RUTHFULLY YOURS

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

At the start of a new calendar year, Israelis continue to bring new innovations into the world to benefit humanity. A new heart implant, a new treatment for Parkinson’s, a new sleep quality analyzer, and a successful Israeli cancer treatment is launched. New social initiatives include for the disabled, Arab-Israeli coexistence and public diplomacy. New technology for solar cells, renewable energy storage, smart mobility, cyber security, animal-free meat, healthy soil and optical lenses. New programs and deals to generate and expand Israeli businesses. New cultural, entertainment and sporting successes. There are so many new reasons to look forward to a Very Good 2022. Michael Ordman

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Implant for congestive heart failure patients. Israel’s Restore Medical develops the ContraBand implant that uses the patient’s Left Ventrical to assist a failing Right Ventrical for the treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF). It has just announced promising preliminary results of its First-in-Human clinical trials.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/12/01/israels-restore-medical-announces-first-in-human-trial-of-heart-failure-treatment/   https://restoremedical.co/
 
Boost for Parkinson’s treatment. Back in 2013 (see here previously) Tel Aviv University researchers found that the sugar substitute mannitol could protect the brain against Parkinson’s disease. But a trial could not get funding. So, entrepreneur and Parkinson’s sufferer Dan Vesely co-founded and crowdfunded CliniCrowd.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/318928    https://clinicrowd.info/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo6z6OQsBRM
 
Israel starts trial of 4th vaccination. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has begun the first study in the world of the efficacy of administering a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The 6,000 participants include 150 medical personnel who had a 3rd dose in August. They will receive the Pfizer vaccine.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-hospital-to-begin-study-on-efficacy-of-4th-covid-vaccine-dose/
 
How plants fight infections. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have identified the complex way that plant bacteria fight off infections from viruses known as phages. A protein in the bacteria calls another protein to destroy a molecule inside itself that the phage needs to replicate. The cell dies but it stops the infection.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/bacteria-and-plants-fight-alike
 
Monitor your sleep at home. (TY Hazel) No need to go to a sleep lab to analyze your sleep problems. The electrophysiological measurement solution from Israel’s X-trodes (see here previously) is ideal for home use. Its smart skin electrodes measure brainwaves, eye movement, skeletal muscles, cardiac activity and more.
https://www.israel21c.org/skip-the-sleep-lab-and-go-wireless-at-home/
 
9 top digital health companies. (TY Hazel) CB Insights has named nine Israeli-based health-tech startups in its 2021 Top 150 Digital Health Companies transforming healthcare. They include Vocalis, Sweetch, DiA Imaging, B.Well, C2I Genomics, Lumen, Nym Health, Theator and Empathy.
https://www.israel21c.org/8-israeli-startups-make-cb-insights-top-150-list/   https://b-well.co.il/  (Hebrew)
 
Israeli startups transforming telehealth. Some more innovative Israeli healthcare startups. Those not previously reported in this newsletter are medFlyt (caregiver management) and Sivan Innovation (Moovcare patient / physician communications) https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3921246,00.html  
https://www.medflyt.com/  https://vimeo.com/469424965  https://www.sivan-innovation.com/
 
$17 million for digital health. Israel has budgeted NIS 55 million for hospitals and health organizations etc., to build the digital infrastructure required for anonymized medical data sharing. It will spearhead major advances in groundbreaking research and innovative development by Israeli healthcare startups and research scientists.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-earmarks-17m-for-new-digital-health-innovation-program/
 
Cancer treatment goes into space. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off for the International Space Station carrying a smart laboratory developed by Israel’s SpacePharma. It will test Doxil from Israel’s Ayana to see its effect on cells in zero gravity. Doxil is the first nanotechnology cancer treatment approved by the US FDA.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3925795,00.html

Israel’s contributions to the US enhance 2022
 https://bit.ly/3eASNDs
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”

As 2022 begins, Israel is the most critical partner of the US in sustaining its edge over China, Russia, Europe and Japan in the development and manufacturing of game-changing commercial and military technologies.

In 2022, with merely 0.11% of the global population, Israel will remain second only to – and closely collaborating with – the US as far as the development of ground-breaking hightech innovations. Moreover, Israel’s brainpower has attracted 20% of the global investment in cyber technologies, while the number Israel’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) startups account to some 20% of the global total.

