Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that Israel will on December 27 begin a massive push to vaccinate the public against the coronavirus, making the Jewish State one of the first countries in the world to begin inoculating its citizenry.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu was at Ben Gurion Airport to receive the country’s first shipment of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, a development he described as a “big day of celebration.”
“I believe in this vaccine. I expect it will receive the appropriate approval in the coming days,” Netanyahu said, adding that he would be the first person in Israel to be immunized.
Overall, the Israeli government has procured 8 million doses of the vaccine, sufficient for 4 million people, or roughly 45 percent of the total population. Health authorities are aiming to administer 60,000 shots a day.
News of the vaccine’s arrival comes as Israel on Wednesday registered 1,828 new COVID-19 infections. This comes as the cabinet was again slated to convene in order to decide on the implementation of prospective fresh restrictions for the eight-day Hanukkah holiday.
Senior Democratic members of the US House of Representatives are backing President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to reenter the Iran nuclear deal without preconditions.
In a letter that circulated on Wednesday, lawmakers expressed support for Biden’s policy, which is diametrically opposed to that of the current Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“We strongly endorse your call for Iran to return to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States to rejoin the agreement, and subsequent follow-on negotiations,” the letter reads in part.
Several legislators have already signed the missive, including notably, Brad Sherman of California, who has longstanding ties to the pro-Israel community.
Concurrently, Tehran on Wednesday announced that it was ready to return to full compliance with the 2015 multilateral nuclear accord if other parties honored their commitments. Over the past 18 months, the Islamic Republic has vastly exceeded numerous limitations outlined in the agreement, including ammasing about 12 times more enriched uranium than permitted.
In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the accord and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will in the near future – possibly within days – make a state visit to Egypt at the invitation of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. If so, it would be the first such trip by an Israeli leader in a decade, although Netanyahu has reportedly secretly traveled to Cairo on several occasions.
The talks between the two leaders will focus on a number of issues, foremost Iran’s regional expansionism and potential nuclearization. Also on the agenda will be the possibility of Egypt facilitating the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as well as Cairo’s ongoing efforts to mediate a long-term cease-fire between the Gaza Strip-based Hamas terror group and the Jewish state.
Overall, Netanyahu and Sisi will reportedly coordinate their policies ahead of next month’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has expressed concern over the former’s approach to the peace process and the latter’s human rights record.
Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi tendered her resignation and, in a move that raised eyebrows, called for political reforms in Ramallah. A supporter of the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement against Israel and longtime darling of the media – through which she for years spewed venom against the Jewish state – Ashrawi gave little indication as to why she was stepping down other than saying that the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, on which she served, had been marginalized “and [excluded] from decision-making.”
“The Palestinian political system needs renewal and reinvigoration with the inclusion of youth, women and additional qualified professionals,” Ashrawi asserted in a corresponding statement. “I believe it is time to carry out the required reform and to activate the PLO in a manner that restores its standing and role.”
The 15-member Executive Committee is the PLO’s top body and is headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who critics have accused of torpedoing initiatives to modernize political institutions in the West Bank. Moreover, the Palestinian leadership, which remains bitterly divided between the PA and Hamas, has not held presidential or parliamentary elections since 2005 and 2006, respectively.
Google has released its top trending searches for 2020, which are calculated based on the year on year percentage increase in the number of times a word, or combinations thereof, are entered into the online engine and not in terms of absolute value. In Israel, the overall top trending term was “corona,” Hebrew shorthand for the virus, followed by “Health Ministry” and “N12,” the website for the country’s Channel 12 news. Rounding out the top five were “Wpad,” an online protocol used for working from home, and “Zoom,” the video teleconferencing tool.
The top-searched term in the “How-to” category was “How do you get infected with the coronavirus?” In the political category, the top trending term was “Election results 2020,” referring to Israel’s third consecutive national vote that was held in March. “US elections” came in second place, followed by the “United Arab Emirates,” “US election results” and “Donald Trump.”
The most searched shows in Israel (again, relative to 2019) were “Tehran,” “Fauda” and the Yom Kippur War drama “Valley of Tears.”
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- Sa’ar Steps Out of Netanyahu’s Shadow, and Will Likely Cost Him the Premiership (Haviv Rettig Gur, Times of Israel)
- How Hanukkah Came to Be an Annual White House Celebration (Jonathan D. Sarna, The Conversation )
- Bob Dylan Sells Rights to All His Songs to Universal Music Group for Reported $400 Million (ABC.NET.AU)
- Jewish Astronaut Among 18 NASA Candidates for Next Moon Mission (Marcia Dunn, Times of Israel)
