RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/in-defense-of-netanyahu/

The left in Israel, the international and American media, students on many U.S. college campuses and anti-Semites everywhere think they have arrived at the moment they have been hoping for ever since Benjamin Netanyahu won his first election as prime minister in 1996. Labor unions in Israel have gone on strike, Ben-Gurion Airport was forced to close, some members of the military are threatening to quit and some civilians are refusing to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), all because Netanyahu is attempting to reform a judicial system that has been hostile to him, politically and personally.

On Monday, Netanyahu bowed to the pressure when he suspended his plan. He promised to “give a genuine opportunity for genuine dialogue. One way or another, we will bring about a reform that returns the balance that has been lost between branches of government.”

The motivation behind Netanyahu’s effort at judicial reform can be found in his autobiography, titled “Bibi.” In 2017, after demonstrators  showed up outside the home of then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, he acknowledged on TV that the charges the mob demanded Mandelblit impose on Netanyahu were “trivial” and “gossip.” Mandelblit opened a criminal investigation anyway.

Regardless of your opinions on the political developments in Israel, one can only be dazzled by the incredible contributions of Israel to the world cataloged by Michael Ordman. rsk

http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Breakthrough discovery about pancreatic cancer. (TY Nevet & I24) An international study let by Hebrew University researchers has discovered that pancreatic cancer spreads (metastasis) due to reduced levels of the RNA controlling protein RBFOX2. The finding provides a new target for pancreatic cancer treatments.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-735101
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05820-3
 
How the gut impacts cancer treatment. A Weizmann Institute-led international team of researchers has found how bacteria in the gut microbiome affects the body’s response to cancer immunotherapy (see also here previously). Also, patients treated with specific antibiotics had a poor response to CAR-T cancer treatment.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368694
 
Diagnosing pre-diabetes from gut microbes. Bar-Ilan University scientists have been able to early diagnose gestational diabetes – glucose intolerance that 10% of women suffer during pregnancy. Analysis of gut bacteria highlights inflammation even in the first trimester, giving vital time for treatment and lifestyle changes.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369075
 
No-pill treatment for acid reflux. (TY Hazel & Sidney) Specialists at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Centre have performed a simple endoscopic procedure, for the first time in Israel, that successfully treats patients suffering from heartburn acid reflux. It reconstructs a valve, avoiding more complex surgery or pills.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-734163
 
Hereditary disease treatment may cure statin pain. Researchers from Ben Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center developed Methylmevalonolactone to save sufferers of a rare deadly hereditary muscle disease. They are now testing it as a treatment for tens of thousands of sufferers of chronic muscle pain due to statins.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/muscle_disease.aspx  https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2217831120
https://nocamels.com/2023/03/new-israeli-drug-combats-deadly-muscular-disease/
 
Biological defibrillator. (TY Hazel & Sidney) Researchers at Rambam hospital and Israel’s Technion Institute have developed a biological receptor to treat heart rhythm disorders. If arrythmia is experienced, the patient takes medication that triggers the receptor to awaken the cells that regulate electrical activity in the heart.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-734381
 
The Waze of dental implants. (TY Israel21c) The Image Guided Implantology (IGI) system from Israel’s Image Navigation uses a CT scan and LED motion tracking to fix dental implants, even when a patient is moving. Red and green lights tell the dentist exactly where the drill tip is, thus reducing surgical treatment time.
https://jlm-biocity.org/image-navigation-to-launch-worlds-most-advanced-image-guided-dental-implant-technology/  https://image-navigation.com/
 
Laser treatment for jaw pain. (TY Israel21c) The cold laser therapy device from Israel’s B-Cure Laser treats many forms of pain due to inflammation. Two clinical trials in Italy proved its ability to treat pain in the jaw, known as chronic TMD and TMJ. Laser light promotes blood circulation to bring nutrients to affected muscles.
https://bcurelaser.com/temporo-mandibular-joint-disorder/
 
Remote lung analysis device approved. The US FDA has approved Tyto Insights™ for Wheeze Detection from Israel’s TytoCare (see here previously). The device uses a database of lung sounds to help clinicians accurately diagnose respiratory conditions remotely in adults and children aged 2+.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tytocare-receives-fda-clearance-for-its-ai-powered-tyto-insights-for-wheeze-detection-to-ensure-diagnostic-accuracy-from-home-301772786.html
 
Pioneering brain cooling saves Philippine woman. (TY UWI) Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital saved Philippine caregiver Nurila, who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Medication, catheter, and surgery didn’t stop blood flow, so her brain was cooled to 33 deg C for 8 days. The bleeding stopped and Nurila is now well.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-doctors-save-philippine-womans-life-with-new-brain-cooling-procedure/
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-734996
 

https://www.jns.org/opinion/saluting-the-unsung-heroes-of-the-israeli-air-force/

Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Tuesday evening that he was halting judicial-reform legislation to allow for dialogue between the coalition and opposition, the Israeli Air Force pilots who’ve been engaging in political extortion against the government said they’d return to duty. Their willingness to resume training exercises came with a caveat, however.

