The Spread of Coronavirus and the Lack of Equipment is a National Scandal
Richard Horton – Editor The Lancet
A Heartbreaking Video from a New York Hospital - this is what happens to public hospitals when the private sector is in charge
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| An Israeli bulldozer enters Gaza to grab the body of a man they've murdered - treating his corpse as if he were an animal |
Whilst the rest of the world is doing its best to contain and fight the Coronavirus pandemic, Israel’s military occupation forces have other priorities. Forcing the Palestinians out of Area C in the West Bank and pursuing ethnic cleansing is their highest priority. Israel’s so-called Civil Administration (which is the military under another name) entered the village of Khirbet Ibziq last Thursday morning in order to demolish a community clinic and emergency housing.
Btselem said the villagers were building a first-aid community initiative to deal with the Covid-19 crisis which has paralyzed large parts of the southern West Bank.
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| The ruins left behind in 'Ein a-Duyuk |
What kind of a regime is it that uses a crisis such as Coronavirus to pursue its desire to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population? Can there be any doubt that the Israeli state harbours racism within its very DNA?
Yet we had a fake and confected ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign in the Labour Party for the past 4 years which holds that anyone criticising Israel as a racist state is themselves racist under the infamous IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism. This is the Alice-in-Wonderland politics that we have been subjected to, courtesy of ‘journalists’ like Jonathan Freedland.
What is truly shameful is that large sections of the Left in the Labour Party, John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and leadership candidate, the truly pathetic Rebecca Long-Bailey, have gone along with the idea that calling Israel racist is itself racist. Truly Orwellian.
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| Eli Dahan - former Deputy Defence Minister - Palestinians are animals |
Indeed one should go further. The late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, an Orthodox religious scholar and Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who described the settlers and their military backers as Judeo-Nazis and who said they had a Nazi mentality was absolutely correct.
Anyone who could demolish a clinic can only hold the view that the Palestinians are not human, animals in the wordsof former Deputy Defence Minister Eli Dahan. This is quintessential biological racism of the Nazi variety.
During the Coronavirus crisis, Israel confiscates tents designated for clinic in the Northern West Bank
Bt’selem Press Release 26 March 2020
This morning, Thursday, 26 March 2020, at around 7:30 am, officials from Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank arrived with a military jeep escort, a bulldozer and two flatbed trucks with cranes at the Palestinian community of Khirbet Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley. They confiscated poles and sheeting that were meant to form eight tents, two for a field clinic, and four for emergency housing for residents evacuated from their homes, and two as makeshift mosques. The force also confiscated a tin shack in place for more than two years, as well as a power generator and sacks of sand and cement. Four pallets of cinder blocks intended for the tent floors were taken away and four others demolished.
As the whole world battles an unprecedented and paralyzing healthcare crisis, Israel’s military is devoting time and resources to harassing the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank, that Israel has attempted to drive out of the area for decades. Shutting down a first-aid community initiative during a health crisis is an especially cruel example of the regular abuse inflicted on these communities, and it goes against basic human and humanitarian principles during an emergency. Unlike Israel’s policies, this pandemic does not discriminate based on nationality, ethnicity or religion. It is high time the government and military acknowledged that now, of all times, Israel is responsible for the health and wellbeing of the five million Palestinians who live under its control in the Occupied Territories.
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The confiscated building blocks. Photo by 'Aref Daraghmeh, B'Tselem, 26 March 2020 |
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Israeli forces on Thursday entered a Palestinian village in the northern Jordan Valley to confiscate materials designated to build a clinic to deal with the novel coronavirus outbreak. |
In addition to the shocking destruction of the clinic under construction, the Civil Administration is continuing its demolition routine. Today, it demolished three seasonal homes of farmers who are residents of Jerusalem, in the village of ‘Ein a-Duyuk a-Tahta west of Jericho.
Background on Palestinian communities facing expulsion: Scores of farming-shepherding communities, home to thousands of Palestinians, dot the 60% of the West Bank designated as Area C. For decades, Israeli authorities have pursued a policy aimed at driving out these communities by making living conditions intolerable in an attempt to get residents to leave, ostensibly of their own volition. This unlawful conduct is motivated by the political ambition, publicly stated by various officials, to establish facts on the ground and take over these areas in a de-facto annexation that would facilitate actual annexation to Israel as part of a final status arrangement.