In 2022, Israel will be second only to the US in the development and manufacturing of commercial, military and dual-use intelligence technologies and systems (e.g., remote-control jammers, counter-IED and booby-trap measures, remote-control explosives neutralization, electronic warfare and electromagnetic spectrum). In fact, around 60% of Israeli-developed intelligence and counter-terrorism systems have reached the US through joint ventures with leading US manufacturers, US-owned research and development centers in Israel, and US acquisitions from Israeli manufacturers.  

For example, hacking into the iPhone of the San Bernardino Islamic terrorist (who murdered 14 people at a Christmas celebration in December 2015) was facilitated by an Israeli mobile forensic technology used by the FBI.  Also, the 2006 killing of the top al-Qaeda terrorist in Iraq, al-Zarqawi, was facilitated by the Israeli-developed and manufactured (“Rafael Armament Development Authority”) Litening infrared targeting and navigation pod, installed on a US Air Force F-16.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/bassem-eid-israel-best-place-be-arab-hugh-fitzgerald/

Bassem Eid is a Palestinian living in Israel who has had an extensive career as a human rights activist. His initial focus was on human rights violations committed by Israeli armed forces, but for many years he has broadened his research to include human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the Palestinian armed forces, on their own people. He founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group in 1996, which closed in 2011, for lack of any cooperation from the Palestinian Authority. He now works as a political analyst for Israeli TV and radio.

Bassem Eid is one of a handful of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs – another is Khaled Abu Toameh — who dare to tell the truth about Israel, which means they seldom get their articles republished abroad in the mainstream media which wants only damning stories about the mistreatment of Arabs by the Jewish state. His latest piece, titled “Israel – The Best Place To Be An Arab” — on how Arabs actually fare in Israel, as opposed to how they are said to fare by, inter alia, the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council, the E.U., Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Roger Walters, and many others – is here: “Israel – the best place to be an Arab,” by Bassem Eid, Times of Israel, December 22, 2021:

Although Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, it is home to a free and thriving Arab community. For decades, anti-Israel activists have decried Israel as an illegitimate state which represses Arabs and Muslims. Israel has been incorrectly labeled as a state for “settler colonialism” and apartheid. These baseless claims could not be further from the truth.

Researchers have conducted surveys to shine a light on the true treatment of Arabs living in Israel. According to these surveys, there is a growing trend of Israeli Arabs ditching their former Palestinian identity and starting to identify more heavily with their Israeli nationality. This switch in national identity is great news for everyone who holds a stake in the Middle East. It proves that Arabs have been able to call Israel home, while Israel is able to maintain its Jewish majority. Despite being the world’s only Jewish state, Israel is a welcoming, diverse country that boasts a thriving Arab population.

https://mailchi.mp/9069ce42b2cf/trailblazing-israels-good-news-newsletter-to-26th-dec-21?e=cf31c34057

At the end of the civil year, Israelis continue trailblazing. Medical successes include amorphous calcium to treat coronavirus; completed trials of a Parkinson’s treatment; remote heart monitoring of babies; rollout of a next-generation X-ray machine, IVF support for UK mothers and vital signs monitoring for 50 million users. Israeli initiatives have improved the prospects for women and Christians, typhoon victims in the Philippines, cybersecurity, pollution-free energy and an end to world hunger. Technological trailblazing has produced game-changing nano-materials, vertical farms, pizza-making robots, sustainable packaging and micro turbines. The UAE is promoting Israeli technology, unemployment is down and the demand for Israeli skills is at an all-time high. To cap it all, an Israeli has won two World swimming gold medals, Ukraine has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli archaeologists made some earth-shattering discoveries.  For the road ahead, Israel is definitely on the fast track.  See the amazing details below.   Michael Ordman

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Covid is not what it seems. Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have found that coronavirus patients have damaged mitochondria in the blood, but not in the lungs. They now urge a medical re-think, in that it is the immune system that needs treating and that antioxidants may be more effective than respiratory medications.  
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-study-urges-rethink-of-covids-nature-indicates-antioxidants-may-help/
 
Amorphous calcium to treat Covid-19. (TY Hazel) 18 COVID-19 patients hospitalized with moderate or severe symptoms were treated with Amor-18 from Israel’s Amorphical (see here previously). All recovered and were discharged in a few days. https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/article-689543  
https://www.amorphical.com/ongoing-clinical-research/
 