As one senior IAF officer warned, if the upshot of the negotiations taking place at the President’s Residence isn’t to their liking, his compatriots will resume their refusal to serve.

Though these cherished members of one of the Israel Defense Forces’ most crucial and elite branches not only crossed a red line—going so far as to threaten not to participate in a potential strike on Iran if their demands aren’t met—they’ve been let off the hook by their superiors.

The only one penalized was IAF Col. Gilad Peled. A key instigator of the pilots’ anti-government protest movement, he was discharged on March 9 for acting “contrary to the orders of the commander of the force and in a manner inappropriate to his rank and status.”

But the following day, IAF commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar reversed the decision to sack Peled, after the latter explained that he hadn’t encouraged any fellow Air Force personnel to refuse to serve. And IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi didn’t call either to task. On the contrary, he, too, has been listening to the “concerns” of the men and women in uniform ridiculously asserting that judicial reform will result in the destruction of Israeli democracy and the rise of a dictatorship.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/asking-the-biden-administration-to-provide-israel-with-the-weapons-it-needs/

Joe Biden has assured the world that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons “on my watch.” How much credence ought the people of Israel, who will be the ones most affected should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, give to this assurance? None at all. Israelis cannot entrust their national survival to assurances from Joe Biden and the Bidenites, who have yet to say how they would prevent that acquisition by Iran of nuclear weapons, by stating clearly that “we will use our military power to destroy all of Iran’s nuclear facilities” if Tehran enriches uranium beyond a certain point.

Israel is now preparing for an attack on Iran it hopes it will not ever have to launch. It hopes instead that the Supreme Leader and the rest of his regime will call a halt to their nuclear program before it reaches a stage which will require Israel to act.

Now 44 retired American generals and admirals have made public a letter to the President and to Congress, asking that Israel be supplied with advanced weapons for use in a possible attack on Iran. More on this letter’s contents can be found here: “To Prevent Nuclear Iran, US Should Arm Israel, Write 44 Retired Generals and Admirals,” JNS, March 21, 2023:

In a March 20 open letter issued by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), 44 retired U.S. generals and admirals asked the White House and Congress to “immediately provide Israel with the advanced weapons it needs to deter and prevent a nuclear Iran.”

“Iran is coming ever closer to crossing the nuclear threshold and, thereby, sparking a crisis in the Middle East,” according to the letter released by the Washington, D.C. nonprofit. It first appeared in The Hill on March 21.

The signatories added that Washington should apply lessons from the one-year-old conflict in Ukraine: “It’s vital to arm capable and willing partners facing regional threats, and best to do so before conflict erupts.”

“As retired American military leaders who devoted our lives to the defense of our nation, we prefer a diplomatic solution that would genuinely end the threat posed by Iran’s escalating nuclear program,” they wrote. “But no such deal is imminent, nor realistic.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/30/maga-right-knows-exactly-whats-up-in-israel/

JERUSALEM, Israel—What in the world is going on here? Political intrigue. A splintered conservative coalition. A fired minister. Soldiers disobeying orders to report for duty. “Day of Paralysis” protests with demonstrators shutting down traffic and a threatened general strike on the horizon. All of which is leading to a postponement, for now, of the government’s judicial reform proposal.

For the MAGA Right, it’s not hard at all to figure out what’s really happening. There’s no need at all to navigate the complex web of proposals, counter-proposals, cross-proposals, and compromise proposals on the issue.

We’ve seen it all before.

Start by substituting Israel’s with more familiar examples from our recent past. For example, substitute:

America’s practically self-parodying radical progressives and shrieking, harassing, and often-violent “Resistance” for Israel’s self-hating leftist parties and the protesters plaguing the land and storming police barricades outside the prime minister’s residence.
Card-carrying RINO members of the Washington uniparty for the Likud Members of the Knesset (MKs) deserting their party on its central issue, and White House staffers undermining the previous president for the Jewish State’s just- (and justly-) dismissed defense minister who led that charge.
Uncle Sam’s increasingly woke and limp military brass for the Israeli Defense Force members defying orders to report for duty—creating a “national security threat” cited by the defense minister in his waffle on reform.
An unaccountable U.S. Supreme Court taking on the role of super-legislature for Israel’s High Court of Justice—except that their judiciary has a lead role in appointing its own members, and its standard for overruling legislative enactments is even looser and more subjective, even as its role is more intrusive.
A rogue attorney general and Justice Department pursuing a two-tier justice system, and persecuting President Trump in particular on manufactured charges, for an Israeli counterpart similarly conjuring up crimes against that nation’s prime minister—except that this attorney is not even appointed by the government. Not to mention that rulings on the legitimacy of legislation by the government’s own “legal advisors” have the force of law.
And last but definitely not least, the beleaguered Donald Trump for the equally harassed, hounded, harried, hassled and hectored Benjamin Netanyahu—except that this assault has been prosecuted against the latter for the better part of two decades in and out of leadership.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/was-moshe-landau-a-fascist/

