Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on David’s Tent, a ministry of Israeli believers Avner and Rachel Boskey. The Boskey’s have ministered at Tabernacle of David, and we consider them trustworthy and Biblically sound.
An ancient Indian Buddhist parable (circa 500 B.C.) tells of nine blind men who had never encountered an elephant. Each one was given a different part of the elephant’s body to touch, and then was called upon to describe the pachyderm. It comes as no surprise that each description was totally different from his neighbor’s! Each man trumpeted his limited and personal elephantine encounter as the basic and indisputable truth, while simultaneously denying the eight other perspectives. This led to a virulent suspicion that all the other neighbors were acting dishonestly. Eventually all nine came to blows. Though each man had accurately related his own experience, each one had failed to grasp the larger and more comprehensive picture.
The past eighteen months have rocked the world. Many of us feel that we have been listening to nine blind Indians. And it seems that there are more perspectives available ‘explaining COVID-19 related events’ than even nine hundred blind Indians could muster up. The Scriptures remind us:
- “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25)
- “Every person’s way is right in his own eyes, but YHVH examines the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2)
Let’s keep this divine caution in mind as we consider world events.
‘The leg of the elephant’ – the past one and a half years
Many perspectives flowing across the internet are understandably partial in nature, like the viewpoints of the nine blind Indians. The strong declarations we run into – some may be based on experience, others on statistics. Some may be politically motivated, and others driven by economic motivations or social science theories. This newsletter comes from an Israeli context and perspective, reflecting what is going on here, what is being discussed in Hebrew among Hebrew speakers – though there may be applications for other nations as well.
A dear and departed prophetic friend spoke nearly ten years ago of a pandemic which would come upon the earth. He said that “the first one would prove to be little but fear,” but that a second one coming after that would be serious. This ‘first pandemic of fear’ is reflected in the recent Newsweek cover ‘The Doomsday Variant.’ Fear continues to be a prime selling point for the media throughout this season.
U.S. President Ronald Reagan was once coached on the use of a Russian proverb – Доверяй, но проверяй (Doveryay, no proveryay; ‘trust but verify’) concerning the urgent need for clear thinking and command of relevant facts when involved in the details of nuclear arms negotiations. The world is undergoing a crisis of confidence in precisely this area – the area of trust. People are not ready to trust authority, whether it be political, economic, religious or medical. A current Israeli example – we have gone through four election cycles without arriving at a decisive majority. Our national electorate is divided on many issues, while both the USA and the UK mirror similar divisions. If there is no trust, the need to verify becomes all the more crucial.
‘The ear of the elephant’ – social and media metamorphoses
British author and former Socialist George Orwell experienced a traumatic paradigm shift while fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War (late 1930’s). He described in Homage to Catalonia how Stalinist ‘progressives’ had morphed into the authors of a “horrible atmosphere produced by fear, suspicion, hatred, censored newspapers.” In his Why I Write (1946) he stated that “every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism.”
The rise of censorship and totalitarian control of thought was a main theme of Orwell’s magnum opus ‘1984,’ a dystopian and surrealistic tale of a world caught in a spider’s web of ‘progressive’ propaganda. On this planet of horrors, totalitarian governments would publish daily news but then constantly edit, update and rewrite the substance. On Orwell’s media-controlled planet, main stream media (MSM) had become the final authority – the only kosher purveyor of ‘politically correct’ values and perspectives. Orwell’s literary gifts to the modern world include the terms Big Brother, thought police, newspeak, doublethink, unperson, and thoughtcrime which have all become part of everyday speech.
Our world seems to have been hijacked by Orwell’s nightmare. The five largest companies in the information technology industry of the United States are Google (Alphabet), Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. Collectively they are given the name Big Tech. Though Twitter has a place of honor here (as does Netflix), they are not part of the top five.
A social phenomenon called ‘cancel culture’ has infected the media in recent years, often marked by the censoring and silencing of voices in the public square which it deems ‘non-progressive.’ This chillingly dictatorial behavior tends to be directed against political figures who are not left-of-center and are considered ‘politically incorrect’ by left-leaning mainstream media (MSM) trend-setters, Targets also include those who are traditionally religious in beliefs and morals, the State of Israel, Zionism, the former POTUS, etc. Medical perspectives which are not considered PC are also regularly targeted and removed by Big Tech.
On August 2, 2021 Twitter announced that for “the first time Twitter will formally collaborate with news organizations” Associated Press and Reuters “to elevate accurate information” and “to fight the spread of misinformation” – that is, to help crush any competition to Big Pharma’s cartel-like domination of the COVID-19 vaccine market. The BBC describes this new information cartel positively, declaring starry-eyed that this new ‘Tech Triumvirate’ will “debunk disinformation,” “counteract the spread of misleading information,” and “remove false content.” In February 2021 Facebook announced similar moves, while its friends in mainstream media called for even more draconian measures. Last week YouTube suspended Australia’s Sky News for publishing information about promising new medical discoveries in the war against COVID.
