RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/167114/can-israels-leaders-be-great?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=84f7cf04f5-3_30_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-84f7cf04f5-207022537
Today’s Israeli Leaders Lack the Very Qualities That Made Its Founders Great

And none embodied the biblical worldview more, or had more political agility, than Menachem Begin, who has no real heirs
Israel’s founding generation is disappearing. In January, Ariel Sharon, who left an indelible mark on Israel’s map and history, finally passed away after spending eight years in a coma. Earlier this month, Meir Har-Zion, the fearless and controversial soldier who helped create the Sayeret Matkal, died at 80. And this coming summer, Shimon Peres, now 90 and the last surviving member of David Ben Gurion’s inner circle, will retire from Israel’s presidency and, presumably, begin to step back from public life.

Certainly there are politicians who can still claim direct connection to the founders’ generation, most notably Isaac Herzog—known as Buji—whose grandfather Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog was Israel’s first chief rabbi and whose father Chaim Herzog, a disciple of Ben Gurion, was the country’s sixth president. But in a sense, we are already living in a post-founder era: There is no meaningful way in which Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the Likud, can be called an heir to the party’s founder, Menachem Begin.

The inexorable disappearance of those who lived through—and shaped—the heroic period of Israel’s establishment virtually begs us to ask: Why is it that no one in today’s generation of leaders, who of course are all deeply committed to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people, can truly claim the mantle of those who went before?

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

I find myself increasingly out of sync, not only in cultural terms like being mystified by Gwyneth Paltrow’s and Chris Martin’s “conscious uncoupling” (a consequence of an unconscious coupling perhaps?), but in behavior. Unionizing student-athletes is totally foreign to my understanding of college and athletics. It is well known that college athletes in sports like basketball and football generate significant revenue for their universities. It is equally well known that those revenues allow colleges to offer non money-making athletics like squash or rowing. All athletes put in long hours, because of the love of the sport, their joy in being a team-member or, in the case of a small number, because it may lead to professional contracts.

Schools bear part of the responsibility that led former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, with backing from the College Athletes Players Association, to get NLRB regional director Peter Ohr to rule that student-athletes at private colleges have the right to unionize. For years, colleges have turned a blind eye toward the hours required of students to play sports like football, especially knowing that only a small percent will make it to the pros. They have paid too little attention to the long-lasting nature of injuries. Many show little concern as to whether their student-athletes get an education, not to mention a degree. They covet the money with little regard to the human consequences. Northwestern’s football program raised an estimated $30 million last year against expenses of $22 million. The latter includes $2.2 million paid to head coach Pat Fitzgerald. In their quest for dollars, these universities created the problem. As it says in Hosea 8:7 – “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”

What is most important for any student is education. There are 125 college and universities in NCAA Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision. Combined, they include 10,625 team members. A September 2012 study, conducted by the NCAA, found that only 253 were drafted, or 2.4%. So, if they are not there for an education, either the students are wasting their time or the college is abusing that of the students. Obviously there are a few who see college as a time to refine one’s craft, to make one’s self more attractive to recruiters and who succeed in the pros. But 97.6% of Division 1 college football players have to find other means of making a living.

yeoldecrabb.com.

It must have been a shock to its “right-nick” listeners. But even government-subsidized National Public Radio [NPR] had a commentator last week declaring that the so-called Israel-Palestine “Peace Process” is going anywhere. And, more importantly, he noted, the rest of the Middle East at the moment doesn’t care all that much about the issue. That’s quite an admission for the increasing anti-Israel lobby which now counts The New York Times and NPR among its brightest stars.

Nor was Pres. Barack Obama likely to have heard much about the Israel-Palestine schmoozle in his peripatetic travels including trying to put a band aid on worsening Washington-Riyadh relations. True, the Arab League – which has more differences among its members than the United Nations Security Council –recently did come out against “a Jewish state”. But the Arab League has become less and less a spokesman for the Arabs. Its anti-Israel screeds are all that’s left of what broke away from British tutelage with Gama Nasser’s overthrow the British protected Egyptian monarchy in the early 50s.

