RUTHFULLY YOURS

The very first newsletter from Israel in 5783 is Michael Ordman’s weekly compilation of Israel’s dazzling contributions to the health and welfare of the entire world in science, medicine, technology and rescue institutions. This adds considerably to wishes for a sweet new year. Rsk

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israeli-led European cancer consortium. Professors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Hadassah Cancer Research Institute are leading CanceRNA – a European consortium working to develop novel immunotherapy treatments for cancer. The consortium will initially focus on treating acute myeloid leukemia.

https://www.jns.org/israelis-lead-intl-hunt-for-innovative-cancer-treatments/   

Turning cancer into a chronic disease. Ofer Shalev, Founder & CEO at Israel’s New Phase (see here previously) spoke at CTech’s Mind the Tech NY Conference.  New Phase’s hyperthermic therapy reduces cancer from Stage 4 to Stage 2 so patients can live with a better quality of life. Clinical trials have started.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bjux3bn11j  https://newphase.co.il/clinical-trials/

The full picture of cancer diagnosis. (TY UWI) The death of his mother led Dean Bitan to found Israel’s Imagene (see here previously). The startup has developed tech that can conduct a full molecular analysis on a digitized biopsy image in real time and give a result in minutes, instead of the current situation of a few weeks.

https://www.israel21c.org/diagnosing-cancer-from-biopsies-in-minutes-not-weeks/

Finding the right antidepressant. Israel’s Genetika+ is developing a precision tool to determine if a particular antidepressant will work for an individual. It will also apparently highlight any side effects. (See also Taliaz.)

https://nocamels.com/2022/09/brain-in-a-dish-tech-antidepressant/  https://www.genetikaplus.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oovQR2j1M8

Algae for mind and body. A recent clinical study has shown that AstaPure Arava® by Israel’s Solabia- Algatech Nutrition benefits the immune system and lowers stress. It boosts the gut microbiome while lowering the stress hormone cortisol. The result is a much better resistance to infections.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/astapure-arava-microalgae-astaxanthin-shows-beneficial-mind-body-effects-301624135.html

A new center for neuroscience. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center is partnering with Thomas Jefferson University in the USA, to promote neuroscience research and clinical treatment at both institutions. It includes construction of a cutting-edge neuroscience center on Sheba’s Tel HaShomer campus, targeted to open in late 2024.

https://www.jns.org/sheba-medical-center-thomas-jefferson-university-to-build-neuroscience-center/

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-717825

The names of the perpetrators of the war against the Jews have changed since the Nazi era but those who support terrorists and entities who wish to destroy Israel have the same goal: Holocaust.

In response to the recent closure of seven anti-Israel Palestinian NGOs for supporting terrorist organizations, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned Israel, claiming that there was no evidence of wrong-doing. But their work is not secret, nor is their message: Israel is a racist, Nazi, Apartheid state. Resistance (violence and terrorism) against Israeli Jews, therefore, is not only legitimate, it’s a sacred duty.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas described the work of the NGOs: “to expose the occupation and its crimes against our people.” They are part of a strategy to promote a global intifada against Israel led by Iran, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, the most influential organization for Muslims. The Brotherhood backs Hamas and operates throughout the world and in North America via many front groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and student groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). It is the basis for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and other organizations that seek to isolate, demonize and destroy Israel.

Abbas acknowledged that the seven NGOs are Palestinian institutions, which operate according to Palestinian law, and he offered them offices in the PLO headquarters in Ramallah.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-717948

When 28-year-old Mousa Sarsour from the Kalkilya area of the Palestinian Authority bludgeoned to death 84-year-old Shulamit Rachel Ovadia in Holon on Tuesday evening, it took the Israel Police hours to determine that the killing of the married, mother-of-three was “nationalistically motivated.”

This euphemism for anti-Jewish terrorism was created to distinguish it from regular criminal violence.

Due to the current wave of the former, most Israelis assumed that Ovadia, who had been battered repeatedly with a steel pipe or other blunt object, was a random target of a terrorist out for Jewish blood. Security forces realized it, too, when they discovered that the perpetrator hadn’t even stolen the victim’s wallet.

After a night-long manhunt, the suspect, who was identified through CCTV footage, was found dead in the center of Tel Aviv. It turned out that he had hanged himself in an abandoned apartment building.

Due to the uncharacteristic nature of the attack – which involved suicide, but only after the fact – Israeli authorities are baffled. An investigation into Sarsour’s background doesn’t seem to have cleared up their confusion.

But it appears to be providing a few go-to excuses for their inability to have prevented the evil deed in the first place. Let’s start with the main one, gleaned from interrogations of Sarsour’s family members and acquaintances: that he suffered from mental health problems.

Naturally. Why else would someone described by one of his relatives as a “very shy and quiet person” prey on an elderly woman walking home from a nearby grocer after doing some Rosh Hashanah shopping?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18923/palestinians-syria

A report published on September 18 revealed that 638 Palestinians have been tortured to death by Syrian intelligence officers in the past few years. The victims include 37 women.