“[I]f the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made…the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers…”

Abraham Lincoln

Moshe Landau was President of Israel’s Supreme Court from 1980 to 1982. In 2000, he wrote of subsequent Supreme Court President Aharon Barak’s record of arrogating more and more power to the Court: “I think that… Barak has not, and does not, accept the rightful place that the court should have among the various authorities in our regime.… [Instead, he is seeking] to interject [into all areas of Israeli life] certain moral values as he deems appropriate. And this amounts to a kind of judicial dictatorship that I find completely inappropriate.”

Was Israel not a democracy during the four and a half decades before Barak’s ascent to the Supreme Court’s presidency and his choreographing what in short order became the court’s unlimited supremacy within Israel’s governmental system? Was Landau’s assessment completely wrong and his criticism of Barak an attempt to perpetuate prior anti-democratic governance? Was it only Barak’s establishing of judicial supremacy that rendered Israel finally a democracy?

This seems to be the conviction of the large numbers of Israelis who oppose judicial reform to rein in the power of the Supreme Court and who not only argue that reform will destroy Israel’s democracy (and not infrequently accuse its supporters of fascism), but who have demonstrated multiple times a week in the hundreds of thousands, closed down highways, blocked access to Ben-Gurion airport, vowed to refuse IDF reserve duty, sought to close the port of Haifa, picketed politicians’ homes and promoted mayhem in other ways, all in the service of blocking reform.

But, in fact, there is little in the Israeli Supreme Court’s present powers and prerogatives that resonates with the concept of democracy.

There is no precedent in Western democracies for a court to assert whatever authority it chooses over any aspect of a nation’s political life without any checks or balances.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-soars-to-fourth-place-in-world-happiness-index/

In the World Happiness Index, Israel has now soared from ninth to fourth place. It’s an astonishing result, given that Israelis must live with the daily threat of terrorism, the massive effort to delegitimize the state through endless UN resolutions, the relentless BDS campaign, and the threat from a state actor – Iran – that is working to acquire nuclear weapons that it intends to use on the Jewish state. More on Israel’s spectacular rise in the Happiness Index can be found here: “Israel soars to 4th place in global happiness list, highest since ranking started,” Times of Israel, March 20, 2023:

The UN-sponsored index, based on data from 2020-2022, predates the government’s divisive judicial overhaul plan. The list is again topped by Finland, with the US 15th, Britain 19th and France 21st.

Israelis are the happiest they’ve been in over a decade, the World Happiness rankings revealed on Monday, though the findings predated the widespread social upheaval over the government’s judicial overhaul program and therefore could not take it into account.

Israel’s 2023 fourth-place ranking, up from ninth last year, is its highest position since the UN-sponsored index began publication in 2012.

https://www.jns.org/whats-to-stop-the-next-government-from-reversing-judicial-reform/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a “timeout” on judicial reform to give dialogue a chance. He also promised his supporters that reform will get done. If negotiations fail, and the coalition pushes through reform anyway, the opposition has promised to reverse it once it’s at the helm.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party has repeatedly said, as he did in February at the Knesset, “On the day we return to power, all these changes will be canceled.… We will fight against all this insanity with all our strength.”

Two analysts JNS spoke with, despite holding opposite views about the reform, said that’s unlikely. Russell Shalev of the Kohelet Policy Forum, who supports the reform, and Amichai Cohen of the Israel Democracy Institute, who opposes it, agree that the opposition will not want to give up the reform’s benefits because the reform takes power away from judges and gives it to elected officials. Politicians would, therefore, have an incentive to uphold the new system.

“The basic idea behind all these reform proposals is democratic accountability—increasing the public’s ability to decide on the policies that influence our faith, our politics, our country,” Shalev told JNS. He noted that the most important proposal advanced so far, up until Netanyahu froze the legislative process on Monday, was a bill to change how judges are selected by nullifying judges’ control over the Judicial Selection Committee.

“The reform gives the public [through its elected officials] the ability to appoint judges. So I have a hard time believing that should this be passed in the future, a left-wing government will give up its newfound power to decide who will be the judges,” he said.