Indeed, the list of issues is long facing the Arab world, and Muslim majority nations in general, and the Western powers ostensibly led by the U.S. in the Middle East. It is fraught with so many other threats that the problem of Israel’s relations with the Arabs pales in comparison. Nor does anyone believe the myth held among Pres. Obama’s Arabist coterie that “solution” of the Israel-Palestine problem would be an open sesame to solving all the Middle East myriad difficulties.

Foremost now, for the Sunni Arab regimes – and even those nominally secular such as Egypt’s new military rule – is the specter of the growing regional power of the mullahs in Tehran. That’s exemplified for the Saudis by the growing evidence that the bloody Syrian Dictator Basher Assad relies on Iran for life support. The Saudis publicly keep reminding Obama and the Europeans they had promised to eliminate him. Instead, there is even the prospect that Assad may negotiate his way into some sort of permanence through, ironically, Washington-sponsored peace talks.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4239/european-elections

In Britain as in France, voters have evidently become disillusioned with a political establishment responsible for open-borders policies, Islamization and the transfer of national sovereignty to supranational organizations such as the European Union. Soon these voices will be heard in national parliaments, too.

The municipal elections in France resulted in a huge victory for the Front National of Marine Le Pen. For the first time since 1995, France will again have FN mayors. Marine Le Pen also succeeded in maneuvering her party into pole position for the European elections on May 25th. France has 74 seats in the European Parliament. FN is expected to win up to 20 or more.

Marine Le Pen is one of Europe’s greatest political talents. Her strategy to rid the party, which she inherited from her anti-Semitic father, from most of its extreme-right elements is paying off. While Le Pen’s international policies are dangerously flawed and her economic proposals border on socialist protectionism, she has succeeded in turning the FN into an acceptable alternative for millions of ordinary Frenchmen from the Left as well as the Right.

Le Pen has also cleverly avoided making any political mistakes. She did not give in to provocations of political opponents and she did not fall into the trap of giving her enemies opportunities to reinforce hostile perceptions about her party.

The result is that France’s political system is no longer a two-party system dominated by the Socialist PS of current president François Hollande and the Conservative UMP of former president Nicolas Sarkozy. With the Front National, a third player of equal status has emerged. Moreover, as the anger of the voters at the two established parties is growing, Le Pen’s momentum is far from over.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4237/patriotic-energy-policy

An unchecked national debt will profoundly damage our country, its future and the fate of our allies.

Just two states, Utah and Colorado, hold approximately 3 trillion barrels of oil in shale deposits which would provide us with the means to release domestic energy resources that would add jobs and re-industrialize our nation.

Oil exporters like Venezuela and the Arab Emirates are understandably nervous about losing those American petrodollars. It is not a surprise that they have underwritten Hollywood films attacking fracking as an environmental threat…and that they will continue to use their wealth and influence to try to short circuit America’s pursuit of accessing domestic energy resources.

As the White House slashes America’s military budget and our influence proves irrelevant in Ukraine and other hot spots around the globe it is clear our economic policies have failed to grow our economy to create jobs and generate much needed revenue. This failure has resulted in budget deficits, increased debt and a loss of military strength. Our national debt has increased from approximately $11 trillion to $17.4 trillion over the last 5 years, and it’s getting worse. Congress has just voted to lift the debt limit so that, together with our ongoing budget deficits, our nation will confront an $18 trillion debt within a few months.

This fiscal burden is so massive many observers and commentators have struggled to find words that allow us to understand its enormity. Some have described the national debt as going through the stratosphere, but it’s far beyond that. It requires an astronomical calculation to reveal the magnitude of the crisis, computing the debt as a Light Year scientists use to measure the vast distances of outer space.

