RUTHFULLY YOURS

Popular among European Protestants, members of the Christians for Israel movement believe it is their religious and moral duty to help Jews return to their ancestral lands

NIJKERK, Netherlands (JTA) — As a boy, would often accompany his father, Karel, on the elder van Oordt’s weekly shopping excursions specifically seeking out products made in Israel.

A Christian Zionist businessman in Amersfoort, some 25 miles east of Amsterdam, Karel van Oordt sought to strengthen the Jewish state economically by purchasing its exports to feed his family of eight. But it wasn’t easy.

“At the greengrocer, my father asked for Jaffa oranges, but they didn’t offer those,” Pieter van Oordt recalled. “Then at the liquor store, dad asked for Israeli wines. Same reply.”

Four decades later, those Israeli goods and thousands more are available across the Netherlands thanks to the international advocacy group founded by Karel van Oordt in 1979. Pieter and his brother, Roger, have run Christians for Israel since their father’s death in 2013.

Through its own import agency, the Israel Products Center, or IPC, the organization brings in 120,000 bottles of Israeli wine each year, as well as many tons of Dead Sea cosmetics and other merchandise. Most of the products are sold in IPC’s own store, on its website or by a corps of 200 volunteer door-to-door sales agents, a majority of them women.

Annual biomed conference is Israel’s ‘calling card’ for medical professionals interested in the latest in life science technology

Few people realize that more than one out of every four of the medicines, treatments, and technologies in use today have Israeli roots.

“Research in Israel is present in between 25% and 28% of the world’s successful biotech-based solutions,” according to Ruti Alon, a General Partner at Pitango Venture Capital and chairperson of the upcoming IATI-Biomed Conference, set to take place in Tel Aviv in May. “Many of the patents in pharmaceuticals that are now being used to treat cancer, heart problems, and much more were developed at Israeli institutions like Hebrew University or the Weizmann Institute,”

“All of the big pharma and health tech firms, from Merck to Pfizer to Sanofi, and many more, have R&D centers in Israel, and there are dozens, if not hundreds of start-ups that over the years have come up with unique solutions to some of the most pressing problems in biotech,” said Alon.

Some of those solutions and patents are part of the main treatments in some of the world’s most devastating diseases.

Exelon, for example, is a treatment for Alzheimer’s that helps patients cope with the disease and remain independent longer. Marketed by Novartis, the drug is based on research that was conducted at Hebrew University. Doxil, sold by Johnson and Johnson, effectively helps treat numerous cancers, and it, too, was developed at Hebrew U, along with researchers at Hadassah Medical Center. And, of course, there’s multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone, developed at the Weizmann Institute and marketed by Israel’s own Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Many of Israel’s biotech and life science solutions were first introduced to the world at the annual IATI-Biomed Conference, now in its 15th year.

1. Pressuring Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 ceasefire lines – which is an 8-15-mile sliver along the Mediterranean, dominated by the Judea & Samaria mountain ridge – ignores Jewish history and represents a victory of wishful-thinking over the 1,400-year-old reality of Mideast violence, unpredictability, doublespeak, tyranny and hate-education.

2. Mideast peace agreements are as durable as are Arab regimes, policies and accords, which have been, since the 7th century, the world’s most shifty, intolerant, violent, volatile and treacherous, as currently reflected by the intensifying Arab Tsunami from northwestern Africa to the Persian Gulf.

3. “Land for Peace” assumes that an Israeli withdrawal from Judea & Samaria would convince Arabs to accord the “infidel” Jew that which Muslim “believers” have denied one another for 1,400 years: peaceful coexistence and compliance with agreements.

4. “Land for Peace” would usher the Arab Tsunami into the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria, which tower over 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel’s only international airport. It also towers over the Jordan Valley, Israel’s longest border.

5. “Land for Peace” would doom Jerusalem to be an enclave connected to the coastal plain through a 4-mile-wide corridor, which would be dominated by mountains under Arab sovereignty.

6. The width of pre-1967 Israel (8-15 miles) is equal to the length of DFW airport in Texas, the distance between JFK and La Guardia airports in NY, Kennedy Center and RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. The area of pre-1967 Israel (0.2% of the Arab World) is smaller than the gunnery range at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

7. Former Chairman of the US Joint C-o-S, the late General Earl Wheeler told President Lyndon Johnson: “The minimum requirements for Israel’s defense include most of the West Bank, the whole of Gaza and the Golan Heights.” 100 retired US Generals and Admirals cautioned Israel against withdrawing from Judea & Samaria, stating that is would be impossible to demilitarize the area effectively. The late Admiral Bud Nance:” The eastern mountain ridge of the West Bank is one of the world’s best tank barriers…. The western mountain ridge of the West Bank constitutes a dream platform of invasion to Israel’s narrow [8-15 miles] coastal plain. Control of the West Bank provides Israel the time [50 hours] to mobilize reservists [75% of Israel’s military], which are critical to Israel’s survival during a surprise Arab attack.” Most reservists reside in the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Haifa area, which is dominated by the Judea & Samaria mountain ridge.

From manufacturing to medical research, the Jewish state is crucial to the economic health of the U.S.

” it becomes easy to see that the BDS movement’s attack on Israel’s economy, not to mention its encouragement of academic and scientific boycotts, directly hurts Americans. Just as the movement claims to be helping the Palestinians, but in fact harms Palestinian interests, it also harms what is perhaps America’s most important interest: its economic success. Regardless of your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if you support a stronger American economy and workforce, you should oppose boycotting Israel. It is important for Americans to know this, and for the anti-boycott effort to expand to include them.”

The movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (often referred to as BDS) hopes to economically isolate the Jewish state to the point that it is pressured into permitting the creation of a Palestinian state under conditions that would threaten Israel’s security and even its very existence. Those of us who fight against this support Israel’s right to exist and are usually motivated by religion, a specific worldview, or a moral code. But when boycotts hurt Israel’s economy, they hurt America as well. Israel makes massive and often unknown contributions to America’s economy and quality of life. If the boycott movement were to achieve its aims, Americans would lose regardless of their position on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the last few presidential election cycles, the economy has ranked among the top two most important issues to voters, and this year will likely be the same. This means that this fight is much bigger than the pro-Israel community, and the coalition to fight boycotts of Israel should expand to include those concerned about American domestic policy as well. Americans needs to understand that this hurts them too.
The U.S.-Israel alliance is expansive. Pro-Israel advocates understand that the alliance contributes to America’s security and its position as a moral, democratic leader in the world. Decades of polling show Americans outside the foreign policy establishment support Israel because of the democratic, liberal values shared by our two nations. But the alliance is much deeper than that. As of December 2015, according to the World Bank, Israel is the 37th largest economy in the world by gross domestic product (GDP), an extraordinary accomplishment for such a young and perpetually beleaguered nation. But last year Israel was also America’s 23rd largest trade partner. From Israel, America receives unusually high amounts of investment; helpful and profitable technologies and services; and advancements in science, agriculture, the environment, and healthcare that improve the quality of and, in some cases, quite literally save our lives. Our exports to Israel create jobs in America. Through Israeli innovations and collaboration, our scientists and medical professionals become smarter and more effective at their jobs, and our agriculture and environmental sectors become more efficient and productive. The impact of the alliance is as wide as it is deep.