Clinton to speak at AIPAC
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the keynote speaker at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference.
Clinton will speak on the second day of the conference, which is set for March 21-23 in Washington.
The announcement this week of her address at the conference comes as the Obama administration is stepping up efforts to show U.S.-Israel closeness.
Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel this week and said there was “no space” between the two countries when it comes to Israel’s security, although he decried Israel’s announcement that it was building 1,600 new housing units in eastern Jerusalem.
Also addressing the parlay are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima Party.
A focus of the conference will be on efforts to further isolate Iran to pressure it toward nuclear transparency.
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Are Bisphosphonates to Blame for Baffling Bone Breaks?
This week ABC World News aired a story about a possible side effect of osteoporosis medications. The family of medications involved in this story is called bisphosphonates and includes Fosamax, Actonel and Boniva. These medications have been proven to prevent fractures in patients with osteoporosis (very low bone density). Apparently, some doctors had noticed the occurrence of an unusual kind of fracture, a break in the thigh bone between the hip and the knee, in some women who had been taking bisphosphonates for over five years. Also unusual was that these fractures seemed to be happening with fairly small traumas, without the major impact expected to break a thigh bone.
So, faced with these reports, since television news is known for sober and uncontroversial reporting of well-researched information, ABC decided to hold this story until they checked out whether these fractures have anything to do with these medicines.
Ha! Just kidding! Of course ABC ran the story, frightening countless women into believing that they may be at risk for breaking a leg because they are taking a medication specifically to reduce such a risk. (Actually given the declining broadcast news ratings, perhaps they only frightened the last dozen Americans without cable or internet access.)
Obviously, the important question is: Are these rare fractures happening more frequently to women on bisphosphonates than to women with osteoporosis who are not taking bisphosphonates? The most honest answer is: nobody knows. Nobody has yet done the counting.
I’m sure we could also find that men taking medication for baldness get sunburns on the tops of their heads more often then other men. But that might be a consequence of the baldness, not of the medicine. Similarly, women with osteoporosis are at higher risk of fractures than other women, and every study done so far shows that bisphosphonates reduce that risk. Whether this unusual thigh fracture is an exception should be the subject of a careful study. Until then, we just don’t know.
The FDA released a statement (link below) urging women not to stop their osteoporosis medicines without a discussion with their doctors, and reminding doctors that these new reports do not change the indications for using bisphosphonates.
The rest of us got a useful reminder not to get information from TV news.
(Thanks to my patient Joyce for pointing me to the ABC News story and to my friend and colleague Mark for pointing me to the FDA statement.)
Learn more:
FDA Drug Safety Communication: ” target=”_blank”>FDA rules out bisphosphonate, thigh fracture link
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Spring Cleaning
Pesach is near. Spring cleaning is at hand, physically and spiritually. In Hollywood, the Award season is over and Spring movies abound (the spectacular “Alice in Wonderland”) and pilots are now being shot for the Fall TV season and Fall movie releases prepared (including my client Diane Lane’s Disney feature “Secretariat” about a woman who trains herself to learn how to train the Triple Crown winner of the 70’s, an unlikely horse with an oversize heart, Secretariat).
May we all train our hearts and purify ourselves this season so in October for the next New Year we will be ready for our own Triple Crown: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succos with our own oversized hearts.
Israeli Embassy in New Zealand to reopen
Israel will open a new embassy in New Zealand next month amid signs of warming relations between Wellington and Jerusalem.
A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Canberra, Australia—which has looked after diplomatic affairs in the island nation since 2002—confirmed Friday that Shemi Tzur, 64, a former envoy to Finland, Cyprus and Estonia, is expected to take up the post of ambassador to New Zealand in April. “It’s the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship between Israel and New Zealand,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman also confirmed that Yuval Rotem, Israel’s envoy in Canberra, will make a farewell visit to New Zealand next week.
The Israeli mission in Wellington was closed in 2002 amid cost-cutting measures by Israel’s Foreign Ministry. In 2004, relations between Israel and New Zealand cooled after two alleged Mossad agents were caught and jailed for trying to illegally obtain a New Zealand passport. As a result, New Zealand suspended high-level diplomatic relations for more than a year until Israel apologized in 2005.
Bilateral relations have since thawed, helped in part by the defeat of Helen Clark and her Labor Party at the 2008 polls. She was succeeded by Conservative leader John Key, the son of a Jewish refugee from Austria who has family living in Israel.
“There’s no reason why New Zealand can’t enjoy good diplomatic relations with Israel,” Key was quoted by 3News as saying.
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Jewish Iranian family busted for drug smuggling
An Iranian Jewish family was arrested at Ben-Gurion Airport after trying to smuggle more than 30 pounds of opium into Israel.
Israeli police seized the drugs from several food storage cans in the family’s luggage on Wednesday evening, the Jerusalem Post reported. Israeli police said it was the largest batch of opium seized in years.