Some of us have had a blind and trusting belief that the moguls of social media really do believe in free speech, free debate and free enterprise. This illusion has been dashed by a large bucket filled to the brim with the ice-cold waters of reality. Instead, we are witnessing a new manifestation rising from the waves – a ‘Brave New World’ of social media dictatorship. This time around it is not a Marxist-Leninist ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Rather, we are being confronted with a social dictatorship directed by some of the world’s richest capitalists – the billionaire puppet-masters.
Britisher George Orwell would only say, “I warned you!”
- Wherever one stands on the political spectrum, these censorship-related developments present a powerful intercessory challenge for those who take the prophetic warning of ‘1984’ seriously.
‘The trunk of the elephant’ – the fog of war
In 1942 Winston Churchill described the military clash playing out on European battlefields: “The pictorial battlefield becomes a sea of mud, mercifully veiled by the fog of war” (in Thoughts and Adventures). The origins of the current world medical crisis reveal similar patterns of fog. These revolve around:
- the origins of the COVID-19 virus
- the measure of physical threat posed by the virus
- the efficiency of preventative measures being taken
- a possible history of bioweapons research connections involved in the development of COVID-19, both in China and in the USA
- the growing paper trail of patents linking scientific and pharmaceutical organizations to the development and patenting of actual COVID-19 viruses, COVID vaccines and their components, and related PCR testing technologies. The economic windfall here is of course enormous.
- the abandonment of traditional guidelines regarding monitoring, forthrightness and medical due diligence vis-à-vis any possibly toxic side-effects of the vaccines
Virus origins
China was quickly labeled as the original Ground Zero of this virus. The former heads of both CIA and MI6 suggest that a work accident occurred in a high-security bioweapons lab (the Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology), with this later opportunized by China for maximum political and economic gain. See my Passover 2020 newsletter in this regard.
Recently there has been the internet release of original documentation revealing American scientific lab research going back to 1999 and continuing into 2019 connected to the development and patenting of aspects of COVID-19. An intensive top-level study of legal patents and patent tie-ins (73 in total) point to links between university researchers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and the Wuhan bioweapons complex, as well as to later but similar research carried out by the U.S. DARPA agency (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Defense also working with bioweapons technology). These patent connections reveal “research synergies forming between the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Harvard University, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Tsinghua University, University of Pennsylvania, many other research institutions, and their commercial affiliations.” The possibility of American involvement in both research and development of the virus in question (and other related aspects) indicates that pointing the finger exclusively at China might be an overly facile panacea to this problem. Perhaps people are examining only one part of the elephant here.
The measure of the physical threat
Most of us still remember the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 when TV news prophesied massive death and injury at an unprecedented worldwide scale. For example, on March 25, 2020 Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, the former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Health, declared that by the end of April 2020 Israel would suffer tens of thousands of Coronavirus fatalities and a total of one million sick. Israel’s totals in these areas were (and still are) nowhere close to these prognostications of doom.
For the past eighteen months the world’s media has been determinedly catalyzing an apocalyptic tsunami of fear. Some might say that what is going on is similar to a media-induced mass psychosis. The public atmosphere has been stampeded to the point where ‘all means are considered justified’ in confronting the pandemic. Previously accepted guidelines in the social, ethical, economic, legal and medical spheres have been summarily dismissed or pushed aside in light of what was now seen as a clear and present danger. ‘Safety at all costs’ became the watchword. The world, its airports and borders went into lockdown. Countless millions donned masks and wore latex gloves while pumping gas. They washed their fruits and vegetables with soap, and sprayed their packaged foods or kitchen counters with bleach. Social distancing was religiously followed. Families locked down for the holidays and didn’t visit grandma and grandpa. The scenario was akin to what Narnian faun Mr. Tumnus whispered to Lucy concerning the White Witch: “It is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
- Initial reports prophesied a high death rate. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told media during a March 3, 2020 briefing, “Globally, about 3.4 per cent of reported Covid-19 cases have died.’’ It turns out that 27 days after that declaration (on March 30, 2020), a top medical research journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, estimated that approximately 0.66% of those infected with Coronavirus will die (five times less than Dr. Tedros’ figure).
- On September 19, 2020 according to Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the case fatality rate was closer to 1%.
- On November 13, 2020, University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Director Dr. Christopher Murray said that COVID-19 now was killing about 0.6% of people infected with the virus, compared with around 0.9% early in the pandemic.
- A December 8, 2020 research paper showed an exponential relationship between age and Covid-19 – the older you get, the more at risk you are.
- The death rate was found to be very low for children and young adults, but rose to between 4.6 – 8.5% of those aged 75, and 15 – 28.3% of those aged 85.