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| Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz who famously described the Israeli army and settlers as 'Judeo Nazis' |
JORDAN VALLEY, Wednesday, March 25, 2020 (WAFA) – The Israeli military authorities today ordered residents of the Jordan Valley to stop installing solar panels in their village, according to a local official.
Mutaz Bisharat, from the Tubas governorate, said soldiers raided Khirbet al-Dir in the northern Jordan Valley and handed residents an order to stop work on installing solar panels gift of the Italian humanitarian aid and development group GVC.
He also said that the soldiers banned a resident from installing a caravan for farming purposes on his land in the same village.
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'For Lack of Choice,' Israel to Treat Asylum Seekers as Citizens in Coronavirus Crisis
Because of the CV crisis asylum seekers will be treated the same as Israeli citizens. Except, as the report makes clear, this is not true. They will be able to access some unspecified help but they will be expected to pay for health insurance at the cost of hundreds of shekels a month.
It is very kind of the Israeli government to allow asylum seekers to withdraw their own money to pay for this! Under another racist law, asylum seekers in Israel ‘illegally’ (nearly all asylum seekers in Israel are illegal since they are not Jewish) have had 20% of their wages deducted and paid into a fund which they will receive if they leave Israel. This is the ‘help’ they will be given it would seem. Ha’aretz reports:
Unlike citizens, the 30,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel are not covered by national public health insurance and depend on private insurance, if they are employed.
And if they can’t find work they don’t receive medical treatment. This is the reality of the ‘Jewish values’ that Israel espouses. To most people these will seem to be the values of the anti-Semitic regimes that Jews used to suffer under.
The article does not explain what, if any additional measures will be taken to support asylum seekers though even Israel’s racist authorities realise that CV knows neither race nor nationality and if asylum seekers are not given some form of social protection they will simply infect the Aryan I mean Jewish residents of the Israeli state.
Other reports on Israel’s racist measures include:
27 Mar by Ali Salam — Israeli forces, on Thursday, demolished a farming shed and a water well in Deir Ballut town, west of Salfitcity, according to a local official. Governor of Salfit, Abdallah Kmeil Israeli forces escorted a bulldozer into Wadi Sarida area, where heavy machinery tore down a farming shed and a water well belonging to a villager. Kmeil noted that Israeli forces were exploiting the coronavirus lockdown enforced on the occupied territories to secure the implementation of the seizure of more Palestinian land.
27 Mar by Ali Salam — Israeli forces, on Thursday, demolished three Palestinian-owned homes in the village of al-Diyouk, west of the occupied West Bank city of Jericho, under the pretext they were built without permits, local sources said. Israeli soldiers and police accompanied bulldozers as they invaded the village in the early morning, and proceeded to demolish the three houses. Israel uses the pretext of a missing building permit to destroy Palestinian homes, while at the same time denying Palestinians the permission to build. [Palestinians rarely receive building permits in Area C – TG]
HEBRON, Tuesday, March 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli soldiers in control of the old town of the divided southern West Bank city of Hebron today barred Palestinian volunteers from disinfecting the neighborhoods and educating the local population on the coronavirus pandemic, according to a local activist. Muhannad Jabari the soldiers prevented the volunteers trained by the health ministry from spraying the Palestinian neighborhoods with disinfectants and educating the residents on the deadly disease. He said the soldiers forced the volunteers to leave the area without completing their mission. Jabari said the volunteers wanted to help the local population living under Israeli military rule in that part of the city on how to deal with the disease and how to avoid it when they were forced to leave the area.
The only conclusion one can draw from this action, in the West Bank’s largest city is that Israel wants Coronavirus to spread amongst the Palestinian population. This is Nazi like behaviour.
Half of the Arab villages in Israel itself are what is called ‘unrecognised’. There is no Jewish community in Israel which is unrecognised. Most of the villages are in the Negev/Naqab and when Israel decides, it issues demolition orders as happened to the village of Umm al-Hiran when the authorities decided to demolish itin order to make way for a Jewish only town of Hiran. The failure to provide medical services because communities are ‘unrecognised’ despite formally being Israeli citizens is usually known as Apartheid.
Tony Greenstein
HAIFA, Tuesday, March 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent an urgent letter on 22 March to Israeli authorities demanding access to essential medical services for more than 70,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel residing in unrecognized villages in the Naqab (Negev) region in southern Israel. These citizens are not receiving urgent care from Israel’s national emergency medical service.