“What is happening inside the Syrian detention centers against the Palestinians is a war crime by all standards.” — Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS), September 18, 2022.

AGPS also revealed that 4,121 Palestinians have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the civil war there.

The fate of 1,797 Palestinian detainees, including 110 women, remains unknown despite repeated appeals to the Syrian authorities.

By rushing to embrace the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hamas, whose leaders control the Gaza Strip from their luxurious villas, hotel suites and spas in Qatar and Turkey, has again shown its contempt for the Palestinians and other Arabs who have fallen victim to the atrocities committed by the Syrian authorities, especially over the past decade.

Iran’s mullahs want to make sure that their terrorist proxies and the Assad regime remain on good terms. The mullahs are hoping that the renewal of ties between Hamas and Syria will strengthen the Iranian-led “axis of resistance” in the Middle East. The “axis of resistance” refers to an anti-Western/anti-Israeli/anti-Saudi political and military alliance between Iran, the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.

Hamas… apparently has no problem embracing an Arab regime that has so much Palestinian blood on its hands.

The Hamas embrace of the Assad regime is yet another example of how Palestinian leaders care nothing about their own people, let alone the lives of other Arabs.

The leaders of Hamas, who are living the good life in Qatar and Turkey, are much more interested in stuffing their coffers with money from the mullahs in Iran than in seeing the suffering of their people in the Gaza Strip or in any Arab country, including Syria.

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority are not much different. They too are preoccupied with looking after their personal interests and making sure that they remain in power forever.

Shortly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will head to the United Nations General Assembly to spew yet more venom against Israel. The plight of his people in Syria and other Arab countries will be at the very bottom of his list of priorities, if at all. Like Hamas, Abbas too does not seem to care if his people are being slaughtered by an Arab dictatorship.

A report published on September 18 revealed that 638 Palestinians have been tortured to death by Syrian intelligence officers in the past few years. The victims include 37 women, according to the report by the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS), a human rights watchdog that monitors the situation of Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria.

http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

I fear that sometimes I sound like Jinny-one-note when repeating the enormous and outsize contribution of Israel’s state of the art technology, science, medicine, agriculture, water recycling and preservation, and social institutions that improve the lives and hopes of millions on every continent. All these achievements are catalogued weekly by Michael Ordman.

What is so dispiriting is the fact that Israel, a real freewheeling and diverse democracy threatened by faith driven tyrants with genocidal intent is also subjected to unending and unfounded libels and insults in academia, the media and the corridors of power in Western nations.

The Boycott, Divest, Sanction -the B.D.S. is a prime example.

B.D.S really means Berate, Defame, and Slander.  

On a more joyful note, next week we celebrate survival against all odds for 5782 years. L’Chaim! To Life!   rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Oral insulin reduces liver fat. Israel’s Oramed (see here previously) has reported that its ORMD-0801 oral insulin candidate successfully reduced the liver fat in its Phase 2 trial on Type 2 diabetes patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (“NASH”).  There were no safety issues in the double-blind, multi-center trial.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oramed-reports-positive-top-line-results-from-phase-2-nash-trial-with-its-ormd-0801-oral-insulin-candidate-301623054.html
 
Blood test for colon and pancreatic cancer. (TY Hazel) Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have developed a blood test to detect colorectal cancer, which is normally found through an invasive test, and pancreatic cancer, which has no single diagnostic test. The proof of concept is now to be taken to trials.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-new-israeli-blood-test-could-detect-pancreatic-colorectal-cancers/
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/359363 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-022-01447-3
 
Transforming cancer diagnosis. (TY NoCamels) Israel’s Ibex Medical Analytics (see here previously) has launched a new cancer detection platform – Galen 3.0 with improved AI algorithms to detect cancer in prostate, breast and gastric biopsies. It also calculates the aggressiveness of prostate cancer, reducing time and errors.
https://ibex-ai.com/galen-3-0-announcement/
 
83 cancer research grants. The Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) has awarded 83 cancer research grants (28 new and 55 continuing) worth almost $5 million for the 2022-2023 funding year. ICRF’s funding has now
reached 2,730 grants totaling more than $87.5 million.
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/September-Newsletter–New-Grants-Announced–ICRF-Researcher-Predicts-End-to-Childhood-Cancer.html?soid=1101179113160&aid=GbdFVS7Qn8M
 
Covid-19 variant vaccines arrive. (TY Hazel) Israel has taken delivery of second-generation coronavirus vaccines, updated to better battle new variants. They are expected to be in clinics by the end of September. The international scientific community is again looking to see how well these new vaccines protect Israelis.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israelis-to-start-getting-new-variant-tailored-shots-by-end-of-month-covid-czar/
 
Diagnosing Parkinson’s at the cellular level. A Haifa University-led team of international scientists has discovered a method to identify early Parkinson’s Disease cases. Brain cells of PD patients die when they disconnect from the extracellular matrix. Early detection and subsequent treatment could halt this process.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-716881  
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-022-00366-z
 
