https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/12/03/blue-state-blues-a-beautiful-black-woman-shatters-the-bds-movement/
On one side of the issue stands Miss South Africa Lalela Mswane, stunningly beautiful and beaming, waving from the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
On eight days of Chanukah we light candles, and on each of those days Israel contributes research and development of dazzling scientific and technological advances that bring the light of hope to millions of people. rsk
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
New way to treat blood cancer. (TY JBN & WIN) Scientists at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University have found that malignant cells in hematologic cancer (leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma etc.), rely on a cytoskeletal protein, called WASp. Attacking WASp can destroy malignant cells without threatening healthy ones.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/bar-ilan-u-team-develops-treatment-approach-for-hematologic-cancers-683190 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25210148/
Digitizing neurology. Israel’s NeuraLight uses video from smartphone or web camera, to catch neurological patterns and digital markers. Its computer vision and deep learning algorithms help accelerate development of therapies including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, and other neurodegenerative diseases.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3921318,00.html https://neuralight.ai/
Small molecules to treat ALS. Israel’s Neuromagen is developing a new class of small molecules to treat ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and other neurodegenerative diseases. The molecules activate the enzyme telomerase reverse transcriptase, which protects and rehabilitates neuronal cells.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/ALS_neuromagen.aspx https://www.neuromagen.com/
Innovative eye treatment technology. Israel’s BioLight (see here previously) is partnering with Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center, to locate and develop innovative technologies in ophthalmology. Also, Biolight’s subsidiary Diagnostear has begun a clinical trial in India of its diagnosis of Dry Eye Disease.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3923641,00.html
https://bio-light.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DiagnosTear-article-oct-2021-00000002.pdf
Natural remedies for feminine ailments. Israel’s Algamed is using natural-based compounds made from algae plus its own innovative FemTech to treat sensitive feminine conditions. The algae excretes a gel that keeps it moist, and has numerous anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and anti-aging benefits.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3923598,00.html
Fast genetic data analysis. Israel’s Geneyx Genomex utilizes the world’s largest unified global knowledge base for interrogating genetic-based diseases and disorders. It provides fast analysis, interpretation, and reporting to help labs accelerate the development of targeted and personalized therapeutics.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3922324,00.html https://geneyx.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhhxgCLq1sU
Massive donation for autism research. The Canadian-Israeli Azrieli Foundation has given NIS 40 million ($13 million) to the National Autism Research Centre of Israel in BeerSheba (see here previously). It is the largest ever donation for an autism infrastructure project in Israel.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-massive-donation-israel-autism-center-aims-to-impact-policy-worldwide/
Best of Health. Israel’s Aidoc, (see here previously) has been selected the “Best New Health Application” award of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Health Awards competition. Aidoc’s artificial intelligence (AI) solutions have revolutionized medical imaging.
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/11/04/ucsf-health-awards-israeli-aidoc-is-best-new-health-application-in-u-s/
Anti-viral nasal spray is a hit. Israel’s Enovid (see here previously) is ramping up production of its SaNOtize anti-Covid Nasal spray to keep up with demand. It is to manufacture up to 250,000 units per month in the US alone. In August, Enovid struck a deal with India’s Glenmark to manufacture the spray for South-East Asia.
https://nocamels.com/2021/11/sanotize-anti-covid-nasal-spray-production/
Smell the coronavirus. Very interesting article about Israel’s NanoScent (see here previously), which has developed a device so sensitive that it can detect viruses in the breath, such as SARS-Cov2. 50% of employees are female and it is another example of Christian Arabs, Muslims, and Israeli Jews working side by side.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3921893,00.html
The world’s steepest decline in Covid morbidity. Israel has seen the biggest drop in coronavirus morbidity anywhere in the world, according to global trackers. Covid-19 may be here to stay, but thanks to boosters, virus-killing masks, nasal sprays, and vaccine passports, Israel has only some 5,500 active cases (115 serious).
https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/10/29/israel-sees-worlds-steepest-decline-in-covid-morbidity/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-30/israel-uses-booster-shots-masks-and-passports-against-covid/100569256 https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/12/a-good-word-for-melbournes-queer-film-festival/
“Although they may shudder to hear it from from Quadrant, we should offer three hearty cheers for the organisers and schedulers of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival. For once, when the anti-Zionist cancel mob came howling to have an Israeli film scratched from the programme, the organisers told them what to do with their complaints.”
he Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF), I suspect, is not an event to which many Quadrant readers will have rushed to secure tickets. This fixture on the LGBT-etc calendar, squeezed in between Carols by Queerlight (self-explanatory) and Southern HiBearnation (no, Google ‘bear’ for yourselves) offers attendees two weeks of cinematic merry-making, or so I’d been led to believe. The theme of this year’s event, I’m sorry to report, is frequent sniping and a decided lack of chirpiness, and I see little prospect of renewed cheer occurring before closing night.