And for good measure, the government-run Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta October 20, 2020, gave the following age-based percentages regarding how many people infected by COVID-19 will survive:
- 0-19 Years 99.997%
- 20-49 Years 99.98%
- 50-69 Years 99.5%
- 70+ 94.6%
Coronavirus is a serious disease. It causes a higher amount of fatalities among those 70 years of age and up. It also is more damaging for those with pre-existing conditions. For children and youths it causes nearly no fatalities or serious illnesses. For those who are affected or killed by the disease, COVID-19 is a tragedy and a personal disaster.
- At the same time, the official numbers show that defining what is happening as a worldwide pandemic would seem to be an over-reaction.
Vaccine effectiveness
The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines was greeted with joy, amazement and relief. The ‘warp speed’ at which they were developed, the stunning lipid nano-technology which (like WD40) makes it more easy for the mRNA to penetrate the body, and the swift arrival of the vaccines to market were events which astounded many. The technologies used were different – Pfizer and Moderna used messenger RNA, while Johnson & Johnson used human adenovirus (common cold virus) as the basis. Up to today, a total of approximately 5,393,000 Israeli adults have received the two Pfizer shots (are fully vaccinated), while approximately 412,000 have received only one of the two shots.
In official vaccine trials, a very high protection against symptomatic infection was observed. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study indicating that “estimated vaccine effectiveness . . . starting 7 days after the second [Pfizer] dose was 92% for documented infection, 94% for symptomatic Covid-19, 87% for hospitalization, and 92% for severe Covid-19.” Lancet published very similar results. Comparisons between the vaccines in medical journals and magazines spoke of the Pfizer vaccine being 95% effective, the Moderna as being 94.1% effective, and the Johnson & Johnson being 66.3% effective. Within a short time Israel saw a steep drop in both asymptomatic and symptomatic infections, in the number of hospitalizations and in the number of patients on ventilators. In Israel many were relieved and saw this deliverance in light of Esther 9:19 – “a day of feasting and joy.”
But this very high protection against symptomatic infection seems to have been based on very high short-term serum antibody levels which mimic mucosal immunity. From an immunological perspective, this short term result (though highly encouraging) is not a lasting protective effect. The more classic perspective holds the position that protection against severe disease is achieved by lower serum antibody levels in combination with immunological memory (B cells) and cellular immunity (T cells).
It should not come as a surprise when vaccine and booster protection will further decrease due to new variants. In the very worst case, medical professionals may end up dealing with something called antibody-dependent disease enhancment (ADE) if high levels of non-neutralizing antibodies aggravate the infection. This was the case in the past with vaccines used against both SARS-1 and dengue fever.
Vaccine side-effects
I became aware in December 2020 of various organizations warning (often in shrill tones) that the vaccines had hidden and dangerous side-effects. But it was not until March 2021 that a growing body of evidence came to my attention – repeated verified instances and recorded testimony by vaccinated people who had suffered injury – some lightly, others moderately, some severely, others fatally. I became aware of the American vaccine database known as VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System), a government-run CDC database for anyone wanting to report any adverse side-effects following vaccinations. VAERS is an American ‘national early warning system’ to detect possible safety problems in vaccines. The database relies on people sending in reports of their own personal side-effects. VAERS can’t determine if a vaccine actually caused a health problem, but it picks up side-effect patterns that could potentially suggest a problem with a vaccine. Similar databases exist in the European Union (EUDRA) and in the UK (MHRA). A compilation of all three databases indicates that COVID-19 vaccinations have already been associated with more than 25,000 deaths and tens of thousands serious adverse events, including allergic shocks, neurological, cardiac and cardiovascular disorders, and miscarriages.
My wife Rachel began to monitor the rise in Israel of verified harmful medical side-effects of the vaccines collected by The Israeli Public Emergency Council For The Covid19 Crisis. These are headed up by some of the country’s top doctors, professors and researchers. Whereas I had originally cast a critical eye on any of this, I soon came face to face with sufficient and convincing evidence. My own original cynicism had caused me to disqualify real people who had suffered real damage. I came to the realization that I myself was in some ways acting similar to one of our nine blind Indians. It is not enough merely to say, “I’ve heard nothing about side-effects; therefore nothing exists!”
Most Israelis are not aware of the rising number (though still small) of their fellow citizens suffering these vaccination side-effects, since national MSM television stations and leading newspapers discourage interviewing the top doctors who are calling public attention to these issues – modern ‘watchmen on the walls.’ Most Israeli investigative journalists are too busy writing op-eds – popular and witty opinion pieces which stay far away from crossing swords with the Israeli Ministry of Health, the Prime Minister or even their fellow journalists and reporters.
For the most part, the percentages of harmful side-effects and deaths from vaccinations are not being communicated in Israeli media. These side-effects in Israel are being tracked and classified and include cases (as of July 21, 2021) of myocarditis (283 cases), gynecological disorders (524 cases), palsy, stroke and neurological disorders (462 cases), deep physical pains (283 cases), lung disorders (175 cases), skin disorders (143 cases), blood clotting and related disorders (63 cases), and death (455 cases).
