Fear of missing out, FOMO, is so 2019. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the lockdowns implemented around the world to try to slow its spread, people stuck at home can find a minimal amount of consolation in the fact that theyre not the only ones not having fun or going places. COVID-19, with its death toll and economic repercussions, has come to dominate our lives and news cycles.

Nonetheless, I realized that Ive been in danger of letting certain stories pass me by, stories that in different better days, I would have considered deserving of more attention. So, I decided to take a look at some of the items that almost got away. Some of them made me look back in anger.

It is the bon ton in certain circles to declare that Gaza is a vast prison. Comparisons to a ghetto are tritely bandied around. And thats whats so infuriating. The aptly named Hype Mall, by the way, is just one of several shopping centers in the Gaza Strip.

I dont begrudge the Palestinians a chance to go shopping. Signs of economic growth are likely to be the harbinger of stability, even when peace remains a distant dream. But there should at least be an acknowledgment of the fact that the construction of a mall means there are consumers to be found. Not every Palestinian is starving and those who are going hungry should blame their own corrupt leadership.

The international community should question where the huge sums of foreign donations and funding have gone; whether supplies meant for housing havent ended up creating a consumer heaven for Hamas cronies; and, above all, whether a place where generations of the same families have been living for decades now with a fancy shopping mall can really be considered a refugee camp.

Another story that has literally gone under the radar is the return of kite terrorism. Several incendiary kites have been launched from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel in recent days. The government is busy bickering over cabinet seats and fighting COVID-19 but it cannot afford to ignore the return of Palestinian eco-terrorism as if it were a natural sign of the coming hot days of summer.

Which brings me to another widely overlooked recent story. Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, last month, yet again, showed his true face when he declared: If Israel finds a cure for cancer, for example, or any other virus, then there is no problem in cooperating with Israel to save millions of lives.

Barghouti was talking on a webinar on BDS and anti-normalization: The most important strategies to fight against the deal of the century, even in the time of COVID-19. The title says it all.

Barghouti, with two faces and double standards, has long exempted himself from practicing what he preaches. It takes a certain kind of chutzpah to call for the international boycott of Tel Aviv University while studying for a doctorate there. Barghouti has hijacked history to suit his own narrative and needs. It serves him well and he is a poster boy for anti-Israel organizations but it doesnt serve the very people he professes to represent.

When it comes to rewriting history, the Danish Bible Society has excelled itself. It rewrote The Book.

According to a story I was alerted to by 24NYT a Danish online paper The Contemporary Danish Bible 2020 has cleansed all but two mentions of Israel from the New Testament and significantly reduced the use of the word Israel in its translation of the Old Testament.

The Bible Society published a rebuttal of the charges after the story began to spread on social media, but still I found myself singing Gershwins lyrics from Porgy and Bess: The things that youre lible to read in the Bible, they aint necessarily so.

The Contemporary Danish Bible 2020 is a special kind of Bible translation directed at secular readers with no or little knowledge of the Bible and of its history and traditional church and Bible language. This means that many things are translated differently than in traditional Bible translations, the Bible Society wrote on its site. ... for the secular reader, who does not know the Bible well, Israel could be referring only to a country. Therefore the word Israel in the Greek text has been translated in other ways, so that the reader understands it is referring to the Jewish people.

Read that again. Instead of making sure that readers understand the connection between Israel, the Jews and the Land of Israel of the Bible, they preferred to make an artificial separation.

Bible enthusiast Jan Frost listed the unusual translations in a YouTube video in Danish. According to English-language reports, Frost noted, for example, that in the Song of Ascents from Psalm 121, the original Hebrew He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep replaces Israel with us. And while a representative of the Bible Society reportedly told Frost that the decision was made to avoid confusing the Land of Israel with the State of Israel, the name Egypt, has not been changed.

Taking a charitable approach, its possible to say that the Danish Bible translators did not see their changes as a political act, more an act of political correctness trying to include all. But clearly something was lost in translation, as is evident to someone who reads the Bible in the original Hebrew. As Bnai Brith International tweeted: ... this surreal revision causes confusion and worse: whitewashing of history, identity, and sacred scripture.

A major story that did not get the coverage it deserves, is the centenary of the San Remo Conference, which dealt with the fate of territories that until 1920 were a part of the Ottoman Empire, which had collapsed with the end of World War I.

Although it never gets the attention of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 or the UN Partition Plan of 1947, arguably San Remo was more important than both, anchoring in international law the legal and historic rights of the Jewish people to its homeland. Arab rioters killed Jews in British Mandate Palestine throughout April 1920 long before the settlements could be blamed. It was the very existence of a Jewish state they objected to. Thats why attempts to erase Jewish religious and historical links to the biblical Land of Israel are so pernicious.

Originally posted here:

Coronavirus has turned our attention away from other major stories - The Jerusalem Post