A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 , 2022
The WorldAFGHANISTAN
Protesters decry
Biden’s use of funds
Protesters in Afghanistan’s
capital on Saturday condemned
President Biden’s order
allocating $3.5 billion in Afghan
assets held in the United States
for families of 9/11 victims.
Instead, the demonstrators
demanded financial
compensation for the tens of
thousands of Afghans killed
during the last 20 years of war in
Afghanistan.
“What about our Afghan
people who gave many sacrifices
and thousands of losses of lives?”
asked the demonstration’s
organizer, Abdul Rahman.
The country’s economy is
teetering on the brink of collapse
after international money
stopped coming into
Afghanistan with the arrival in
mid-August of the Taliban.
Afghanistan has about $9 billion
in assets overseas, including the
$7 billion in the United States.
Biden’s order, signed Friday,
allocates the other $3.5 billion in
Afghan assets to a trust fund to
be managed by the United
Nations to provide humanitarianaid to Afghans.
Afghanistan’s Central Bank
called on Biden to reverse his
order and release the funds to it,
saying in a statement that they
belonged to the people of
Afghanistan and not a
government, party or group.
— Associated PressFamily killed in Syrian
government artillery strike: Six
people from the same family,
including two children, were
killed in a Syrian military
artillery strike on a rebel-held
village in northwest Syria,
opposition activists said. Nearbyresidents said the family was
outside their house enjoying
sunny weather and drinking tea
when the shell struck. Low-
flying reconnaissance aircraft
circled the area, Maarat al-
Naasan village in Idlib province,
after the strike.Armed group shows support for
Libya’s interim prime minister:
A convoy of more than 100
vehicles with armed fighters
moved into Tripoli from the
Libyan city of Misurata on
Saturday to shore up the interim
prime minister, Abdulhamid al-
Dbeibah, amid a push by theparliament to oust him. Dbeibah
has sworn he will hand over
power only after an election. The
convoy’s arrival underscored the
danger of renewed fighting in
Libya as the crisis plays out.French troops kill scores of
militants in West Africa: French
troops killed 40 militants on the
Benin-Burkina Faso border in
West Africa’s Sahel region, the
French government said on
Saturday. The action followed an
attack on park rangers in
northern Benin on Tuesday in
which a French national was
among eight people killed.Turkmenistan to hold
presidential election early:
Turkmenistan will hold an early
presidential election on
March 12, a Central Election
Commission official said, after
President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhammedov hinted he
planned to resign, two years
before his current term ends. In
a speech to the upper house late
Friday, Berdymukhammedov
said he had made “a tough
decision” and decided that it was
time to give way to “young
leaders.”— From news servicesDIGESTBY SHIRA RUBINnir oz, israel — Israel’s iconic
communal farms known as kib-
butzim have faced a constant
threat of extinction since the
country pivoted to capitalism
four decades ago. But a lucrative
new cash crop is now promising
to help keep the kibbutz move-
ment alive: cannabis.
“It feels like we could be pio-
neers,” said Gil Binovitch, 33, who
heads cultivation at the Intercure
marijuana farm in Nir Oz, in the
Negev desert less than three
miles from the Gaza Strip.
The kibbutz has dedicated
about 40 acres to cultivating
marijuana. Inside the cavernous
greenhouses, the plants are ar-
ranged in biodegradable bags on
long tables, a variety of bespoke
strains in shades of green and
purple. Sensors monitor the
plants, and about 100 employees
in protective coverings trim, dry
and cure the cannabis with a
technique the company says en-
hances the plants’ medical prop-
erties.
Dozens of kibbutzim like Nir
Oz have entered Israel’s burgeon-
ing medical marijuana industry
as it moves to the country’s main-
stream, said Saul Kaye, a pharma-
cist and founder of the cannabis
pharmacy group HiPharm.
After Israel approved marijua-
na exports in 2020 and lawmak-
ers introduced a bill last fall to
make cannabis more available
domestically, the country is now
anticipating hundreds of new
cannabis-related jobs and a fi-
nancial windfall forecast to reach
$2 billion to $3 billion a year,
according to a joint statement by
Israel’s Economy and Health
ministries. The Israeli Innovation
Authority has said it will invest
nearly $10 million to launch a
cannabis incubator in the south-
ern desert town of Yeruham,
alongside an almost $40 million
investment by the private Israeli
cannabis manufacturing compa-
ny Breath of Life.
“It took time for a critical mass
of about 40,000 patients to be
here in Israel, which started to
have a ripple effect” as more
members of Israel’s parliament
came to know people with pre-
scriptions for medical marijuana,
Kaye said. “Now the government
is saying we want this to be an
industry.”