Parkinson’s treatment success. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Pharma Two B (see here in 2015) has successfully completed the Phase 3 human trial of its P2B001 treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. The trial met its primary and key secondary endpoints, and the company can now prepare for US FDA approval.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-689352
 
$5 million grant to test Alzheimer’s treatment. Israel’s ImmunoBrain Checkpoint (see here previously) has been awarded a grant of $5 million over 3 years to support human clinical trials of IBC-Ab002, for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Development was based on Weizmann Institute immune system studies.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/immunobrain-checkpoint-awarded-5-million-us-nia-grant-for-phase-1b-alzheimer-s-disease/  
 
Monitoring babies’ hearts at home. (TY Hazel) The partnership between Israel’s Datos Health and Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has progressed to at-home monitoring of babies born with complex heart malformations. Babies monitored include in the Palestinian Authority, Gaza, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Cyprus.
https://www.israel21c.org/babies-with-fragile-hearts-now-can-be-monitored-remotely/  
https://datos-health.com/
 
Link between sleep and the gut. Scientists at Haifa University and the Technion Institute have found a link between bacteria in the gut and sleep patterns.  Those that eat fatty foods tend to be night owls, whereas those that have a high fiber diet tend to be early risers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gut-tweak-can-make-everyone-a-morning-person-israeli-poop-analysis-suggests/  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34695305/
 
3D digital X-ray imaging. Israel’s Nanox (see here previously) has delivered the first of its next-generation X-ray machines to Israel’s Shamir Medical Center in Tzifrin. The Nanox.ARC uses low-radiation X-rays to produce high-resolution 3-D digital images, previously only available from expensive CT scans.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/first-in-world-pilot-of-new-x-ray-machine-to-fast-diagnose-covid-pneumonia-687614
 
Preventing errors in the ICU. The virtual reality simulator from Israel’s DecideVR identifies decision-making errors by doctors in medical treatment in intensive care units (ICU). The platform, developed by Professor Alex Mintz, formerly of Herzliya’s Reichman University, currently focuses on life-saving cardiovascular decisions.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3925317,00.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1juJL6YSX0
 
Helping to tackle infertility in the UK. Israel’s AiVF (see here previously) has received regulatory approval to sell its IVF analysis platform product in the United Kingdom – one of the largest IVF markets in Europe. It can predict, without the need for a biopsy, whether a given embryo is genetically suitable for transfer.
https://worldisraelnews.com/israeli-tech-to-help-tackle-infertility-in-uk/
 
The selfie that could save your life. Israel’s Binah.ai (see here previously) has come a long way in the last 18 months. Some 50 million customers of the world’s top insurance companies now use Binah’s remote health and wellness monitoring platform to measure vital signs, from the changes in the reflection of light on facial skin.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/this-selfie-could-save-your-life/

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-689633

 
For the second time since April, Ra’am (United Arab List) Party leader Mansour Abbas has caused the jaws of critics and supporters alike to drop in near disbelief, for a similar reason. The first followed his success in the last round of Knesset elections on March 23. The second occurred at the Globes Israel Business Conference on Tuesday.

In some ways, the former was more groundbreaking. In a speech broadcast live in Hebrew on all of Israel’s TV channels, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamist faction performed two major feats. One was to declare his intention to further the interests of his constituents through cooperation and coexistence with the Jews in the country of his citizenship. The other was to omit all mention of the Palestinians.

He delivered the address on April 1 in Nazareth, with the green banner of the Islamic Movement, not the Israeli flag, as a backdrop. But he quoted a conciliatory passage from the Koran, and announced: “I, Mansour Abbas, a man of the Islamic Movement, am a proud Arab and Muslim, a citizen of the state of Israel, who heads the leading, biggest political movement in Arab society, courageously champion a vision of peace, mutual security, partnership and tolerance between the peoples.”

His lack of customary lip service to the Palestinian struggle against the Jewish state was equally noteworthy for its novelty.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-christian-community-is-growing-84-satisfied-with-life-here-report/

Pre-Christmas study finds high education levels, contrasts with warnings from Church leaders that ‘radical’ Israeli groups are driving Christians from Holy Land

  More and more young Israeli Christians are joining the Israeli military and rejecting the Arab identity which was forced on them by the Muslims during the last few centuries. They now identify as Aramaic Christian Israelis, not Arabs.  And this report ignores the Aramaic Christians, labeling them as Arabs – a label they reject.)

According to the CBS, Christians make up about 1.9% of Israel’s population and grew by 1.4% in 2020.