To, sum up: the CDC averaged numbers are 0.6% to 1.3% for Corona-related fatalities. The above-documented side-effects of the vaccines in Israel also seem to be a small percentage of all vaccinated adults. It should be noted that, on both sides of the aisle, the numbers being discussed are very real, yet the percentages under consideration (on both sides) are very low.
Helsinki, Nuremberg, FDA and informed consent
Since there is no Israeli framework in place being made available to vaccinated people for reporting and analyzing vaccine side-effects (like the American VAERS database), it is egregious that various Israeli medical bodies and media talking heads repeatedly state that there is ‘no provable connection’ between the vaccination and harmful side-effects (which typically occur within a few days after vaccination).
There are no lists of possible side-effects to watch for which are made available and given to the Israeli pre-vaccinated so that they can give informed consent. This is actually a legal requirement when an experimental or ‘emergency use authorization’ inoculation is given, according to World Medical Association’s (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research involving human subjects (adopted by the 18th WMA General Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964).
The State of Israel has a Helsinki Committee and it is assumed that the Ministry of Health (MOH) cooperates with it. The absence of a reporting framework for vaccines, of the pre-requisites necessary for informed consent, and other issues – all indicate that the many of the Helsinki principles are not being followed. Yet the Pre-amble of the Declaration clearly states: “The Declaration is morally binding on physicians, and that obligation overrides any national or local laws or regulations, if the Declaration provides for a higher standard of protection of humans than the latter. Investigators still have to abide by local legislation but will be held to the higher standard.”
Another international legal and ethical code is The Nuremberg Code (German, Nürnberger Kodex) Codified as an ethical and legal response to Nazi experimental medical atrocities performed on Jews, gypsies, political prisoners, handicapped people of all ages, it was drawn up on August 9, 1947. Its ten points follow and emphasize the same principles found in the Declaration of Helsinki, forbidding medical experimentation without informed consent.
The Nuremberg Code “is considered by some to be the most important document in the history of clinical research ethics … [It has] had a massive influence on global human rights. In America, the Code and the related Declaration of Helsinki form the basis for the Code of Federal Regulations Title 45 Part 46, which are the regulations issued by the United States Department of Health and Human Services for the ethical treatment of human subjects . . . In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted by the United Nations . . . Article seven prohibits experiments conducted without the ‘free consent to medical or scientific experimentation’ of the subject. The Covenant has 173 state [participants] as of September 2019.”
From a legal standpoint, all the COVID-19 vaccines being administered in Israel have not yet been legally approved by the American FDA. Instead, they have been granted a EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) which, according to section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, allows the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to authorize an emergency use authorization when appropriate. Unapproved medical products or unapproved uses of approved medical products can be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions “when certain criteria are met, including there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”
On January 31, 2020 Alex Azar, the Secretary of DHHS, determined that the COVID-19 crisis is a ‘Public Health Emergency,’ opening the doors to legalizing the distribution of vaccines under an EUA. When presented with the possibility of the existence of other “adequate, approved, and available alternatives,” both government, MSM, Big Tech and Big Pharma came out swinging. Attacks first focused on that fact that ‘the big orange man’ (then-POTUS Trump) had advocated for hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), and then that he had fast-tracked the development of vaccine technology (‘Operation Warp Speed’), thus (in the eyes of his political opponents) supposedly and potentially invalidating the vaccine’s reliability. One outstanding expression of this perspective comes from then-Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris). There were concerted efforts made to scorn and shut down any serious consideration of any other potential “adequate, approved, and available alternatives,” especially those recommended by then-POTUS or his advisors. For articles on some of these available alternatives, see my newsletter (paragraph titled “a good name is to be chosen”). Israeli research studies from last week confirm the validity of some of these alternatives.
Unfortunately, cartel-like behavior and mafia-like machinations have kneecapped any potential challengers to Big Pharma for the moment, and the emergency dynamic which gave birth to using EUA is alive and well, with America’s present leadership continuing to run roughshod over the original legal intent of the framers of FDA Section 564. The role of media hype in exaggerating fatalities and exacerbating fear continues to spread fertilizer along the primrose path.
Israel as the world’s experimental lab
On January 7, 2021 former PM Bibi Netanyahu declared that “as part of the agreement [with Pfizer], we stipulated that Israel will serve as a global model state for a rapid vaccine rollout of an entire country … Israel will share with Pfizer, with all of humanity, the statistics that will help in developing strategies to defeat the coronavirus.”
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla (in an interview with NBC News, February 27, 2021) described his company’s vaccination campaign in Israel as a laboratory for the world: “I believe Israel has become the world’s lab right now because they are using only our vaccine at this state and they have vaccinated a very big part of their population, so we can study both economy and health indices.”
On August 5, 2021, Israeli PM Bennett stated in a Facebook broadcast that “Israel is going ahead here with something that dramatically contributes to global knowledge . . . (which would be) immediately shared with the entire world . . . Without us, the world wouldn’t know the exact efficacy levels of the booster shots, wouldn’t know the dates, how much they affect infections, how they affect severe illness . . . In these aspects, we’re doing the world a great service, and the world is very happy that we’re taking the responsibility and lead on this matter.”