Mark Langfan

The writer, who specializes in security issues, has created an original educational 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at www.marklangfan.com. He is national Chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel….rsl

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14759#.UzhE2JtX_zb
The Israeli public is not aware of some crucial facts.
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The Israeli people didn’t know about Attorney General Mazuz’s legal opinion before the retreat from Gaza.Israeli Minister of Defense (MOD) Moshe Ya’alon is a modern-day Jewish hero. That’s why President Obama attacks Ya’alon when he speaks the truth. Now the only question is: When exactly do the Jews of Israel want to be told the truth that a Palestinian Arab State will rain chemical Katyushas down on Tel Aviv; after Tel Aviv is hit, or beforehand, so the Jews can fight another attempted mass-extermination?

Well, let’s go to historical heart of Ariel Sharon’s military “theory”, the one behind the “Disengagement” Plan from Gaza in 2005. According to the IDF Spokesperson, between 2001-2004, there were thousands, I repeat, thousands of Gaza rockets attacks into Israel. That’s thousands of Gaza rockets before the 2005 Disengagement.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7895

The war of words between the Palestinian Authority and Israel continues over a scheduled fourth prisoner release by Israel, the Palestinians’ willingness to extend the current round of peace talks beyond April 29, and a Palestinian commitment not to seek enhanced status at the United Nations as a member state, while talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority continue.

If the discussions go the way of prior crises in the negotiations, the prisoners will be released, the PA will agree to continue the talks that are going nowhere for some as yet undermined period beyond April 29, and the Palestinians will delay what inevitably will occur at some point — an attempt at the United Nations to seek enhanced member status.

Membership for a state in the United Nations requires a positive recommendation from the Security Council followed by a two-thirds vote supporting the motion in the General Assembly.

As the U.N.’s website explains:

“States are admitted to membership in the United Nations by decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The procedure is briefly as follows:

“1. The State submits an application to the Secretary-General and a letter formally stating that it accepts the obligations under the Charter.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2014/03/29/bob-kerrey-calls-obama-delusional-liar-renders-himself-msm-nonperson#ixzz2xRLWBX5m

Imagine if a former Republican presidential candidate and U.S. senator had called a current Republican president a delusional liar whose programs are wasteful. Would the mainstream media not be all over the story? Such a person would be interviewed at length by Wolf Blitzer on CNN as well as made the rounds of the morning talk shows and the Sunday news programs as well. The media buzz would be red hot on this topic for days extending into weeks.

Well, there is such a person but because he is a Democrat saying these things about President Obama, we can expect him to become an MSM nonperson. Such seems to already be the fate of former presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey. It is no surprise that his extended criticisms of Obama appeared in in a Daily Mail article in Britain, not in America where the shunning seems to have already begun. Here is what Kerrey has to say about Obama which you most likely won’t see in any major liberal news outlet in America:

The Nebraskan straight-talker told MailOnline in an exclusive interview that Obama isn’t up to the job of bringing liberals and conservatives to the table to rescue America’s slowly choking entitlement programs.

And Obama, he said Wednesday in his Manhattan office, knew full well he was lying when he promised that the Affordable Care Act would allow Americans to keep insurance plans they liked.

‘He had to know he was misleading the audience,’ Kerrey said quietly, recalling the newly minted president’s countless promises as Congress and the public debated his signature health insurance overhaul.

http://americanthinker.com/assets/3rd_party/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/03/where_did_the_peace_process_go.html

Check your newspaper, Twitter feed, or CNN. You will find the Malaysian airplane, Ukraine, the mudslide in Washington State, and in Washington, D.C. the terrible story of a missing 8-year-old girl. There is the occasional story about the Syrian civil war, the Central African Republic, or the declining U.S. defense budget. You are unlikely to learn much about the meeting between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and President Obama, or about the current state of Secretary of State Kerry’s “American Framework” for Israel-Palestinian peace.

