RUTHFULLY YOURS

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?

https://www.jns.org/opinion/coronavirus-double-speak/

 JNS) Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s announcement on Sunday evening of additional steps to confront the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus illustrates how easily government policies can be inherently contradictory.
Even when giving the benefit of the doubt to hysterical health authorities—and refraining from the natural inclination to suspect ulterior motives for fanning the flames of a crisis—it’s hard not to be disdainful of the double-speak surrounding anything coronavirus-related. This isn’t exclusive to Israeli decision-makers, of course. No, the hysteria is so infectious that it’s been spreading across the globe faster than the pandemic.
But Israel is what one Pfizer executive called a “sort of laboratory.” Though the pharmaceutical giant’s chief scientific officer, Philip Dormitzer, was referring to the Jewish state’s vaccine drive, the same has been said about other elements of the war against the microbe and its mutations. These include stringent lockdowns, imposed early on and more than once by the previous government, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ironically, the crushing of businesses and people’s spirits executed in the name of public health contributed greatly to electoral defeats, including Netanyahu’s, and caused serious dissatisfaction with leaders everywhere. This was inevitable.
When the economy and morale sink, the person at the helm is blamed for it. This was true of former President Donald Trump, who was criticized for being too dismissive of the dangers of the virus, and it was equally the case where Netanyahu was concerned, although he took the exact opposite approach to that of Trump.
Indeed, despite his staunch free-market outlook, Netanyahu, like many Israelis, can’t seem to shake the nanny-state mentality when it comes to dictating regulations for the good of the populace. In this respect, the Bennett-led coalition is worse—not necessarily in practice, but in ideology—because contains factions that actually believe in centralism, not merely revert to it out of cultural habit.

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Targeting a cause of ALS. Scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed an experimental molecule that breaks down the protein TDP-43, a key cause of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). TDP-43 causes motor neurons to degenerate. The new molecule enabled motor neuron activity to be restored and opens the door to an ALS cure.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-university-breakthrough-touted-as-key-to-reversing-als/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27221-8#Sec46

Slowing dementia. Tel Aviv University scientists have made progress in developing a treatment using the NAP peptide to counter Alzheimer’s and other neurological conditions (see here previously). Their new compound dramatically decreased the excessive buildup of the protein tau, which misfolds in Alzheimer’s patients.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-drug-candidate-slows-alzheimers-causing-protein-in-mouse-brains/

https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(21)01630-9/fulltext

Blood test for early cancer detection. An Israeli-led team of scientists have developed a blood test that analyzes fragments of DNA to determine the impact of the immune system. The test is like a liquid biopsy and can detect cancer early in remote tissues, e.g., bone marrow, lymph nodes and other organs.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-scientists-say-new-test-can-gauge-vaccine-response-before-antibodies-form/   https://elifesciences.org/articles/70520

Identifying high-risk hospital patients. Tel Aviv University Professor Noam Shomron has developed an AI tool that interprets routine hospital blood tests to assess patients at danger levels in the case of blood infection.  The tool is shortly to be trialed at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/life-saving-israeli-tech-helps-id-patients-most-at-risk-from-blood-infections/

Designing antibodies to fight disease. Israel’s Biolojic Design is developing an AI platform to generate antibodies that have specific targets and biological effects. It instructs the immune system to precisely attack the causes of disease, such as the mechanism underlying autoimmune disease, cancer or diabetes.

https://www.biolojic.com/  https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3922316,00.html

Smart bandage to heal wounds. Professor Hossam Haick’s lab at Israel’s Technion Institute (see here previously) has developed a smart suture-less dressing that binds the edges of a wound together, wards off infection, and even digitally reports on the wound’s condition to the surgeon.