Christians make up 7% of Israel’s Arab population, and 76.7% of Christians in Israel are Arab. The largest Arab Christian population centers in Israel are Nazareth (21,400), Haifa (16,500) and Jerusalem (12,900).

Among non-Arab Christians, the majority lived in the Tel Aviv area.

The statistics revealed that Arab Christian women had some of the highest education rates in the country.

northern city of Nazareth on December 18, 2021. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

Israel’s Christian community grew by 1.4 percent in 2020 and numbers some 182,000 people, with 84% saying they were satisfied with life in the country, the Central Bureau of Statistics said in a report released ahead of Christmas.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/after-20-years-blindness-nazareth-arab-gets-her-hugh-fitzgerald/

When the settler-colonial apartheid state of Israel is not making Gaza into an open-air prison, or setting up illegal settlements between the Jordan and the sea, or blighting the lives of the Palestinians whose lands they have stolen, or attacking Palestinian civilians without warning and with no conceivable justification, or poisoning the wells of inoffensive Palestinian farmers, or makes plans for its long-delayed expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates, it sometimes does things – oh, hell, it is always doing things — that contradict these malignant tales. One such example, about Hana Awad, a blind Arab lady from Nazareth who had her sight restored by path-breaking Israeli doctors, was made public in mid-December.

The report on this medical miracle is here: “Blind Woman Regains Eyesight at Israeli Hospital With Artificial Cornea Carved From Her Shin Bone,” by Sharon Wrobel, Algemeiner, December 15, 2021:

A blind woman has regained her eyesight after 20 years following a first-of-its-kind surgery at an Israeli hospital.

The rare procedure carried out at Israel’s Beilinson hospital restored the sight of 60-year-old Hanan Awad from Nazareth, who suffered from a severe corneal disease which led to her blindness. During the complex surgery, which was performed for the first time at an Israeli hospital, a piece of bone from Awad’s leg and an artificial cornea were implanted in her eye.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18038/palestinian-schools

The young terrorists have been brainwashed by Palestinian leaders and “scholars” spewing hate against Israel and Jews on a daily basis.

In addition, they are being assured that anyone who dies while carrying out a terrorist attack against Jews is a “martyr” whose place in heaven is guaranteed.

IMPACT-se found that Palestinian leaders have failed to fulfill their promise to Western donors to change the textbooks. The study showed, in fact, that the newly published textbooks were even more radical than previous ones.

“There is a systematic insertion [in Palestinian textbooks] of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies are widespread throughout the curriculum, including science and math textbooks. The possibility of peace with Israel is rejected.” — Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), May 2021.

The textbooks demonize Israel, and the Jews are maligned and presented as a rival of the prophet of Islam. “In short, there is no encouragement towards coexistence throughout the entire curriculum,” according to the study.

This is the poison that is being injected into the hearts and minds of Palestinians at the very moment that the Biden administration continues to talk about funding the Palestinian Authority and the need to revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Biden administration is prattling on about peace and a “two-state solution” while Palestinian leaders are doing their utmost to prepare the next generation to stick more knives into Jews.

A Palestinian teacher and three school children were directly involved in the recent spate of terror attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank. This came as little surprise to those familiar with the ongoing hate and incitement against Israel in Palestinian schools and textbooks, as well as in the media, mosques and university campuses.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/poll-93-palestinian-arabs-jerusalem-prefer-israeli-hugh-fitzgerald/

As is well known, kak izvestno, comme nous le savons tous, come sappiamo tutti, Israel is surely a hell on earth, a nasty little Sparta always picking fights with its inoffensive neighbors, a settler-colonial state erected on stolen land, an apartheid state that blights the lives of innocent Palestinians, a vicious statelet that makes of Gaza an open-air prison, a neighborhood bully that routinely thumbs its nose at the international community, which just the other day at the UN passed nine resolutions denouncing Israel for its mistreatment of the Palestinians, its illegal settlements, its brutal settlers, its wolfish inhumanity. Who can not feel sympathy for Israeli Arabs, or for Palestinian Arabs living in places like East Jerusalem, who must want so desperately to be free at last from the endless oppression of the Zionists? What can one say, confronted with such cruelty? Oh, the humanity!

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that farcical riff or idiotic niffnoff out of the way, the idiocy that Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour, Peter Beinart, and Roger Waters, among so many others, want you to believe, let’s have a salutary dose of reality, shall we?