Israel Active

Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE) reports the doubling of Arab degree candidates in Israel over the last decade. Last year 48,627 Israeli-Arabs studied for degrees, thanks to investment to integrate the Arab population and improve their socio-economic standing.

In 2018, over 20,000 permits were granted to Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria to enter Israel and receive treatment or support a patient who was receiving treatment in the Jewish state. This was an increase of 3,000 on 2017. Israel also trains PA doctors.

Friends of Ziv Medical Center raised funds for Venezuelan refugees with an event at the Sound Nightclub in Hollywood.  Meanwhile, Israel’s Ziv Medical Center is sending doctors to Brazil’s Northern Province, near the border with Venezuela, to treat many thousands seeking medical attention.

Bar-Ilan University and UKIM University, Macedonia’s largest university, have signed new cooperation agreements. They cover the facilities of medicine, humanities and social sciences.

A group of IDF soldiers saved the life of an elderly Palestinian Arab woman suffering severe breathing difficulties at the Givat Assaf junction in Samaria. The soldiers immediately initiated first aid treatment and called for an ambulance to take her to the nearest hospital.

Israeli success at debating championships continues. Roy Schulman and Elaye Karstadt from Jerusalem ‘s Hebrew University won the 2019 World University Debating Championship in the English Second-Language category. The contest was hosted by the University of Cape Town.

Israel’s Shalva band reached the final group competing for the right to represent Israel in May’s Eurovision Song Contest. The group, consisting of two blind singers and other “special” band members won their semi-final but withdrew due to Eurovision demands to rehearse on the Jewish Sabbath.

University of Haifa Professor Fuad Fares is a biomedical scholar and entrepreneur from Hurfeish, a northern Galilee Druze village. He founded and directs the Department of Molecular Genetics at Haifa’s Carmel Medical Center and lectures at Israel’s Technion Institute.

Israeli UN ambassador Danny Danon hosted a delegation of 40 UN ambassadors in Israel. He showed them the City of David and the Jewish history of Jerusalem, the Hezbollah terror tunnels and how small Israel was and therefore the challenges it faces.

On 21st Jan (Martin Luther King Day) the United Nations elected Israel as Vice-Chair of the 19-nation Committee on NGOs, which oversees the work of human rights groups. Other committee members include Bahrain, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, Turkey and USA.