Make your time more productive. (TY UWI) Israeli-US startup Hour25.ai has developed an app that learns and monitors a user’s activity patterns and gives an alert whenever it detects inactivity, fatigue or distraction. It then suggests a personalized intervention, e.g., take a walk, or perform an optional exercise.
https://www.israel21c.org/how-to-improve-waning-focus-at-work-and-school/   https://www.hour25.ai/
 
A helping hand. (TY Hazel) Israel’s 6Degrees (see here previously) has made significant progress with its MyMove wristband that allows people who can’t use their hands to operate any phone, laptop, or tablet. It includes having Tel Aviv municipality adopt the wristband to help people with disabilities come back to work.
https://nocamels.com/2022/09/no-hands-no-problem-wristband-lets-you-use-any-smart-device/
 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-717262

The killing on Wednesday morning of the deputy commander of the IDF Nahal Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion is the latest example of the cost of the Israeli military’s purity-of-arms code. An upstanding officer by all accounts, Maj. Bar Falah lost his life as a result of top brass adherence to “The Spirit of the Israel Defense Forces,” the IDF’s official doctrine of ethics.

The discussion of the danger posed to Israeli soldiers forced to confront enemies with no scruples is not a new one in the Jewish state. Debates about it have been conducted for decades.

But the issue catapulted to international headlines last week when the administration in Washington admonished Israel to rethink its rules of engagement. Of course, President Joe Biden and his team weren’t suggesting that the security of the country with which they claim to have an “unbreakable bond” would be better served by shedding some of its military ethics in favor of self-preservation.

No, the White House and State Department had the opposite idea: that Israel should increase its combat morality. This chutzpah would beggar belief if it hadn’t emerged in the wake of the IDF’s conclusion earlier this month of a probe into the May 11 death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin.

Abu Akleh, a Christian Arab-American resident of east Jerusalem, was struck down while she was covering a clash between Israeli security forces and Palestinian gunmen in what has become a hotbed of Palestinian terrorism. Rather than bemoan the tragedy of a member of the press being caught in a deadly crossfire, the Palestinian Authority and its supporters in the international media promptly accused the IDF soldiers on the scene of cold-blooded murder.

Even PA President Mahmoud Abbas knew this was a lie, regardless of whether the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was from an IDF weapon or one used by a Palestinian terrorist. It was clear to all concerned, other than those whose hatred of Israel outweighs all integrity, that no Israeli soldier would – or did – take aim at a person with the word “PRESS” clearly marked on his or her flak jacket.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18901/mahmoud-abbas-palestinian-terrorists
One thing is for sure. Abbas will not tell his audience at the UN that members of his ruling Fatah faction are running wild in the West Bank, where they are carrying out terrorist attacks against Palestinian activists and Palestinian journalists as well as Israelis on an almost daily basis.

Abu Jildeh and al-Nabulsi are among several Fatah terrorists killed or apprehended in recent weeks. These terrorists belong to the Palestinian faction that is often described by Westerners as a “moderate” group. The commander of these terrorists is none other than Mahmoud Abbas, who, in addition to his role as Palestinian Authority president, is also chairman of Fatah.

Abbas’s terrorists, carrying various types of guns and explosive devices, are roaming the streets of the two cities and openly declaring their support for terrorism.

The terrorists are mostly associated with Fatah’s armed group, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Another Fatah-affiliated group that recently emerged on the streets of Nablus calls itself the Lion’s Den.

The Fatah terrorists have carried out several attacks against both Palestinians and Israelis over the past few months. Many of the terrorists are also known to cooperate with the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Islamist terror groups.

The Aqsa Martyrs Brigades even boasted of the terrorist attacks in a statement. The group also vowed to continue the terror attacks.

Abbas and the Fatah leadership continue to glorify the terrorists. Abbas, in addition, has refused to rein in or disarm the terrorists.

So far as Abbas and other Palestinian leaders are concerned, Palestinian lawyers, journalists and activists who seek freedom, as well as Jews. should just lie back and accept the daily terrorist attacks against them. Abbas cries “terrorism” only if Israel kills or captures a terrorist.

This is the same Abbas who will appear at the UN General Assembly soon to again play the role of victim and accuse Israel of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.” Since he came to power in 2005, Abbas has made it a habit to lie to the UN and other international parties.

Meanwhile, Abbas knows full well that his incitement against Israel has been so effective, that if he ever did make peace with Israel, his own people would execute him for being a traitor.

Abbas, of course, will not mention the Fatah terrorists during his upcoming speech at the UN. He will also not talk about the rampant corruption in his government and the failure of the Palestinian security forces to carry out their duty to enforce law and order and prevent terrorism.

The UN member states should prepare themselves for another Abbas list of lies and libels, assigning blame to everyone but himself for the ongoing bloodshed. It would be helpful if one of the member states’ representatives interrupted Abbas’s litany to inquire about the role of his loyalists in terrorism and how it is that he continues to praise terrorists while claiming that the Palestinians supposedly seek peace.