Israel: land of milk, honey and medical cannabis

Brian Blum

Breath of Life’s huge new facility, the largest medical cannabis facility in the world, can store enough medical marijuana to supply the entire United States.

A Breath of Life employee harvesting cannabis in Israel. Photo: courtesy

In August, a joint feasibility committee of the Health and Finance ministries submitted a recommendation that Israel open its booming medical marijuana business to international exports. The market could be worth as much as $4 billion a year in revenue.

In the expectation that the proposal will be approved by legislators, an Israel company – Breath of Life Pharma (BOL) – is positioning itself to become the world’s largest medical cannabis facility.

BOL’s new production, research and development campus in central Israel has a 35,000-square-foot plant, an 8,000-square-foot storage room, 30,000 square feet of grow rooms and labs, and a million square feet of cultivation fields.

BOL CEO Dr. Tamir Gedo says his firm can store enough medical marijuana to supply the entire United States. Gedo estimates that BOL will produce 80 tons of medical cannabis per year.

Breath of Life’s new facility in central Israel. Photo: courtesy

“Just don’t call it ‘marijuana,’” Gedo told a group of visiting journalists under high security (marijuana is, after all, a controlled substance in much of the world, including Israel).

The word “marijuana” was used by US drug enforcement agents in the 1930s to make it sound foreign and dangerous. Gedo, like most in his industry, prefers to use the plant’s real name, cannabis. He refers to BOL’s business as the growing, packaging and distribution of “medical-grade cannabis” (MGC for short).

BOL has no interest in pushing the legalization of recreational cannabis, Gedo says. Rather, BOL works toward bringing pharmaceutical-grade quality and delivery systems to purified extracts of the plant.

Because the chemical composition of cannabis flowers from different branches is not at all consistent, companies in the medical cannabis space don’t use the whole plant but instead isolate specific molecules and turn those into controlled, consistent drugs.

Breath of Life CEO Tamir Gedo. Photo: courtesy

That can be quite a challenge: Cannabis has 142 different cannabinoids – active components – and each targets different illnesses.

The two best known cannabinoids are THC and CBD. The former is the psychoactive component responsible for marijuana’s “high.” It also helps with pain and nausea, which has made it a much sought-after medication for patients undergoing chemotherapy.

CBD, on the other hand, works on the autoimmune system and acts as an anti-inflammatory. It is being tested on inflammatory bowel diseases (including Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis) and has shown to be effective with conditions as diverse as autism, epilepsy, diabetes and heart disease. Moreover, you can’t get high from CBD.
In order to get FDA approval, a company like BOL, which was founded in 2007, must conduct the same kind of double-blind clinical trials any drug would go through. Some 120 trials are currently under way in Israel – more than in any other country.

Gedo says that if even 10 percent of trials underway at his facility result in a patentable drug, BOL could be the Pfizer of MGC. BOL’s autism trial, under the supervision of Dr. Adi Aran, director of the neuropediatric unit of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, will go to the FDA in 2018. If it’s approved, a commercial drug could be available as early as 2021.

Medical cannabis drugs are delivered via pills you swallow, delayed-release gel capsules, sublingual tablets, drops, ointments, transdermal patches and metered inhalers. You don’t smoke MGC because that destroys the CBD and other components aside from THC.

Cannabis-friendly

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Tens of Thousands of Christians from 80 countries march in Jerusalem

Adina Katz

(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

More than 60,000 people from 80 countries participated in the annual Festival of Tabernacles parade in the Israeli capital, expressing love and support for the Jewish state and a united Jerusalem.

Tens of thousands of Israel supporters from around the world joined the 38th annual march through the streets of Jerusalem, organized by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), held on Sukkot, the festival of Tabernacles.

“The Feast of Tabernacles is always a wonderful foretaste of that future time when all peoples will come up to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkot,” ICEJ says on its website.

