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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Monday, October 19, 2020

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Bahrain FM predicts 'fruitful cooperation in every field'

‘From friends to family’: Israel and Bahrain establish diplomatic relations

By Raphael Ahren

At Manama event, Israel’s Meir Ben-Shabbat welcomes deal with another state from ‘family of Abraham’; Joint Communiqué establishes ‘diplomatic, peaceful, and friendly relations’

Etihad plane lands at Ben Gurion, October 19, 2020 (Screen grab/Kan)

Etihad flight lands at Ben-Gurion Airport as aviation ties with UAE take off

An Etihad airlines cargo plane at Ben-Gurion airport on June 9, 2020. (Moni Shiffer/Israel Airports Authority)

Israel, UAE agree on 28 weekly direct flights between Emirates, Tel Aviv

Israelis wear protective face masks in Tel Aviv, on October 18, 2020. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

Active virus cases dip below 30,000 as new infections fall off sharply

Just 892 new cases confirmed Sunday with positivity rate of 3.5%, with morbidity at lowest rate since late June

Coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu at a meeting of the Knesset's Labor and Welfare Committee, in Jerusalem, October 19, 2020. (Shmulik Grossman/Knesset)

As new cases fall, Gamzu pleads to hold off on reopening schools

Parents accompany their children to kindergarten in Tel Aviv as they return after a national lockdown was eased, October 18, 2020 (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Health Ministry school opening plan said similar to widely panned 1st reopening

Illustrative: Ultra-Orthodox Jews walk in Jerusalem on October 19, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

As Haredi schools rebellion goes on, health minister admits enforcement is weak

Edelstein vows to do what he can to crack down on ultra–Orthodox schools continuing to open illegally; Bnei Brak deputy mayor says city will not comply with rules

United Torah Judaism leader Moshe Gafni, at the opening event of its election campaign, ahead of the Israeli elections, in Jerusalem, on February 12, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Threatened with fines, top Haredi MK insists community won’t shut down schools

Ronni Gamzu at a meeting with Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion at the Jerusalem City Hall, August 12, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/ Flash90)

Report: 3 advisers to virus czar threaten to quit over opening of Haredi schools

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Israeli kids on the first day of the school year in Mevo Horon on September 1, 2020. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool)

Analysis

Haviv Rettig Gur

The ground is shifting: Netanyahu’s virus missteps untie his right-wing alliance

The PM has clung to power by forging a tight coalition of rightists and Haredim, but the ultra-Orthodox now defy and condemn him, and most Yamina voters want him out of politics

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces a new coronavirus lockdown, on September 13, 2020. (Yoav Dudkevitch/ Pool/AFP)

Poll: Israelis believe politics leading virus decisions, pan PM’s performance

Screen capture from video of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, October 18, 2020. (YouTube)

Netanyahu denies political considerations shaped lockdown exit plan

From the blogs

Elyazia AlHosani

Peace with Israel is in our national interest

Our region can no longer remain captive to the destructive ideas of extremists who view history as a continuum of inevitable conflict

Illustrative: A Knesset committee meeting on October 14, 2020. (Shmulik Grossman/Knesset)

Knesset health expert charges lawmakers ignoring professional advice

By Nathan Jeffay

Leading academic who has briefed Knesset members says most politicians have made their minds up, on political lines, long before debates begin

Closed stalls in Jerusalem's Old City on October 12, 2020, during a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Employment service: 260,000 registered as jobseekers over 2nd lockdown

Illustrative: The first patient enrolled in Pfizer's COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine clinical trial at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, receives an injection, May 4, 2020. (University of Maryland School of Medicine via AP)

Pfizer begins manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines ahead of expected approval

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Palestinian Saeb Erekat during a press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, September 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

Top Palestinian official Erekat, now critical, put on ventilator in Jerusalem

Chief PA negotiator intubated, sedated after transfer to Hadassah Ein Kerem with COVID-19; hospital says treatment due to his lung transplant is ‘complex’

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat speaks at the J Street National Conference, in Washington, October 28, 2019. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Some MKs say Israel should have demanded Palestinian concessions to treat Erekat

Bishara A. Bahbah

Will a Biden presidency usher in Israeli-Palestinian peace?

He won’t have the power or the chutzpah to force both sides to the table; the PA should have taken Trump’s last-ditch offer from Ron Lauder

Hallelujah! Israel finally passed a bottle deposit law

When colleagues and I drafted the country’s first bill mandating deposit fees on all beverage containers, we never thought it would take 25 years to pass

'Hidden Heretics' and author Ayala Fader. (Princeton University Press)

Author interview

Author: Ultra-Orthodox ‘Hidden Heretics’ believe in science, reject COVID rebels

By Rich Tenorio

In this file photo taken on December 29, 2012, President of the Cheikh Yassine collective Abdelhakim Sefrioui (C) is checked while being arrested by French anti-riot gendarmes after an unauthorized pro-Palestinian protest in Paris (Miguel MEDINA / AFP)

Head of pro-Hamas group and parent put fatwa on beheaded French teacher

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Interior minister says the two men urged the killing of Samuel Paty after he showed his class cartoons of Mohammed; police raid homes of dozens of extremists

French police officers stand as adults and children gather in front of flowers displayed at the entrance of a middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, on October 17, 2020. (Bertrand GUAY / AFP)