The reason is that Secretary Kerry and the president have managed to alienate both sides at the same time, so they don’t want to talk about it. This takes some doing, so it is worth considering how they managed.

From Israel’s side, requirements for a peace deal with the Palestinians include a few points:

End of conflict; end of claims
The promises of U.N. Resolution 242
Israel’s capital in Jerusalem

End of Conflict; End of Claims is shorthand for “This is the last time we will have a negotiation over land, recognition, refugees or anything else. Whatever we give here and whatever you get here is the last thing.” It includes, inter alia, accepting the language of U.N. Resolution 181, which calls for the establishment of a Jewish State and an Arab State in Palestine. The Arab states voted against Res. 181 in 1947, and Israel has been waiting 67 years for them to correct the vote. This is part of why Israel wants the Arabs to accept Israel as the “Jewish State” – because the U.N. called it that.

So when Kerry says it’s counterproductive to insist, he is denying Israel’s requirement for legitimacy and the promise of “respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area.” If that language sounds familiar, it is because it comes straight from U.N. Resolution 242.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israeli robot treats sleeping Parkinson’s patient. The first ever Asleep Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) procedure was performed in Denver, Colorado using the Renaissance Guidance System developed by Israel’s Mazor Robotics. The 65-year-old patient, previously suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was responding well.
http://mazorrobotics.com/mazor-robotics-announces-worlds-first-renaissance-asleep-deep-brain-stimulation-procedure/

Cooperating to save lives. The two top Israeli lifesaving organizations Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah will now share data on all emergency calls. UH volunteers can arrive quickly on their ambucycles to treat the sick and injured. MDA staff in ambulances will then continue treatment and take patients to hospitals.
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Two-lifesaving-organizations-reach-accord-to-cooperate-on-saving-lives-345451

Using music to treat illness. (Thanks to NoCamels.com) Israeli nonprofit “Haverut” (meaning “friendship” in Hebrew) is introducing healing through music. Guitarist Navot Ben Barak and flutist Avshalom Eshel perform twice a week at the Hadassah Medical Center in Israel. Songs are chosen for each individual patient.
http://nocamels.com/2014/03/music-for-medicine-how-musicians-are-easing-the-pain-of-patients/

Hope for Lupus sufferers. Israeli biotech XTL Biopharmaceuticals is gearing up for a Phase II trial of its hCDR1 compound for the treatment of Lupus (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus – SLE). HCDR1 is the first new treatment for Lupus in 50 years and was given special orphan status by the United States FDA.
http://www.xtlbio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/XTLBIO-2014.03.25-New_Consultant_Release.pdf

IDF wins the fight against PTSD. (Thanks to Nevet – www.broaderview.org) Canadian army experts are looking at how the Israeli Defense Forces have successfully combated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The rate of suicides in the IDF is lower that of the national population, thanks to several key support practices.
http://www.cbc.ca/day6/episodes/2014/03/21/episode-174-how-israel-stops-military-suicides-crimea-and-cartography-cosmic-expansion-and-more/ http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1570377

New way to tackle ovarian cancer. (Thanks to NoCamels) Professor Dan Peer of Tel Aviv University has devised a cluster of nano-particles that use chemotherapy to directly target tumor cells. It has achieved a 25-fold improvement in effectiveness with a dramatic reduction in toxic effect on healthy organs.
http://nocamels.com/2014/03/tel-aviv-researchers-find-new-way-to-fight-ovarian-cancer/

How the Technion helps babies to breathe. More on the 3D scanner developed in the Geometric Image Processing Lab of Israel Technion Professor Ron Kimmel. (Baby mask reported in 11 Aug 2013 newsletter.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH8lGJu9etM&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgcVmCglwB0

Israel’s largest ER. The new 5,000-square-meter fortified emergency room at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva can treat 200,000 patients a year. It will relieve overstretched emergency rooms in other parts of the country, especially during the winter season. It cost NIS 90 million (about $26 million) to build.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4504102,00.html