Tikkun Olam: Israel vs. COVID 19: How is One of the Planet's Smallest Countries Helping to Tackle the World's Biggest Challenge?

By Jodie Cohen

Over the past decade, Israel has become known as a powerhouse of innovations, helping to improve people's everyday lives. Today, Israel's innovators are focusing their efforts where they are needed the most - attempting to tackle the number one problem confronting humanity - COVID-19.

Reporting on more than 30 Israeli innovations, which we

• Language: English
• Publisher: Minterne
• Release date: Jun 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9789655992519

Jodie Cohen

Jodie Cohen is an award-winning public affairs consultant, with over 20 years' experience advising multinational companies on their political engagement and sustainability. Since 2013, she has focused on helping these companies report on how they are contributing to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Part of this work involves reporting for pharmaceutical, med-tech and healthcare companies. As a current affairs commentator, Jodie can regularly be seen on India's award winning news channel World Is One News, on Israel's i24 News and in the UK's Jewish News. She specialises in international, and particularly Israeli, politics.

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Introduction

Despite occasional warnings of a future potential pandemic, the issue of pandemic preparedness barely made the news in 2019. This was to all change in January 2020, when awareness of a ‘novel coronavirus’ came to the fore, bringing with it phrases like ‘lockdown’, ‘flattening the curve’ and ‘personal protective equipment’ or ‘PPE’, which were soon to become everyday language.

Who would have predicted that within the space of a mere couple of months, one third of the global population would be confined to their homes?

Life as we know it has changed. Never before has the entire world battled the same enemy at the same time, with all its strength and focus. Never before have whole economies been shut down, bringing enormous suffering to billions of people the world over. With more than a quarter of a million deaths in a period of four months¹, the global daily news cycle has been taken up entirely by one subject.

COVID-19, the novel coronavirus at the heart of all this heartache, has been linked by scientists to bats, which it is believed passed on the disease to another animal, which then passed on to humans.

While unknown, the source of the coronavirus is thought to potentially be a wet market in Wuhan, China, where living and dead animals, fish and birds were being sold together. An alternative theory that has been proposed is that the coronavirus somehow escaped from a nearby biological laboratory where scientists had been researching the virus.

Quickly spreading to Asia, Iran, and Italy, it then continued its deadly path throughout the world.²

A global pandemic

Recognising early that no continent would be spared, the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, advised by then Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, identified this as a global pandemic, even before health bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This is a global pandemic, whether the CDC calls it such or not, it is a matter of days or hours. It is doubtful whether there has been a similar pandemic in the last 100 years […] The virus is currently spreading to Africa. There is no vaccine and anti-viral drugs are ineffective. Economies are starting to be hurt. Governments are ordering their gates closed. This is important for the supply of products for all economies. Nobody knows how the pandemic will end. ³

Binyamin Netanyahu, press conference on

the coronavirus situation, 7 March 2020

Netanyahu was referencing the 1918 Spanish Influenza, the most devastating pandemic in modern history, which is estimated to have killed up to 100 million people around the world. He went on to pledge that Israel would mobilize the best minds in the country in order to ensure industrialscale testing ability to be able to separate between ill and healthy people.⁴

One of the world’s smallest countries

Israel is one of the world’s smallest countries. The entire length of the country is only 290 miles or 467 km long (a six hour drive). At its widest point, it is 85 miles or 137 km wide (a 90 minute drive). And at its narrowest point, it is nine miles or 14 km wide.

To put this into perspective, the country is roughly the same size as the state of New Jersey in the United States, Wales in the United Kingdom, and the state of Meghalaya in India. A mere seven decades since the modern revival of the world’s only Jewish state, Israel has a population of roughly 9.1 million people.

The area of the State of Israel is just over 22,000 km, made up of 98% land and only 2% water. 60% of the land area remains desert, 20% is used for agriculture, and only 20% is available to live and work on.⁵

In addition to the country’s tiny size, young age, small population and limited natural resources, throughout its brief history Israel has faced hostile neighbors who did not accept its right to exist. It has had to fight eight existential wars, two Palestinian intifadas, and a series of armed conflicts in order to survive.

What can a small country, with limited natural resources and in a permanent state of defense, contribute?

Despite the challenges Israel faces – and many people would argue, because of them – the country has contributed innovative solutions to major global challenges like water, health and security, and it shares its knowledge with others.

Over the past two decades, Israel has become a force for innovation, using its learnings from the country’s own challenges to help others around the world.

In the area of health, Israel has developed the world’s fastest emergency response organization, United Hatzalah, the world’s first 3D printed heart, OrCam glasses that help blind people to see, and alpha radiation technology to eliminate cancerous tumors, among so many other innovations that help hundreds of thousands of people around the world on a daily basis.

Israel leads the world in wastewater recycling, reusing more than 80% of its wastewater, with the next closest country being Spain at 20%. In a country that is mainly desert, and after years of drought in the 1980s and 90s, Israel today is a water exporter and its home-grown solutions are used globally. When California was facing its most destructive wildfire ever, Israel’s Watergen literally pulled water out of thin air. Israel brings truck-sized units that contain their own generators to disaster zones, and clean water to African villages through the non-profit, Innovation: Africa.

70 years ago, Israel survived by selling Jaffa oranges to the world. Today, it is playing a leading role in sustainable agriculture across the globe, sharing its technology with others. For example, the country is partnering with Indian farmers to increase yields by up to 80%, through drip irrigation and farming with saltwater, improving livelihoods and life chances.

Increasing renewables, even in a sun-drenched country like Israel, is not simple, as renewable energy production competes for limited land. Despite this, Israel has developed widespread solar technology and is taking it to African villages. The Israelideveloped Moovit app is making it easier for over 600 million people in 92 countries to use public transport. Israel’s Eviation Alice has developed the world’s first all-electric commuter airplane. And Israeli scientists have even engineered bacteria to ‘eat’ excess global warming CO2 from the air.

Israel also contributes to the fight against terror, sharing intelligence with other countries to prevent terror attacks, as well as technology that saves lives. Israeli innovations, such as its Iron Dome missile defense technology, have contributed to peace by helping to avoid war.

A leader in innovation

In 2018, the World Economic Forum ranked Israel the most innovative country in the world for growth of innovative companies, R&D expenditures, attitudes towards entrepreneurial risk, ease of finding skilled employees and venture capital availability.

In 2019, Israeli tech firms raised a