These quotes reveal that both Big Pharma, the Israeli government and its Ministry of Health (MOH) see these vaccination campaigns as facilitating the testing of drugs still classified as experimental. An entire nation is being inoculated with a vaccine that has not received legal FDA certification. The Israeli medical community is rapidly skidding down a very slippery slope – finding itself at quite a distance from the original foundations of the Declaration of Helsinki, the Nuremberg Code, and FDA’s Section 564.
The lack of transparency on these above issues has resulted in some Israelis losing trust in both the Israeli Ministry of Health and in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. An important ramification here: at present there are upwards of one million Israeli adults who have not been vaccinated, as well as nearly half a million Israelis who have not gone in to receive their second of the two Pfizer vaccinations – a total of more than a million and a half Israeli adults. The total amount of Israelis who voted in the last election here was 4,410,052 out of a potential 6,578,084. This indicates that between 20% and 33% of all adult Israeli voters are not convinced that enough good reasons exist to get vaccinated. This percentage translates into between 20 and 35 Knesset seats in Israel’s ruling governmental body of 120 seats, were this entire group to vote as a block.
If the Israeli government began to distribute free ice cream nationwide, or if the Israeli MOH began to hand out free chocolate to all adults, one assumes that the public rate of positive response to such offers would have been much higher than the current rate of civilian vaccinations. Maybe it would be worth it for Israeli governmental leaders to seriously grapple with why so many citizens are not lining up to get vaccinated, are not ‘getting with the program.’
- Anyone who loves the Israeli people and is concerned about their health and peace (see Psalm 122:6) needs to weigh these above facts seriously and prayerfully.
‘The tusk of the elephant’ – medical ethics in crisis
It is said that one of the first duties of a physician is “Primum non nocere” (Latin for “First, do no harm”). The principle of ‘doing no harm’ (non-maleficence) is meant to caution medical practitioners regarding the use of treatments believed to do good, without first having evaluated them adequately to ensure that no harm is done to the patient. There is a wry saying, “The treatment was a success, but the patient died.”
A question of medical ethics arises at this point. If there is a low percentage of harmful side-effects connected to the administering of the vaccinations in question, and if there is also a low percentage of fatalities (excluding elderly people) from the virus, how is a physician supposed to strike a balance between these two contrasting points? And to complicate matters, what happens if either Big Pharma or the Israeli Ministry of Health skews the facts, suppressing or concealing information about harm being caused – even if the percentages in question are low? This is a weighty ethical question. It needs to be asked and the answers need to be measured against the principle of “first, do no harm.”
Ethical questions connected to Big Pharma
Big Pharma, the world’s pharmaceutical industry, is one of the most powerful industries in the world. Their global revenue for pharmaceuticals was over $1 trillion in 2014. Big Pharma is a major contributor to the U.S. FDA, contributing about two thirds of its yearly budget. From 1998 to 2016, Big Pharma sank nearly $3.5 billion into lobbying expenses – more than did any other industry. Big Pharma spends $19 on promotions and advertising for every $1 spent on research. Big Pharma has a history of fraud, bribery, lawsuits and scandals. They have also forked out billions in fines, settlements and jury verdicts. They are the biggest defrauder of the U.S. Federal Government under the False Claims Act (according to consumer watchdog group Public Citizen). Only 28% of Americans have a good opinion of Big Pharma. It is the second most hated industry in America, right behind the tobacco industry and the petrochemical industry.
Recent reports increasingly spotlight a major conflict of interests between the pharmaceutical industry and public health organizations. Two examples out of hundreds – Johnson & Johnson’s Propulsid children’s medication resulted in death in drug trials; this was hushed up and described as a “trade secret.” Other serious charges were levied against Merck’s Vioxx. The same problems of conflict of interest seem to have surfaced in Israel and the UK.
Scholars and major journal editors continue to draw attention to how Big Pharma operates. It funds over 80% of trials, setting up research agendas guided more by marketing than by clinical considerations. Brilliant statisticians and epidemiologists come up with sophisticated advertising methods which also involve targeting of consumer groups and manipulating of the media. Insistent lobbying and strategic political ties bind the hands and feet of many regulatory bodies. The obligation to reward shareholders usually overrides fundamental public health considerations. Big Pharma tactics include “proclaiming doubts about safety issues, buying researchers, infiltrating universities, boards, media and legislative agencies.” This modus operandi has affected the Israeli medical sphere as well.
Demonizing those who step out of line
In recent days there has been a marked rise in Israel of vicious attacks by both PM Bennett, MOH talking heads and the Israeli MSM against the approximately million plus Israelis who have chosen not to be vaccinated. One recalls also that nearly half a million Israelis have not come back to receive the second of the two Pfizer vaccinations. A total of approximately a million and a half unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated Israeli adults are currently being vilified by their Prime Minister and their governmental health authorities.