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Israel seals off West Bank
Israel has sealed off the West Bank for 48 hours for fear of Arab rioting.
The closure, which began Thursday night and will last until Saturday, will prevent men under 50 from attending Friday prayers on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In recent weeks, there have been clashes following Friday prayers in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Israeli officials feared riots could break out.
Friday prayers in Jerusalem ended without incident, Israeli media reported.
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Jewish groups upset with Presbyterians
Jewish groups are upset with recent actions by the Presbyterian church regarding its Israel policies.
A report released by the Presbyterian Church USA on Thursday, entitled “Breaking Down the Walls,” was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League as “a toxic mix of bad history, politically motivated distortions and offensive attacks on Judaism and Israel.”
Other Jewish groups have lashed out at the Middle East Study Committee, which prepared the report, for failing to reach out to a broad range of Jewish leaders.
The Presbyterian church has had a long and contentious history of treating Israel in a way most American Jewish leaders deem hostile and biased. On the eve of a 2008 convention in which the Middle East was a hot topic, the church released a document on combating anti-Jewish sentiment that was vigorously condemned by a broad array of American Jewish organizations as perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes. Ultimately, that convention yielded a statement embraced by major Jewish groups that promised evenhandedness in the treatment of Israel.
Among the objections raised to the latest report are that it legitimizes doubts about Israel’s legitimacy, draws parallels between the threats posed by suspected Iranian and Israeli nuclear arsenals, and calls on the United States to consider withholding foreign aid to Israel.
The report also names several liberal groups—J Street, B’Tselem, and Jewish Voice for Peace—as demonstrating greater potential for working together “for a more just and secure Israel,” the New York Jewish Week reported. Mainstream Jewish organizations, the church report says, do not oppose the occupation or Israel’s settlement policy.
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Foxman slams Israel on Jerusalem announcement
Israel’s announcement of new housing starts during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit was a “disaster,” Abraham Foxman said in a rare rebuke.
“Whatever the motivation and whoever the responsible party, it is the government of Israel that justifiably is held accountable for converting an optimal moment in U.S.-Israel relations into a moment of crisis,” Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, wrote in a post on the liberal Huffington Post Web site. “The crucial point is that the government had an obligation to anticipate what might go wrong during the vice president’s visit and to give firm instruction to all cabinet members about avoiding such pitfalls, particularly on the subjects of settlements and East Jerusalem.”
Mainstream U.S. Jewish groups usually refrain from criticism of Israel on peace process issues. The ADL has condemned examples of hate rhetoric by Israeli officials, but tends to refrain from critiquing defense and diplomacy decisions.
Biden strongly rebuked Israel for announcing plans to build 1,600 units in disputed eastern Jerusalem during his visit, which was aimed in part at reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the timing, and said he was not aware of the plans by the relevant planning committee to make the announcement.
The Biden trip also was aimed at assuaging Israeli concerns about the Obama administration’s outreach to the Muslim world. Foxman said administration anger was “understandable,” but advised the sides to step back and salvage the moment.
He praised Biden for going ahead with a speech that lauded Israel and recognized its Jewish significance, but chided the vice president for reportedly rebuking Netanyahu in private by saying that the announcement endangered U.S. troops in the region.
“This is the kind of rhetoric that does exactly what Mr. Biden has studiously avoided doing, linking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to America’s larger Middle East challenges, and it unnecessarily calls into question Israel’s role as an ally and the impact on American interests,” Foxman wrote.
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Jill Biden tours joint U.S.-NIF project
Jill Biden, wife of the U.S. vice president, toured and praised a New Israel Fund-backed program that the philanthropy says would be endangered by a proposed Israeli law.
Biden is accompanying her husband to Israel, where he delivered a speech Thursday extolling close U.S.-Israel ties and pressing for a renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Jill Biden toured Sidre, a Negev town, to examine the Bedouin Women’s Empowerment Project, which encourages independence for women through microenterprise. Biden visited a rug-making workplace.
“I am a working woman, too, and I know how important it is to be independent,” said Biden, a community college professor who has continued to work while her husband serves in office.
The project is funded jointly by the New Israel Fund and the Middle East Partnership Institute of the U.S. State Department. A bill under consideration in the Knesset would attach reporting conditions to projects funded by foreign government that NIF and other groups say are excessively onerous and would effectively kill such programs.
Behind the bill is criticism of groups—some also funded by NIF—that have reported on alleged Israeli human rights abuses.
“This joint effort between NIF and the U.S. Government significantly supports unmet needs in Israel,” Daniel Sokatch, who directs NIF, said in a statement. “It is this very funding that is potentially jeopardized by those who object to a robust and independent NGO sector. We especially appreciate Dr. Biden’s visit at a time when the values of these programs must be publicly demonstrated.”
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