Israeli Health Ministry guidelines prohibit patients with fever and respiratory symptoms from leaving the home, except in medical emergencies. After the symptoms associated with coronavirus develop, Israel’s Magen David Adom national emergency medical service (MDA), under the guidance of the district physician, is supposed to reach out to the patient for an at-home examination and – if necessary – evacuation to hospital. However, residents of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab lack access to MDA urgent care services, said Adalah…
Palestine Chronicle 27 Mar — Jewish settlers today [Friday] attacked Palestinian herders and other civilians in the village of Al-Tuwani, south of Hebron (Al-Khalil). According to a local activist. Fo’ad Amour, Jewish settlers, along with attack dogs, assaulted herders in the village and injured one of them in his abdomen and hand. The man was moved to a nearby hospital for medical treatment. Illegal Jewish settlers are notorious for their attacks on Palestinians, but assaults on Palestinian farmers and herders have been frequent over the past few months. Armed settlers and soldiers often prevent Palestinian shepherds from herding in the open pastures of the occupied West Bank in order to force them to abandon the area.
IMEMC 24 Mar — Several fanatic illegal Israeli colonists attacked, on Monday evening, a Palestinian shepherd in Ein al-Hilwa area, in the West Bank’s Northern Plains, and attacked many homes in Madama village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinian human rights activist, Aref Daraghma, said several colonists assaulted a young shepherd while herding his cows in Ein al-Hilwa. Daraghma added that the young man, Moheeb Fathi Daraghma, suffered several minor cuts and bruises. Also on Monday evening, a group of colonists attacked homes in the southern area of Madama village, south of Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official who monitors Israel’s illegal colonialist activities in northern West Bank, said the assailants came from Yitzhar colony, which was built on Palestinian lands south of Nablus, and added that the locals intercepted them, and forced them away.
Israeli settlers attack Palestinian motorist in north of West Bank
JENIN, Monday, March 23, 2020 (WAFA0 – Israeli settlers today attacked with stones a Palestinian motorist in the north of the West Bank, causing damage but no injuries. A resident of Silat al-Dahr village, south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, told WAFA that settlers threw stones at his car near his village breaking its windows and hijacking the car after he and his family were able to get out of it and run away. He said he filed a complaint with the Palestinian police, who contacted their Israeli counterparts and got the car back.
JENIN, Monday, March 23, 2020 (WAFA0 – Israeli settlers today attacked with stones a Palestinian motorist in the north of the West Bank, causing damage but no injuries. A resident of Silat al-Dahr village, south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, told WAFA that settlers threw stones at his car near his village breaking its windows and hijacking the car after he and his family were able to get out of it and run away. He said he filed a complaint with the Palestinian police, who contacted their Israeli counterparts and got the car back.
It’s not true that Iran has been offered help by the United States. On the contrary Trump has used the crisis to step up sanctions.
Tony Greenstein
WASHINGTON, Saturday, 28 March 2020 (WAFA) – Eight United States senators urged the US Administration to provide assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza to help them overcome the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump recently offered assistance to other countries fighting the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, including North Korea and Iran. This principle of providing humanitarian aid to those in need should also apply to the Palestinian people,” said the senators in their letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“We write to urge the Administration to take every reasonable step to provide medicine, medical equipment, and other necessary assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) to prevent a humanitarian disaster.”
The letter was signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, Patrick Leahy, Tom Udall, Thomas R. Carper, Bernard Sanders, Jeffrey A. Merkley, Thomas R. Carper and Sherrod Brown.
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Unlike the case in Israel, migrants in Portugal will be treated as residents with full access to public health and welfare services. Although Portugal has a racist policy towards migrants, this isn’t based on racial supremacy and the desire to preserve ethnic purity. In Israel racial purity trumps every other necessity and when some protection for asylum seekers is introduced, it is only in order to protect the native Jewish community.
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| FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a protective mask as a preventive measure against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks at Augusta street in downtown Lisbon, Portugal March 20, 2020. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante |
LISBON (Reuters) - All foreigners in Portugal with pending applications will be treated as permanent residents from Monday until at least July 1, authorities said on Saturday, to ensure migrants have access to public services during the coronavirus outbreak.
Applicants including asylum seekers need only provide evidence of an ongoing request to qualify - granting them access to the national health service, welfare benefits, bank accounts, and work and rental contracts.
