Israeli doctors will perform the world’s first-ever human spinal cord implant using a patient’s own cells in the next few months. If successful, the medical procedure will allow paralyzed patients the ability to walk and stand, potentially changing the lives of millions of people. The body, as most people know, can’t naturally heal spinal cord injuries.
Progressive congressman Richie Torres wonders: “If Israel were to cure paralysis, would the BDS movement boycott the cure?”
Well, a few years back, when Israel was working on a COVID-19 vaccine, Omar Barghouti, the founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, informed his adherents that it would be morally acceptable to seek help from the Jewish State. “If Israel finds a cure for cancer, for example, or any other virus,” he said, “then there is no problem in cooperating with Israel to save millions of lives.”
It’s mighty generous of Barghouti, who supports academic boycotts of the Israeli researchers and scientists involved in creating and sharing medical breakthroughs, of “cooperating” with to save millions. From his framing, you might be under the impression that BDS activists had some role in creating the technology.
Israel is a hub of high-tech industries, with venture capital investment, and culture of innovation. Israel ranks as one of the world’s leaders in R&D spending as a percentage of GDP. Israel is a small nation that relies on the other academic relationships around the world. Yet, Israel, with 9 million people, has filed far more intentional patents than the entire Islamic world that is made of hundreds of millions. It’s a cultural advantage, not a genetic one.
Israel has been involved in more medical breakthroughs than I can list in the past few years, including a one-step treatment for knee cartilage regeneration, a minimally invasive treatment that destroys benign and cancerous tumors by freezing them with liquid nitrogen, and a new method of distinguishing between bacterial and viral infections in 15 minutes using a small blood sample.
CAN ENDING THE WAR IN UKRAINE GET TRUMP INTO HEAVEN?
One commentator snarkily responded to Torres by noting that perhaps Israel could use the technology to help Palestinian children who have been hurt in the war. I’m sure they would once Hamas surrenders. Israel has regularly used its advanced technology to save Palestinians. For instance, a year before the Oct.7 attack, in which 37 minors, including two babies, were targeted and murdered by Palestinians, Israel performed its 3,000th surgery on Palestinian children with heart defects.
None of this is to say that a nation can’t do both good and bad things. But the image cultivated by anti-Western progressive and right-wing antisemitic influencers of Israel as a pariah state involved in genocide is absurd. It spends an inordinate amount of treasure and manpower defending itself, while still fostering a vibrant culture that adds value to the world in ways its enemies do not.