On July 22, 2021 PM Bennett spoke to the media. He accused those who were not vaccinated of not fulfilling their duty (using a colloquial military phrase here):
- I respect different views but there is a time and a place in which this discussion needs to stop – and it is our very lives. The science is unequivocal: The vaccines work. They are effective and safe, almost completely for young people. For the older population, they are effective but not enough. Dear citizens, those who refuse vaccines (comment: the Hebrew word used here for ‘refuse’ is extremely pejorative – sarbanim, a military usage referring to a draft resistor or to one who disobeys his commander’s orders) are endangering their health, those around them and the freedom of every Israeli citizen. They are endangering our freedom to work, the freedom of our children to learn and the freedom to hold celebrations with the family . . . Those who are sarbanim about vaccines hurt us all because if all of us were vaccinated, we would all be able to maintain daily life. But if one million Israelis continue to not get vaccinated, this will oblige the eight million others to shut themselves in their homes.
The supposed logic underlying the PM’s argument here is that fully vaccinated Israelis are not really protected from infection since even one unvaccinated Israeli, by his existence (so it seems), can threaten the health and life of a vaccinated Israeli.
On Thursday August 5, 2021 PM Bennett declared: “Every one of you has to go out and get vaccinated because if not, you endanger yourself, you are really endangering the environment, as if you are walking around with a machine gun and shooting Delta viruses at everyone . . . This is a selfish and irresponsible decision.” Bennett was once in Sayeret Matkal, the Israeli equivalent of Delta Force. Perhaps he sees Israel’s civilian population (whose public servant he still is) as recalcitrant soldiers who need to be humiliated and bullied into obedience. But to use the word-picture of Israeli civilians firing machine guns on the streets into unarmed fellow citizens – that is way over the top, and should be classified as hate speech.
On Tuesday August 3, 2021, Professor Galia Rahav, head of the Infectious Disease Unit at Sheba Medical Center (Israel’s largest hospital), stated that “it is not acceptable to me that 1.1 million people in Israel are unvaccinated. This is a matter that must be resolved.” It seems that Rahav is not concerned about what those million and a half Israeli citizens think about what is medically or ethically acceptable. Her casual approach to democratic rights and values as well as with the legal necessity of informed consent reveals some worrying presuppositions.
On Friday evening August 6, 2021 Israeli TV’s Channel 12 Ulpan Shishi (‘Friday night studio’) main Shabbat program featured a pseudo-documentary looking at Israelis who have strong reservations about different aspects of the vaccination campaigns – whether it be the sweeping under the carpet of harmful side-effects; the exertion of strong social and economic pressure on the unvaccinated; the vaccination of those under 18 (which is not yet approved by WHO, especially since youths and children have a near zero level of sickness and fatalities); or the social pressure being brought to bear through the pushing of a third vaccine booster shot (which WHO does not recommend). The program featured a graphic background of a round iron bomb with a burning fuse, and was titled ‘a ticking bomb’ (a reference to the ‘clear and present danger’ that the unvaccinated supposedly are to ‘sane and healthy’ Israelis).
The media piece was not that different from standard Israeli TV fare – a poison-pen hatchet-job, malicious, inaccurate and replete with ad hominem attacks – many directed against outstanding Israeli doctors and medical professionals (including against a former President of Ben-Gurion University; a founder and Head of the Oncogenetics Unit at Sheba Medical Center; etc.). I have studied the perspectives of many of these doctors and have found their arguments to be logical, compassionate and worthy of serious consideration. This pseudo-documentary failed to achieve the high moral and ethical standards that I have witnessed in the character and behavior of these doctors.
We are seeing the use of dog-whistle words which are like unto curses (terms like ‘conspiracy theory people,’ ‘anti-vaxers,’ ‘extremists,’ sarbanim,’ ‘those who are hesitant to be vaccinated’) by top governmental leaders. These serve to separate and castigate, censure and condemn – in a word to disqualify and ban from the public square those Israelis who have valid concerns about the vaccines and related issues – even if they are prize-winning top doctors swimming against the PC/Big Pharma current.
But it seems that vaccinated people in Israel are now the majority in some Corona wards, and similar dynamics are occurring in other countries. According to the Ulpan Shishi program mentioned above, it seems that 20% of all vaccinated Israelis (one million) actually spread the virus and infect other Israelis, though perhaps at a reduced rate. It also seems that 10% of all unvaccinated people (100,000) spread the virus (again, according to the Ulpan Shishi figures mentioned above). Based on this algorithm, it would be accurate to say that vaccinated/infected Israelis are actually more of an epidemiological concern to Israel than are the unvaccinated.
- To use ‘1984’ terminology again – it seems that there is an Israeli ‘Big Brother’ concerned and somewhat fearful about the ‘thoughtcrimes’ of up to 25% of Israel’s adult population. This dynamic and its practical ramifications should be a matter of earnest prayer from those who love the Israeli people and care about the health of Israeli society.