Exclusive: Ministers were warned that the NHS could not cope with a pandemic three years ago but 'terrifying' results were kept secret
Telegraph 28 March 2020
This is shocking. An article in The Telegraph of all papers tells us that
‘Ministers were informed three years ago that Britain would be quickly overwhelmed by a severe outbreak’.
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The modelling for the fictional pandemic was supplied by Imperial College London, the same group of academics now tracking Covid-19 Credit: Peter Summers/Getty Images |
The NHS failed a test of its ability to handle a severe pandemic but the “terrifying” results were kept secret from the public.
Ministers were informed that Britain would be quickly overwhelmed by a severe outbreak amid a shortage of critical care beds, morgue capacity and personal protective equipment.
The report on Cygnus’s findings were deemed too sensitive by Whitehall officials to be made public. It found:
· The NHS lacked adequate “surge capacity” and would require thousands more critical care beds to cope with a severe pandemic
· Health bosses would need to “switch off” large parts of the NHS to cope with demand
· Medics would need to adopt a “battlefield” mentality, with frail patients denied critical care
· Mortuaries would be quickly overwhelmed
· Potential failings in the supply of PPE to doctors and nurses
· Officials even discussed preventing midwives from delivering newborn babies so they could be sent to care for the critically ill
The Telegraph reported thatDespite the failings exposed by Cygnus, the government never changed its strategic roadmap for a future pandemic, with the last update carried out in 2014.
The findings of Exercise Cygnus remain classified because of “biosecurity concerns”.
“There has been a reluctance to put Cygnus out in the public domain because frankly it would terrify people,” one senior official added.
The modelling for the fictional pandemic was supplied by Imperial College London, the same group of academics now tracking Covid-19.
The verdict was clear - a pandemic of that scale would quickly overwhelm the NHS due to major shortages of intensive care beds equipped with lifesaving ventilators. Morgues would swiftly run out of space with a dearth of doctors to certify causes of death. Problems were also identified in delivering protective masks and gowns to medical workers on the frontline, senior sources said.
Despite the damning verdict, Cygnus was largely kept quiet with only a passing reference made during the NHS England board meeting in March 2017.
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NEVER AGAIN: After the Coronavirus Pandemic is over, we will see Austerity on Stereoids as the poor will be expected to pay the bills for rescuing Branson and co.
Just a day ago, I wrote in paper for the Labour Left Alliance that after the Coronvirus crisis is over, we would see ‘austerity on stereoids’. The £330 billion rescue package of the government would have to be paid and of one thing you can be sure, the price will be paid by the working class and poor unless we fight back.
The Idiots of the North, as I call them, the ones who voted for Boris Johnson because he is ‘just like us’ in the words of a Grimsby fish market worker, will be the first to be forced to pay for the Tories self-inflicted crisis. As the Report in The Telegraph above makes clear, the Tories knew that the NHS would be unable to cope in an emergency and yet they deliberately decided to run down services.
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Our slogan needs to be NEVER AGAIN. Never again must the NHS be run down. Never again must it be privatised. The Health & Social Care Act 2012, a joint effort of the Tories and Lib Dems, which allowed a massive intrusion of the profit seeking private sector into the New Statesman must be repealed.
If the Tories want to reclaim the extra money spent then they should seize the untaxed unearned income of the wealthy in British offshore tax havens like Jersey, the Isle of Man, the Bermuda islands etc.
The trade unions and labour movement have to stand up and say that the working class refuse to pay for the crisis of capitalism. I am therefore pleased that Craig Murray, our former Ambassador in Uzbekistan, who Jack Straw sacked when he was Foreign Minister for revealing the horrific torture that the Uzbek regime engaged in (including boiling people alive) agrees with my analysis and you should read his take on what will happen if we allow it.
Tony Greenstein
It’s Not Socialism. It’s Another Mega Wealth Transfer.
It is fashionable to write articles at the moment stating the Government has discovered the value of socialist intervention. I suspect history will show that nothing could be further from the truth. ‘austerity will soon be back but with bells on this time.’
The taxpayer will ultimately pick up the tab through what may prove to be another decade of austerity imposed as a result of another transfer of wealth from us to banks, financial institutions and big companies. The small and medium companies which will go to the wall – and a great many will – are going to provide rich pickings in a few months time for the vultures of the hedge funds and other disaster capitalists.