In addition to publishing an article about the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent decision to exercise jurisdiction over Israel and within “Palestine,” for the purpose of prosecuting Israel for alleged war crimes, HonestReporting CEO Daniel Pomerantz was featured Monday on Kan, Israel’s national radio station.
“This decision by the ICC fundamentally changes the nature of international law in a way that causes serious harm to our future as a planet that cooperates for the good of all humanity, and that is something that every country should be concerned about,” Pomerantz said, adding: “The result of exercising jurisdiction over parties that didn’t agree to it is that it will have a chilling effect on the world’s desire to create institutions that can be used effectively to bring about peace and stability in our world.”
HonestReporting was also in the media recently when Mosaic magazine and the Institute for National Security Studies highlighted on their websites HR articles detailing, respectively, the Palestinian Authority’s sanctions on the Gaza Strip and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated on Monday that the Biden White House would continue recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, while stopping short of endorsing the Trump administration’s recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel. Instead, Blinken noted that the territory was important for the Jewish state’s security.
“Legal questions are something else and over time if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we look at, but we are nowhere near that,” the top US diplomat added.
Former President Donald Trump officially granted US recognition of the Golan as Israeli territory in 2019, a dramatic shift from decades of US policy.
Also on Monday, Blinken stated that the US is rejoining the United Nations Human Rights Council, reversing yet another Trump administration move. In 2018, Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, announced that the US was withdrawing from the council, citing “chronic bias against Israel.” The Jewish state has received by far the largest number of critical council resolutions against any country.
Blinken added that the council “is flawed and needs reform, but walking away won’t fix it.”
Israel’s largest COVID-19 testing lab announced on Monday that it had found evidence indicating that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine significantly reduces the transmissibility of the coronavirus.
A paper published online claims that positive test results of patients aged 60 and over had up to 60 percent smaller viral loads on the test swab than the 40-59 age group, starting in mid-January, when most of Israel’s population age 60-plus had already been vaccinated with at least one dose. The results were published by the MyHeritage lab, which handles more than 10,000 tests a day.
In related news, the largest hospital in Greece announced that it will take part in the trials of an Israeli treatment for COVID-19, following the meeting between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday.
During the press conference with Mitsotakis, Netanyahu held up a vial with what he called a “miracle drug,” adding: “If you’re infected by corona and are seriously ill and have a lung problem, take this, inhale it, and you come out feeling good.”
Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) said last Friday that 29 out of 30 patients who received the new EXO-CD24 treatment recovered in three to five days.
The Israeli and Greek tourism ministers also signed an agreement that would allow tourism exchanges between the countries for people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus, without requiring a quarantine period.
New research by an Israeli NGO published on Monday once again accuses the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah of using civilian population centers, including schools, to store its missile arsenal.
The report was produced by the Israeli Alma Research and Education Center. Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, director of Alma’s research department, said that the findings are a follow-up to earlier research conducted by the NGO. Seven months ago, Alma exposed 28 missile sites in the greater Beirut area.
That process led Alma to a so-called social charity named the Shiite Waqf Committee, a known Hezbollah supporter. The researchers found several compounds belonging to the committee, suspected of being Hezbollah missile storage and launch sites. Some of the locations are positioned in close proximity to schools. Beeri, a former IDF intelligence officer, called it a “case of classic human shielding.”
The use of civilian groups as front organizations is a known pattern for the Iran-backed terror group. In the past, Hezbollah used the “Green Without Borders” environmental association as a cover for activities on Israel’s border, as well as the cynically named “Peace Generations Organization for Demining.”
HonestReporting Panel Discussion and Q&A: ‘Antisemitism: From Media to the UN’s Halls of Power’
On February 21, learn about the intersection of antisemitism in the media and the United Nations. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry recently released its annual report on antisemitism, which warned of a resurgence of Jew-hatred worldwide in 2021.
This exclusive webinar will explore the manner in which the dissemination of antisemitic tropes, as outlined by the widely accepted IHRA definition, by news outlets bleeds into many spheres, perhaps most importantly the diplomatic one.
The event will provide you with the tools required both to identify and oppose antisemitism when it appears in news outlets, and inform you of the consequences it can have on the formulation of policy at the international level.
- Report Highlights Iran’s Worldwide Terrorist Modus Operandi (Steven Emerson, Algemeiner)
- The ICC Aids and Abets Terrorism (Yoav Limor, Israel Hayom)
- Why Israel Leads the World in Vaccinating Its Population (Charles Lipson, Jewish News Syndicate)
- Another Accolade for Max Gross’ ‘Lost Shtetl’: Best Fiction From Association of Jewish Libraries (Penny Schwartz, Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