French police raid Islamist groups after teacher’s beheading

By AFP

Thousands gather at Republique square during a demonstration October 18, 2020, in Paris, folliowing the behading of a history teacher in an alleged Islamist terror attack (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Tens of thousands rally in France after teacher’s beheading shocks country

US President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, October 13, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Live updates (closed)

Trump says US will take Sudan off terror blacklist

US president doesn’t mention Israel in announcement, but deal widely seen as preceding possible normalization agreement between Jerusalem and Khartoum

6:12 pm

Trump says he'll take Sudan off terror blacklist
6:00 pm

Gantz visits Israel vaccine lab ahead of start of human testing
5:44 pm

IDF activity reported on Gaza border

Outgoing minister of Social Equality Gila Gamliel attends a ceremony marking her departure to become minister for environmental protection, at the Ministry of Social Equality in Jerusalem on May 18 2020. (Flash90)

Probe clears minister accused of lying to tracers about breaking lockdown

Attorney general says there is no evidence supporting claims that Gila Gamliel tried to cover up the fact that she caught coronavirus after traveling to Tiberias for Yom Kippur

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit attends an event at the Dan Hotel in Jerusalem, on February 6, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

State tells High Court there’s no need to probe Netanyahu on submarines, shares

A member of the Sudanese Popular Initiative for Normalization with Israel speaks at a press conference, on October 18, 2020. (Screenshot: Al-Ghad TV)

Sudanese group backing normalization with Israel holds first conference

By Aaron Boxerman

As pressure mounts in Khartoum to normalize with Israel, conference may be attempt to ready public for move; Sudan’s gov’t reportedly meets to discuss ‘peace with Israel’

Demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they wave the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, Iraq, June 16, 2014. (AP Photo, File)

Islamic State calls to attack Saudi Arabia over Israel’s deals with UAE, Bahrain

By AFP and ToI Staff

An Iranian clergyman looks at domestically built surface to surface missiles displayed by the Revolutionary Guard in a military show marking the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, February 3, 2019. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

As UN embargo expires, Iran says it’s more inclined to sell weapons than buy

By AFP and ToI Staff

Tehran, which arms a network of Mideast terror groups, claims it will ‘act responsibly’ and offer weapons for sale to other countries ‘based on its own calculations’

Gantz: Israel will do whatever it takes to stop Iran rearming as UN embargo ends

By Judah Ari Gross

As UN arms embargo on Iran expires, US vows to punish those who sell it weapons

By Nasser Karimi

Iran again breaks its single-day record for virus deaths

Rabbi Tanhoum Matusof lights a Hanukkah candle at a hotel in Monaco, December 25, 2016. (Courtesy of the Jewish Cultural Center of Monaco/ via JTA)

Monaco has highest ratio of Jews in the world outside Israel, and it’s growing

By Cnaan Liphshiz

More Headlines

A Military Police car blocks a road leading to Zikim beach after it was closed to visitors, due to escalating rocket fire from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel, on July 14, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

IDF sets up roadblocks on Gaza border for ‘engineering operation’

By Judah Ari Gross

A Tech2Peace online event. The nonprofit uses technology to create dialogue and collaborations between Israelis and Palestinians (Courtesy)

Israelis, Palestinians learn lessons of conflict and trust from Northern Ireland

By Jake Epstein

A couple marry at Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, where the groom's father was hospitalized with COVID-19, October 18, 2020 (Avi Hayon via Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital)

LovesickJerusalem hospital hosts outdoor wedding for COVID-19 patient’s son

By ISAAC SCHARF

In this combination of pictures created on September 29, 2020, Democratic US presidential candidate Joe Biden (L) and US President Donald Trump speak during the first presidential debate at the Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. (Jim Watson and Saul Loeb/AFP)

Poll among US Jews shows Biden widening gap over Trump to 75%-22%

Austrian swimmer Markus Rogan smiles during a practice session at the Aquatics Center at Olympic Park ahead of the 2012 Summer Olympics, July 26, 2012, in London. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

US-based Olympic medalist said to flee Israel after catching COVID, breaking law

By Michael Bachner

Illustrative image of dairy cows in a meadow (Shigapov; iStock by Getty Images)

Startup that aims to boost dairy cows’ health nabs $20 million investment

By Shoshanna Solomon

Illustrative: In this image released by the British Royal Air Force and taken on Tuesday, June 25, 2019, a Russian SU-27 in intercepted by a Royal Air Force Typhoon, currently based out of Amari Air Base, Estonia (Royal Air Force via AP)

Russian warplane said to come dangerously close to Israir passenger flight

Joanna Jones' 'Wall Flower' will be featured in the Fresh Paint art fair, October 28, 2020 (Courtesy Yair Meyuhas)

Design of the timesAnnual Fresh Paint art fair to launch free, digital version

By Jessica Steinberg

Illustrative: Israeli performing artist Eylon Nuphar appeared on the cover of LaIsha after a recent mastectomy to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2020. (Courtesy Eitan Tal/LaIsha)

Still 100% womanPerforming artist poses bare-chested after double mastectomy

By Jessica Steinberg

Social Equality Minister Meirav Cohen, in Jerusalem, on May 18 2020. (Flash90)

Cabinet sets goal for women to fill half senior civil service positions by 2023

By Stuart Winer

Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar in Brooklyn, New York. (Google Street View)

Satmar wedding of ‘10,000’ made family-only after NY officials block it

By JTA and ToI Staff

Piles of garbage just where a sign asks people to refrain from littering. (courtesy, Yael Argov)

Waste notAhead of reopening, Israelis urged to keep nature clean

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