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Israel is approximately the size of New Jersey, but unlike our Garden State, threatened daily with terrorism and blood curdling threats and libels. Every day research and development in medicine, science, technology, agronomy, proceeds apace, enriching the lives of millions on every continent. Here is this week’s dazzling compilation from Michel Ordman.  rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
The next booster could be Israeli. The CEO of NRx – the US company in charge of trials of Israel’s BriLife coronavirus vaccine – said NRx is designing a Phase II study of BriLife as a booster to protect against COVID-19 variants. The study will be led by the research heads of Israel’s Hadassah and Sourasky (Ichilov) hospitals.
https://www.jns.org/israel-aims-to-test-brilife-vaccine-candidate-as-booster-dose/  
 
92% recovery after 3 days. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare has treated 850 of its high-risk coronavirus-infected customers with the new Pfizer Paxlovid pills. 60% significantly improved on the first day, rising to 92% within 3 days.  All recovered.  https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-692757
 
Pancreatic cancer breakthrough. (TY UWI) Researchers at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center studied the data of 17,000 pancreatic cancer patients. They discovered that a mutation resulting in the absence of two proteins P15 and P16 allows the cancer to spread to the liver. The findings can help treat such patients.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/01/23/israeli-researchers-reveal-achilles-heel-of-pancreatic-cancer/
 
Non-invasive test for IBD. Israel’s Weizmann Institute, working together with Israel’s Sheba Medical Center can detect inflammation in the intestines by analyzing a fecal sample for the genes expressed in the cells. It can help diagnose gastric disorders such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and monitor their treatment.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/noninvasive-test-gut-inflammation
https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2022/01/18/gutjnl-2021-325516?rss=1
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/320979
 
Look into my eyes.  A great article about Israel’s Neurolight (see here previously) and its amazing ocular technology that extracts microscopic eye movement measurements to help diagnose neurological disorders. The platform aims to help developers of treatments for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and multiple sclerosis patients.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-answer-to-parkinsons-and-alzheimers-is-all-in-your-eyes/
 
AI management approved for type 2 diabetes. Israel’s DreaMed (see here previously) has now received US FDA approval for use with Type 2 diabetes sufferers as well as Type 1. It will relieve the strain on endocrinologist who each have on average some 46,000 patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/israeli-startup-offers-hope-in-global-diabetes-crisis/
 
Israelis live longer. The latest report of life expectancy for Israeli men is 81 years – 8th in the OECD. For Israeli women it’s 84.8 – 11th in the OECD (see here for previous years). Both exceed the OECD average. Israel’s birth rate is by far the highest in the OECD and infant mortality is well below the OECD average.
https://www.jns.org/report-israelis-live-longer-lives-than-most-despite-major-deficits-in-health-care/

https://www.jns.org/opinion/israels-ill-fated-powwows-with-the-palestinian-authority/

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid didn’t boast on social media about his meeting on Sunday with Palestinian Authority honcho Hussein al-Sheikh. The latter did so immediately, however.
“I met this evening with … Lapid, and we discussed several political and bilateral issues,” tweeted al-Sheikh, head of the P.A.’s “General Authority of Civil Affairs” and member of the Fatah Central Committee. “I have highlighted the need for a political horizon between the two parties based on international legitimacy.”
The last two words of the post reveal just what kind of “political and bilateral issues” were the focus of the talk between the powerful figure considered a possible successor to P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and the man slated to replace Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett next year. The false P.A. claim and commonly heard mantra that Israel violates international law as an “occupying power”—chanted in anti-Zionist circles around the world—is nothing new.
Nor is the often-obfuscated fact that it’s not only Hamas that refers to the illegitimacy of the Jewish state within any borders.
Speaking of which, Abbas prefaced his address to the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly three months ago by stating: “This year marks the 73rd anniversary of the nakba,” the so-called “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948.
The opening reference merely scratched the surface of the rest of his hate-filled speech, in which he reiterated, among other lies and threats, that “this colonial regime [Israel] has established on our land will disappear, regardless of how long it takes. We will not allow them to hijack our lives and kill our people’s dreams, hopes and aspirations to realize freedom and independence.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/emergence-arab-zionism-melanie-phillips-0/

While western liberals and the UN Human Rights Council double down in their determination to demonise, delegitimise and destroy Israel, support for that beleaguered country is coming from a surprising direction.

In 2020, people were startled by the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Hope was kindled that this unprecedented linkage might herald an end to the century-old Arab war against the Jewish state.

Now there are signs of a new and related phenomenon: the emergence of Arab Zionists.

In the Jewish Chronicle, Jonathan Sacerdoti has reported that a number of Arab influencers, with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, have emerged to promote Israel and support the Jews.

A Syrian blogger began a video begging the Israeli government to “occupy” the whole of Syria to save more lives. “The Golan Heights is the only area in Syria that hasn’t been destroyed and had its people killed,” he said.

In another video, an Arab academic was moved to tears by visiting Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, promising: “Today, together, Muslims Jews and Christians, we promise you, it will never happen again.”

In Dubai, 39-year-old Loay Al-Shareef, who declares he is a Zionist, said: “It’s very righteous for the Jews to have their ancestral homeland in the land of Israel.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18139/palestinian-leaders-arab-atrocities

For now, it seems that the Palestinian leadership is ignoring not only the “tragedies” of its people in Syria, but even the complaints about the failure of the Palestinian officials to raise the issue with the Syrian government.

The Palestinian leadership apparently does not want to assume any responsibility for its people in the Arab world because that would mean spending money on them and providing them with various services. Palestinian leaders would, it seems, rather keep the money for themselves than assist their own people.

The Palestinian leaders appear more concerned about the return of the Assad regime to the Arab League than the return of tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians to their homes in Syria. These leaders know that it is far easier — and far safer — to condemn Israel than to demand that Assad cease committing atrocities against the Palestinians. Spewing hatred against Israel has no price tag attached. Criticizing an Arab dictator, by contrast, can prove costly in the extreme.

Palestinian leaders never miss an opportunity to condemn Israel and accuse it of committing “crimes” against the Palestinians. This is in the context of the ongoing virulent Palestinian campaign of incitement against Israel.

The Palestinian leaders, however, remain oblivious to the suffering of their people in some Arab countries, especially Syria, where more than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed during the fighting between the Syrian army and the opposition or died as a result of torture, starvation and medical negligence over the past decade. These leaders are also most likely afraid that their Arab brothers would punish them if they speak out against the atrocities committed against Palestinians in the Arab countries.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/theres-no-cure-for-health-authority-pig-headedness/

 It’s time for health authorities in Israel and abroad to stop vilifying the medical experts who’ve been issuing a reassuring message as to where the coronavirus pandemic is headed. At this point, with so many people contracting the Omicron variant of COVID-19—among them recovered patients, the fully vaccinated, the double-boosted and a combination of the three—there’s enough anecdotal evidence from every corner of the globe to suggest that the mutation is weak.

Indeed, most of those recently or currently infected report having cold-like symptoms that last for less than a week. This hasn’t prevented the Health Ministry and “coronavirus cabinet” from behaving as though there’s an upswing in an unmanageable crisis, warranting endless meetings and fights over restrictive measures. That none of these has worked where curbing the spread of the microbe is concerned doesn’t seem to register.

What does appear to be effective—other than the inescapable presumption that we’re finally heading towards herd immunity—is a drug that the Maccabi Health Services HMO has begun administering to COVID patients.
According to a report on Monday by the health fund, 92 percent of those given Pfizer’s Paxlovid pill showed improvement within three days, and some 60 percent said that they felt relief within 24 hours.