This year’s celebration was unique, however, as Israel celebrates the 50th year of the reunification of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War. For this reason, the march was “more exciting than ever,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

“Of all the sacred seasons that God commanded Israel to observe, the festival of Tabernacles has the strongest implications for the nations of the world… Sukkot was mandated by the Creator Himself to be a holiday for all the world,” the Temple Institute explains.

Thousands of locals watched the parade, cheering as the enthusiastic visitors expressed solidarity with the Jewish state, shouting “Am Yisrael Chai,” proclaiming the eternity of the Jewish nation.

PENTAGON GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO INSTALL ISRAELI DEFENSE SYSTEM ON US TANKS

ANNA AHRONHEIM

US M1 Abrams tank fires during the “Saber Strike” NATO military exercise in Adazi, Latvia, June 11, 2016.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The US Army has approved the installation of Israel’s Trophy active-protection system on a number of its M1A2 Abrams tanks, making it the first army aside from the IDF to use the system.

The Pentagon said Thursday the decision was made following “an urgent material” request.
Designed to detect and neutralize incoming projectiles, the Trophy system has four radar antennae and fire-control radars to track incoming threats such as anti-tank guided missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. Once a projectile is detected, Trophy fires a shotgun-type blast to neutralize the threat.

Developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aircraft Industries’ Elta Group, it is the only fully operational and combat-proven APS in the world.

Michigan-based General Dynamics Land Systems was contracted to add the system to an Armor Brigade Combat Team’s M1A2 SEPv2 at a cost of close to $10 million with an expected completion date by the end of March 2019.

The estimated cost per tank is $350,000.

With its troops operating in theaters such as Syria and Iraq, the US has understood that ground forces and armored vehicles are sitting ducks without active protection systems due to the proliferation of antitank weaponry in the hands of both state militaries and insurgent groups. Outside the Middle East, pro-Russian rebels in the Ukraine have been reported to be using Russian-made Kornet missiles, which can strike targets more than five kilometers away using a laser beam to direct the missile and which can pierce standard armor 1,000–1,200 millimeters thick.

Maj.-Gen. David Bassett, who is in charge of the US Army’s programs in the area of ground combat systems, was quoted by the DefenseTech website in August as ultimately envisioning “a brigade’s worth of capability of Trophy on the Abrams” – one of the most heavily armored vehicles in existence.

The Trophy has been installed on Israel’s Merkava tanks since 2009, and also has been installed on the IDF’s Namer heavy infantry fighting vehicle and new armored personnel carrier, the Eitan, which is set to enter operational use for infantry battalions in the coming year.

The Trophy System received its “baptism by fire” on March 1, 2011, when it neutralized an RPG antitank rocket fired from a short range toward an IDF Merkava Mark-IV tank close to the Gaza border.

The system has since proved its efficacy in several operations, especially during Operation Protective Edge when IDF tanks operated in the Gaza Strip without suffering any losses.

Rafael declined to comment on the report.

FRENCH PM OUTLINES STRATEGY TO COMBAT ‘SHAMEFUL’ ANTISEMITISM

EYTAN HALON

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced “a new plan to combat antisemitism” during a speech at Paris’s Buffault Synagogue.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe attends a ceremony at the Buffault Synagogue in Paris, France, October 2, 2017.. (photo credit:REUTERS/CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/POOL)

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced “a new plan to combat antisemitism” during a speech at Paris’s Buffault Synagogue.
Speaking at a ceremony on Monday following the Jewish New Year, Philippe said that the plan, set to be implemented in 2018 to 2020, will be “conceived and developed in close partnership with civil society and obviously [the Jewish community].”
One of the key objectives, the French premier explained, is to fight online antisemitism. In particular, he added, there is a need to counter hate that has “overrun social media” and which should not remain unpunished.

“A sustainable fight against antisemitism necessarily calls for prevention, through education and culture,” said Philippe.

In recent years, France has suffered a wave of Islamist terrorist attacks, including several targeting Jews. Philippe mentioned the kidnap and murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006, the killing of four Jews outside Toulouse’s Ozar Hatorah school in 2012, the attack on the Hyper Casher kosher supermarket in January 2015 and the murder last April of Sarah Halimi in Paris as examples of “the ultra-violence of Islamist terrorism and barbarism.”