‘The tail of the elephant’ – civil liberties and Western democratic foundations
Two brief points on this subject:
The vaccine passport
The first concerns the vaccine passport, or what is called in Israel ‘the Green Passport.’ It is a digital QR code, a digital bar code with personal ID, related information and vaccination status. It has been in force over the past six months (February – June 2021) and is being re-introduced as of August 8, 2021. The Green Passport is needed to gain entrance to movies, concerts, sports events, hotels, indoor restaurants, coffee bars and other bars, health and fitness clubs, conferences, religious gatherings above 50 in attendance, etc. At the same time, food and mall shopping is still open to all.
There are many problems involved with this passport though, due to ‘pandemic fear,’ a lot of Israelis try to look the other way. Martin Niemöller, German pastor and theologian, is the author of a famous poem which begins: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.” His point was, that when a society begins to disenfranchise, demonize and ghettoize its own citizens, trouble is on the way.
Apart from the recurrent modern problem of identity theft (and this database would be a whopper of a prize for hackers), this form of identity marking – especially when joined with cell phone tracking (which Israel’s GSS used to track corona-infected citizens in 2020-2021) – has shocking parallels to present practice in Communist China. There every citizen is tracked by the location and operation of their own cell phone as well as by 5G face recognition technology. A ‘social credit score’ is then given by the government to each citizen based on obedience to the rules, correct shopping and entertainment choices, etc. Non-PC choices (whether political, cultural or social) are punished by the gradual (or sudden) diminishing (or removal) of social privileges. This can include a ban on flying, on moving to another location, on attending a more suitable university, etc. In Israel it has not gone as far as China, though Green Passport ‘banned areas for those unvaccinated’ are continually noted on TV, internet, radio and newspapers.
We are aware of friends and acquaintances who have had extreme pressure applied on them to receive vaccinations and the Green Passport. Some long-term workers have been fired from their employment. Some musicians are no longer able to perform publicly. Some soldiers have been threatened with being dropped from their units. Many people have submitted to the coercion, even though they didn’t want to do so. These events are continuing to happen as these words are being written.
Some of my friends (even Messianics) are quite comfortable with this coercion. They honestly believe that “all things are justified” in a pandemic season. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and anti-Nazi, struggled in his day with how some Christians, notably the Deutche Christen (the ‘German Christians’), originally bought into Adolf Hitler’s calls for bread and work, law and order, and a burgeoning police state. Only when the demonic and fascistic face of National Socialism was revealed did these German loyalists realize that things had gone too far. We in Israel are not yet at that stage. Please God, may it never be so! But there is some disconcerting handwriting on the wall, and it seems that some Daniels are needed to help our nation interpret the divine warning.
The social cost
There is a social cost in wearing masks day in, day out for 18 months. Since when have human beings thought that wearing such masks is a normal and praiseworthy activity? Even at the Carnevale di Venezia, masks are worn for perhaps one week and that’s it. The world-renowned Dr. Fauci has moved back and forth about the preventative value of face masks. But one thing can be said: the social costs of wearing masks, not visiting family, not touching friends and acquaintances, being cautious around neighbors, staying away from family at holidays, not attending synagogue or church – these things have a real social cost, and that can lead to an increase in depression and suicides.
One recent personal example: I met up with an Israeli father, a man I have known since his early twenties. He is vaccinated. I am vaccinated too. When I reached out my hand to shake his, he jumped back in panic as if I had tased him. I was surprised. We are both vaccinated, I pointed out. Isn’t that supposed to eliminate the danger of getting infected or passing on the virus? But there was no convincing him.
A 1998 film ‘Enemy of the State’ starring Gene Hackman and Will Smith warns of how gradual government violation of civil rights has an erosive effect, and can lead right into the arms of a police state. The social and media targeting of unvaccinated individuals can catalyze an attitudinal shift on the part of some Israelis, as polarizing definitions intensify and political powers stir up a hatred which desires to punish those who step out of line. Steve Stills’ classic rock anthem ‘For What It’s Worth’ still has wry insight to share: “Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. Step out of line, the Man comes to take you away. We better stop. Hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down!”
In all these things God is offending the mind to reveal the heart. What is our commitment to democratic values and the protection of Western civil rights? And what will happen, should the day come, when this commitment will need to be reiterated in the words of Peter and John: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, make your own judgment” (Acts 4:19).
When is a pre-pandemic conference ‘prophetic’?
It may sound like science fiction, but truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, as Mark Twain once opined. On October 18, 2019, in New York City, a Global Pandemic Exercise classified as Event 201 was hosted by The John Hopkins Center for Health Security, The World Economic Forum and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The exercise was orchestrated to communicate what these three power groups envisioned in terms of what a coming pandemic would look like, and how world business leaders can be pro-active in seizing the moment for what they feel is a beneficial world agenda.