Today, more than 100,000 Is-
raelis hold a permit allowing
them to possess or use medical
marijuana. They include Israeli
soldiers with post-traumatic
stress disorder, whose cannabis
treatment is covered by the gov-
ernment, and children with epi-
lepsy and autism, whose treat-
ment is mostly subsidized by
national HMOs. Recreational use
is still illegal, but possession of
small amounts was decriminal-
ized three years ago.
In Israel’s early, uncertain dec-
ades, kibbutzim were the nation’s
breadbasket, and their members
had an outsize influence in the
parliament, or Knesset. Adhering
to a socialist ideology, residents
earned equal pay, ate together in
communal dining halls, sent
their children to live together in
separate houses from their par-
ents, and needed to ask permis-
sion to use shared vehicles or
travel abroad. But the kibbutzim
were threatened as capitalism
took hold and younger members
fled for jobs elsewhere.
Recently, however, an increas-
ing number are returning, and
the kibbutzim are rebranding.
Nir Oz, for instance, has aban-
doned its original communal
model. Families now live together
in their own private homes, and
the farm also employs nonmem-
bers.
Binovitch, who moved to Nir
Oz after years as a cannabis
trimmer in California’s Sonoma
Valley, is part of a new generation
of Israelis who see working in
weed on a kibbutz as preferable
to employment in the county’s
main technology hub, centered in
Israel’s expensive and traffic-
clogged central region. On the
kibbutz, said Rabinovich joyfully,
there’s not much to do besides
weekends, and if you need to do
small bits and pieces, you can go
over and then get back to your
life.”
Marijuana farming is the nextfrontier for Israel, which has for
decades been at the vanguard of
cannabis research.
In the 1960s, Raphael Mechou-
lam, a professor at Hebrew Uni-
versity known today in the indus-
try as the “grandfather of canna-
bis research,” analyzed a stash of
Lebanese hashish and was the
first to isolate and then synthe-
size marijuana’s psychoactive in-
gredients. His research has led to
projects to stabilize THC and
CBD at the state-run Volcani
Institute, studies on which
strains have greater pain relief
properties at the Multidisci-
plinary Center on Cannabinoid
Research at Hebrew University,
and clinical trials on the efficacy
and safety of cannabis oil for
children with autism at Assaf
Harofeh Medical Center in cen-
tral Israel.
Researchers have only just be-
gun to understand the potential
for treating neurological and
physical illnesses, but industry
experts expect studies to advance
more quickly now that they are
being integrated into large-scale
projects on kibbutzim, which
conduct research in both on-site
and off-site labs.
Kibbutzim hold rare permits
for vast areas of land and canraise the capital to build the kinds
of high-tech greenhouses needed
to clone, grow and monitor mari-
juana at levels necessary to meet
Israel’s medical standards, ac-
cording to former Israeli prime
minister and former kibbutznik
Ehud Barak, who is chairman of
the Intercure marijuana farm in
Nir Oz.
Barak is among a growing
cadre of former politicians, secu-
rity chiefs and other high-profile
public figures who have been
joining the boards of Israeli can-
nabis companies as consultants
and investors and have been try-
ing to advance the industry by
securing regulatory reforms.
He said this emerging industry
is a good fit for kibbutzim seeking
to find their place in modern
Israel. “After 80 years, there’s a
strong country. It became a little
absurd to have these lives of
sacrifice when everything around
has become normalized,” he said.
While kibbutzim were “once
about survival,” he added, they
are now poised to play a central
role in a cannabis industry that
has “turned from being a dream,
a great story — into a business
where you need to show a bottom
line every quarter.”At k ibbutzim, a clear-eyed approach to potIsrael’s communal farms suffered when nation pivoted to capitalism. Now they’ve f ound a solid niche in m edical marijuana.HEIDI LEVINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Gil Binovitch, 33, head of cultivation at the Intercure marijuana farm at Kibbutz Nir Oz, in the Negev desert, examines plants growing under LED lights.grab a drink at the sole local pub,
visit with neighbors and drive
along the rugged desert land-
scapes.
“Living close to the farm makesit easy for you to have a balanced
lifestyle,” said Binovitch, who of-
ten wears a smile on his well-
tanned face and rides to work on
an electric bike. “You have yourCOURTESY OF KIBBUTZ NIR OZ
Kibbutz Nir Oz in the early years after its founding in 1955. Originally, kibbutzim
adhered to a socialist ideology — residents earned equal pay, ate in communal
dining halls and sent their children to live together in separate housing.HEIDI LEVINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Binovitch at home in Nir Oz. Kibbutzim are abandoning the communal model,
with families in their own homes. And the young are returning. “Living close to
the farm makes it easy for you to have a balanced lifestyle,” says Binovitch.HEIDI LEVINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Bedouin women sort marijuana plants that are ready to be harvested at Nir Oz. Marijuana farming is
the next frontier for Israel, which has for decades been at the vanguard of cannabis research.