war on Israel is more important than the battle against a pandemic and saving the lives of their own people. Yet, these leaders and their families, if they are diagnosed with the disease, will undoubtedly be the first to rush to Israel to seek medical treatment there.
Palestinian officials continue, on a daily basis, to spread such lies about Israel and Jews, even as Israel is helping them combat the coronavirus. For Palestinian leaders, it seems that the war on Israel is more important than the battle against a pandemic and saving the lives of their own people. Pictured: A Palestinian Authority policeman stands outside a hospital in Ramallah on March 12, 2020. (Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images)
What is the connection between US President Donald Trump's recently unveiled plan for Middle East peace and the coronavirus?
Palestinian leaders seem to believe that there is a connection between the peace plan, also known as the Deal of the Century, and the coronavirus pandemic. According to these leaders, Israel is taking advantage of the health crisis to implement the Trump plan and build new housing units for Jews in the West Bank. They are referring to Israel's intention to build a new road between the E1 area and Jerusalem, and 3,500 apartments in Ma'aleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem.
First, the building program in the area has been on the agenda for more than 20 years. All Israeli governments since Yitzhak Rabin's second tenure as prime minister in the 1990s have supported it.
by Lawrence Kadish • March 19th
In an online essay he [Dr. Stanton A. Glantz] asserts that "among Chinese patients diagnosed with COVID-19 associated pneumonia, the odds of disease progression (including to death) were 14 times higher among people with a history of smoking compared to those who did not smoke. This was the strongest risk factor among those examined."
Whether you agree with his data and methodology or not, the stark truth is, unlike the stealth-like assassin, cancer, COVID-19 is a career criminal that will strike quickly at any vulnerability to take its victim down.
So if there is one unintended benefit from the dangerous COVID-19 story, it is the urgent, unmistakable ultimatum that smokers find the nearest ashtray, use it, and then walk away from the habit.
(Image source: iStock)
I have been very good friends with cigars for most of my adult life.
It's time we broke up.
Prior to the arrival of the COVID-19 public health crisis, I was always aware that smoking was not in my best interest or that of my family and friends. But the unique taste and aroma of a good cigar was my definition of well-earned success after a long, hard day of playing the cards of high stakes business.
The constant drone of public service health warnings were meant for the other guys -- those who smoked cigarettes. Ironically, their habit began to fall out of public favor until a new generation took up with gusto the equally dangerous habit of vaping. Cigars, on the other hand, were meant to accompany fine brandy and good company. It turned out to be a dangerous fiction.
No more.
Cigars, and their cousins, it turns out, are pathways for COVID-19. They serve as a potential accelerant for an ambulance trip to a hospital's I.C.U.
by Soeren Kern • March 19th
The attempt to whip up anti-Americanism appears to be an effort by the German government to blunt public criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet for their lackadaisical response to the coronavirus epidemic.
The story was quickly picked up and uncritically disseminated by print and broadcast media throughout Europe — and America. Nearly all quoted the Die Welt article verbatim without confirming the story on their own.
"To make it clear again on coronavirus: CureVac has not received from the US government or related entities an offer before, during and since the Task Force meeting in the White House on March 2. CureVac rejects all allegations from press." — Statement by CureVac, March 26, 2020.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell denied the allegations. "Not true," he tweeted. "The Welt story was wrong. But Business Insider, Reuters and others went with it anyway despite not having their own sources. Now everyone is back peddling."
The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, in an article titled, "CureVac Has Not Received an Offer from the U.S. Government," described the Welt article as "Fake News" concocted by CureVac in order to secure government funding. The paper suggested that the German government helped to promote the lie...
"A German minister, who heard from another German minister, that a German journalist, who was not there, reported that the U.S. president offered $1 billion for a company that has not yet developed a vaccine against COVID-19.... For my taste, much hearsay, the striving of Die Welt for many clicks, the fueling of resentment against Trump and perhaps intelligent marketing by the company for public funding in times of the corona crisis." — Reader comment in Die Welt, March 17, 2020.
The German government has promoted a fake news story asserting that the United States is trying to gain exclusive access to an experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by CureVac, a German biotech firm. Pictured: A company car sporting the CureVac logo, seen in front of the firm's headquarters in Tübingen, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
The German government has promoted a fake news story asserting that the United States is trying to gain exclusive access to an experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German biotech firm.
The story — which has sparked anti-American furor in Germany and elsewhere in Europe — has been swiftly debunked by the company, which denied that it had received financial offers from the U.S. government or any related entity.
The attempt to whip up anti-Americanism appears to be an effort by the German government to blunt public criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet for their lackadaisical response to the coronavirus epidemic.
by Con Coughlin • March 19th
The EU's failure to address the coronavirus issue earlier has resulted in the Schengen Agreement, which stipulates that the citizens of any EU state can travel freely throughout the union, becoming null and void.
Perhaps the most shameful episode concerning inter-EU relations since the start of the coronavirus outbreak was Germany's refusal to allow the export of much-needed face masks and ventilators to Italy after the Italian government made a direct appeal to the rest of the EU for help. Instead of demonstrating the so-called solidarity that is supposed to underpin the EU's founding ethos, the German government issued a ban on the export of the equipment to Italy.
The EU's handling of the coronavirus has not just been incompetent. It raises serious questions as to whether it is about to become yet another victim of the deadly pandemic.
This week, trucks trying to enter Poland from Germany have been subjected to a tailback dozens of kilometres long, as Polish border guards insisted on checking the temperatures, health and documentation of drivers seeking to enter the country. Pictured: Trucks converging onto the A12 highway stand backed up before Germany's border to Poland on March 18, 2020 near Zernsdorf, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
The emergence of Europe as the new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic has as much to do with the European Union's inept handling of the crisis as it does with the resilience of the virus itself.
When the world first learned about the existence of coronavirus in China at the start of the year, the EU's response, like much of the rest of the world's, was to adopt a wait and see approach as to how it developed.
The problem for the EU, though, is that it has maintained this lackadaisical approach long after it became clear that the virus was going to develop into a global, rather than a specifically Chinese, issue. More pertinently, the EU's failure to raise its game, after the rapid spread of the virus resulted in much of Europe coming to a standstill, means that the EU is now trying to play catch-up in terms of asserting a leadership role.
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