“When someone attacks a French citizen because of his background or his beliefs,” Philippe continued, “he attacks France and what it holds most precious: its way of life, its values, its heritage… And when you insult a French citizen for these reasons, you insult the memory of those who have given their life to ensure that these values prevail.”

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe delivers a speech to the Jewish Community for the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, at the Buffault Synagogue in Paris, France, October 2, 2017. (Reuters)

Philippe emphasized that the “insufficient decrease” in “shameful, cowardly” antisemitism in France does not mean that this dangerous reality has been repaired. “This reality is the normalization of antisemitism, and of its reinvented form, as President [Emmanuel Macron] said, anti-Zionism.”

Chief Rabbi of France Haïm Korsia, government officials, ambassadors and former prime minister Manuel Valls also attended the event.

Philippe quoted from then-prime minister Manuel Valls’s January 2015 speech to the National Assembly following the attack on the Hyper Casher supermarket: “We cannot permit that, in France, the land of Jewish emancipation two centuries ago, but also that became a place of Jewish suffering 70 years ago, we will hear cries of ‘Death to Jews’ in our streets.

“The awakening of antisemitism is a symptom of a crisis of democracy,” Philippe said.

The prime minister also paid tribute to France’s “closest partner,” Israel. Philippe saluted the 150,000 French citizens living in Israel, describing them as the best ambassadors of his nation’s language and culture. He highlighted next year’s France-Israel Season, a six-month event that will run simultaneously in both countries, as an example of their close cooperation.

Extending his best wishes for the new year to the Jewish community, the prime minister looked forward to developing bilateral ties. “We hold onto this relationship, and we want to deepen it in all ways, economically and culturally,” said Philippe.

“President [Macron] has announced his visit to Israel next spring. I would also like to visit next year,” he said.

    United with Israel

Oscar Front-Runner Regrets Signing Anti-Israel Letter

United with Israel Staff

Greta Gerwig admitted she did not know what she was signing when she lent her name to an anti-Israel petition.
Actress Greta Gerwig says she regrets signing a letter that calls for the cancellation of the performance of two Israeli plays in Los Angeles.

In July, she signed a letter along with 60 other artists urging Lincoln Center to cancel performances of “To The End Of The Land,” a play based on a novel of the same name by Israeli novelist David Grossman. The signatories took issue with the fact that the play was funded by Israel’s Office of Cultural Affairs in North America.

Creative Community for Peace, an organization of prominent members of the entertainment industry dedicated to promoting the arts as a means to peace and to countering the cultural boycott of Israel, announced last week that due to their efforts in assembling a group of top Hollywood executives rejecting the boycott call, Gerwig retracted her support.

The CCFP is made up of prominent members of the music industry, including Celine Dion, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake.

Gerwig told the New York Post that she was not knowledgeable enough on the issue to have taken a stand on it and that a close friend had asked her to sign the petition.

“I am generally careful about the causes I support, but in this case I was not. I was unfamiliar with the complexities of the letter and I did not take the time to study them,” she conceded.

She explained that “because the letter had already been signed by many other friends and collaborators I know to be thoughtful and honorable people, I agreed to add my name.”

While she respects “the passion and integrity of others who signed this letter, for me to put my name to something outside of my personal realm of knowledge or experience was a mistake — my mistake — and I am sorry for any confusion or hurt I may have caused.”

The film “Lady Bird,” Gerwig’s directorial debut, is considered a serious contender for an Oscar.
More than 45 high-level entertainment industry executives signed a letter denouncing the “hypocritical, discriminatory, and dangerous” Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, after activists associated with the movement demanded that Lincoln Center cancel the Israeli play.

“Selectively silencing art is dangerous,” they wrote in the letter. “Art unites us, and helps us get past what makes us different while connecting us at the core of what makes us similar. We — and especially Israelis and Palestinians, who require being brought together more than anything — need more of it, not less.”