A twelve minute film clip from that conference in October 2019 is available on-line and it is stunning. The clip clearly states that it is a ‘mockumentary’ – a staged quasi-documentary in video form – a ‘what if?’ video of an imaginary conference of world leaders faced with a Coronavirus-type world pandemic. But remember – it was not until the end of January-February 2020 that the first cases of COVID-19 recognizably appeared in the West. Yet this clip (released three months before the onset of the pandemic) seemed to prophesy blow-by-blow many of the events we have all experienced over the past eighteen months. Its parallels to the reality we are experiencing are chilling. What does this all mean? Certainly we should all be thinking and praying about these matters. For now, I would like to present what I would call the ‘Gates-Schwab script for the coming pandemic’ based on exact quotes from the video.
- “A severe pandemic” is coming. It will “circle the globe and affect people everywhere.” The death toll could be “65 million people dying in the first 18 months.” The virus will “a respiratory illness with symptoms ranging from mild Flu-like signs to severe pneumonia … intensive care. Many died.” “A Pandemic Emergency Board has been convened to respond to the pandemic.”
- “Some countries have banned travel . . . [There is a] risk of worsening disease [due to] the continued movement of people around the world . . . We have to clarify what is essential and what is non-essential travel.”
- “The pandemic is causing a global financial crisis . . . The global economy was in a freefall. The GDP down 11%. Stock markets around the world plummeted between 20 and 40% and headed into a downward cycle of fear . . . The economic turmoil caused by such a pandemic will last for years – perhaps a decade.” A global “Marshall-type Plan [should] go into effect to stimulate a change very quickly.”
- These “problems can only be solved by global business and governments working together . . . A board comprised of highly experienced leaders from business, public health and civil society.” “Get those industries … and an efficient leadership … and that needs to be supported by the public leadership.” (Note that businessmen are the rule makers and controllers of society in their scenario; nearly no mention is made of any constructive proactive role for democratically elected governments). “It’s going to take knowledge that only the private sector has … and it needs to be put together pretty quickly.” “Governments need to be willing to do things that are out of their historical perspective. It’s really a war footing that we need to be on.”
- “Countries are reacting in different ways as to how best to manage the overwhelming amount of dis- and mis-information circulating over the internet. In some cases, limited internet shutdowns are being implemented to quell panic.” “Misinformation is undercutting efforts to control the pandemic.” “We’re at a moment where the social media platforms have to step forward … They have in fact to be a participant in broadcasting accurate information, and partnering with the scientific and health communities to counterweight, if not flood the zone, with accurate information.” There needs to be “a step up on the part of the governments on enforcement actions against fake news.” We need to have a strategy for the media of “relaying and informing and equipping trusted sources of information with the facts, so they can the pass that on.”
- “The societal impacts – the loss of the faith in government, the distrust of the news, and the breakdown of social cohesion – could last even longer” than a decade.
This dark ‘prophecy’ about a coronavirus pandemic gives much food for thought. This Gates-Schwab vision of how big business can step in and save democracies from themselves (while crushing dissent and controlling the internet) sounds like a gumbo synthesis of Stalin, Hitler and ‘1984.’ Though the Event 201 website now has a disclaimer explaining that the video was not meant to be a prophecy, the video does reveal with stunning clarity that there are some rather powerful men waiting in the wings who are ready and willing to create opportunities and to take advantage of them. And their vision of the future seems to revolve around profit and power, control and censorship.
To close out this section:
It is worth chewing on the strategic perspectives of Dr. Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance who offered the following assessment on February 12, 2016 at a Forum of the The National Center for Biotechnology Information. NCBI is part of the United States National Library of Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, and is approved and funded by the government of the United States : “Daszak reiterated that, until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold (all emphases mine), it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, he said, we need to increase public understanding of the need for . . . a pan-influenza or pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of process, Daszak stated.”
Daszak was later to be recused (polite parlance for ‘fired’) from a UN commission investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was based on the fact that he had previously organized a letter co-signed by prominent scientists and published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet denouncing any Chinese lab leak theory. In that statement Daszak declared ‘We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin . . . Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.’ Investigative reporters revealed that Daszak at the time had strong professional ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that U.S. White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID institute gave grants to EcoHealth to support the work in Wuhan.
Joy in the face of trials
It is our hope and prayer that some (or all) of the information presented here will help in bringing clarity, discernment, increased prayer and hope to you in the challenging and exciting days ahead. We draw courage from the biblical paradigm of joy and overcoming faith in the face of trials:
“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25).
“When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28)
How should we then pray?
- Pray for God to grant wisdom and discernment regarding the machinations of men and the strategies of the enemy
- Pray for the leadership of your country to receive a softening of heart and divine revelation of God’s heart
- Pray for strategic and political wisdom for Israel’s leadership in every area
- Pray for all individuals in Israel – for God’s wisdom, discernment, courage and strategies
- Pray for the raising up of the Ezekiel 37 prophetic army among the Jewish people
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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