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/11/25/israeli-innovation-novel-antibacterial-surgical-cut-band-aid-monitoring-healing/  https://www.israel21c.org/a-smart-polymer-that-would-heal-wounds-without-sutures/

Mitral valve replacement. Israel’s TruLeaf Medical, part of Israel’s Allium Medical (see here) has developed a Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR) solution to save the lives of numerous Mitral Regurgitation patients worldwide. The device has already completed animal studies and is set to be tested in humans soon.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3924605,00.html  https://www.truleaf-medical.com/

Paint additive helps prevent listeria. Israel’s Bio-fence (see here previously) has completed a study showing that its antimicrobial paint additive extends the power of disinfectants. A major Israeli sausage manufacturing plant completely wiped out listeria after applying Bio-fence’s paint coating.

https://www.israel21c.org/new-paint-additive-protects-surfaces-from-deadly-pathogens/

Preventing glaucoma. Israel’s Ophthalmic Sciences has developed IOPerfect – the world’s first AI-based contactless intraocular pressure (IOP) measuring device. It allows those at risk of going blind from glaucoma, to measure their eye pressure anytime and anywhere and communicate the results to their doctor.

https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech/israeli-company-says-novel-ai-device-could-help-prevent-adult-blindness-688544  https://op-sci.com/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAQKplraP4M

How bacteria evade antibiotics. Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered that some bacteria enter a “disrupted” state when attacked but not destroyed by antibiotics. A different chemical is then needed to “finish them off”, otherwise they can eventually recover and reproduce. See also here.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-lab-finds-out-why-some-germs-dodge-drugs-opening-door-to-life-saving-fix/  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MXRVJqbhN7-Zcm8j_WLZJkjqvgSUTvRG

Less antibiotic wastage. An AI tool from Israel’s Technion Institute helps combat antibiotic resistance. It reduced ineffective antibiotics prescribed for urinary tract infections by 35%. The tool was trialed by Israel’s Maccabi Health Management Organization (HMO) and will now be used for other infection types and HMOs.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/35-fewer-patients-given-wrong-medicine-thanks-to-israeli-ai-tool/

Seaweed can protect against Covid. (TY Hazel) Researchers from Tel Aviv University have found that Ulvan, extracted from the “sea lettuce” algae, Ulva, could help stop coronavirus from infecting human cells. The team is still working on identifying the specific chemicals in Ulvan that counter Covid infection.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/could-seaweed-save-humanity-from-covid-19-687775

https://peerj.com/articles/12398/

“Alexa – watch my mother”. The home monitoring system Vayyar Care (see here previously) is soon to be available as part of Alexa Together, a new subscription service from Amazon.  If Vayyar Care detects a fall, it contacts an urgent response emergency helpline. Alexa will also send a notification to the designated caregiver.

https://www.israel21c.org/vayyar-teams-with-alexa-to-aid-seniors-who-fall-at-home/

We are not mice.  Excellent article about Israel’s Quris (see here previously) which has developed the ability to test new medical treatments on a human simulation chip. Watch the video where Quris founder (Israeli Nobel Prize winner) Aaron Ciechanover explains the problem with previous “mouse model” testing methods.

https://www.israel21c.org/no-animals-harmed-in-new-chip-drug-tests-that-are-faster-and-cheaper/

A 3D-printed ear. The mouse model is still useful for developing groundbreaking medical innovations. Researchers at Israel’s Technion Institute combined organ printing and tissue engineering to create a mouse implant that replaced ears that failed to develop in the womb. Can’t wait to hear if it works in humans too!

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/israeli-researchers-create-an-ear-from-nothing-688471

Healthcare platform for research. Israel’s Lynx MD has developed an environment which allows scientists to access and analyze massive amounts of real-world anonymized medical data. It has recently joined forces with leading health organizations to collect real-world data from patients hospitalized with Coronavirus.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3924888,00.html   https://www.lynx.md/

Doctors restore sight of blind Israeli-Arab woman. 60-year-old Hanan Awad from Nazareth had been blind for 20 years due to a severe corneal disease. Doctors at Israel’s Beilinson hospital restored her sight with an implant combining an artificial cornea and a piece of her shin bone. After 3 months, the bone was removed.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/12/15/blind-woman-regains-eyesight-at-israeli-hospital-using-artificial-cornea-carved-from-her-shin-bone/

100 doctors come to Israel’s aid. Masa Israel Journey has brought 100 doctors to Israel to help relieve the pressure in parts of the Healthcare system. The Fellows come from countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Lithuania. The Masa Doctors program has brought almost 1,000 qualified doctors to Israel.

https://www.jns.org/masa-brings-100-plus-young-doctors-to-israel-to-aid-health-care-system/