The trouble began with the inclusion in the lineup of Adam Kalderon’s film The Swimmer, a story about a gay Olympics prospect, the institutional discrimination he faces and his struggle for self-acceptance. Topical and important issues, the reviewers would say. The film also features, I have been reliably informed, lingering close-ups of strapping young fellows in Speedos. For many viewers, that all sounds like a jolly night at the cinema, so one could be excused for wondering what all the bloody fuss is about.
Well, The Swimmer, you see, is an Israeli production, and it turns out that screening such a film is something of a festival faux pas. As soon as the incriminating schedule arrived in the inbox, there was a good deal of inquiry as to why MQFF had failed to adopt the expected policy of anti-Israel fanaticism. A vigorous social media campaign soon got underway, urging MQFF to drop the film, apologise for all the bruised feelings, and commit to being a better ally in the future.
This noisy reaction is due to the fact that some portion of the festival’s supporters also happen to be enlistees in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), a movement which seeks to extirpate all traces of Israel’s business, cultural and general dealings with the rest of the world. One of the many accusations they bung around is pinkwashing, a term which calls for a bit of elucidation.
https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-first-iran-war/
As Jews and Israelis, these days are nothing short of bizarre. Iran, a terrorist state behind a global axis of evil, is once again having the last laugh. It is hard to watch as the US and Europe politely attempt to reach a deal with Tehran at the cost of an existential threat to Israel.
The murmurings in Europe of providing Iran an opportunity to take advantage of negotiations along with American ambiguity toward Israel on this issue are a warning sign to Jerusalem. The removal of sanctions will see billions of dollars pour into the Revolutionary Guard coffers for the country’s transformation into a nuclear state. No less dangerous, it will boost their confidence ahead of military action against Israel on multiple fronts.
The next war on our northern front won’t be a “Third Lebanon War” but the “First Iran War.” The Iranians are planning to strike Israel on six fronts: Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, internally with the assistance of some Arab Israelis, and through the use of long-range missiles from Iran and Yemen. This will be a conventional war, but it will be far from straightforward.
To date, Iran has succeeded in establishing a regional axis of evil through the creation of a ring of armed divisions around the State of Israel.
In practice, Tehran is working toward the kind of warfare it is comfortable with, meaning far from its borders. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian missiles are dispersed on Israel’s borders, and they are launched in accordance with Tehran’s interests from time to time.
The Iranian working model is to build a security network in the form of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations.
Change the equation
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/yom-hagirush-inside-story-expulsion-day-edwin-black/
Today, we speak of a largely forgotten ethnic cleansing largely unparalleled in the history of humanitarian abuses. Recall the coordinated international expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands, where they had lived peaceably for as long as 27 centuries. As some know, in 2014, the Israeli government set aside November 30 as a commemoration of this mass atrocity. It has had no real identity or name like “Kristallnacht.” But today, from this day forward, the day will be known as Yom HaGirush: “Expulsion Day.”
It has been a years-long road to identify and solidify this identity. It began the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. The international Pan-Arab community, coordinated out of Palestine and spanning four continents, formed a vibrant political and later military alliance with the Nazis. This partnership functioned in the rarefied corridors of governments, the riot-torn streets of many cities on all sides of the oceans, and eventually the gun-powdered trenches and frontlines of war-strangled Europe. The overseer of this alliance was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, but he led an eager coalition of Arab leaders organized into the Arab Higher Committee, along with popular supporters from the Arab Street. They had fused with Nazi ideology and goals, which included the destruction of the Jews and the defeat of British influence.
After the Mufti fled criminal prosecution in Jewish Palestine in October 1937, he relocated to Baghdad. Iraq became the new center of gravity for the Arab-Nazi collaboration. By the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Iraqi Arabs under the guidance of the Mufti had imported all sorts of Nazi ideology and confederation into Iraq. On June 1–2, 1941, as Germany was poised to attack Russia and needed Arab oil, Nazi Arabs in Iraq launched a bloody two-day pogrom against its Jewish community which had dwelled there for 2,700 years—a thousand years before Muhammad. The hyphenation Arab-Nazi applies, not merely because these Arabs were fascist in mind and deed, but because they actually identified with Germany’s Nazi Party. Some rioters wore swastikas; many had actually marched in the Nuremberg torchlight parades. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party adopted a flag that spun off from Nazi Germany’s.
In that nightmare June 1–2 riot, Jews were hunted in the streets. When found, Jewish girls were raped in front of the parents, fathers were beheaded in front of their children, mothers were brutalized in public, babies were sliced in half and thrown into the Tigris River. The Baghdad mobs burned dozens of Jewish shops, invaded Jewish homes and looted them.
We will never know how many hundreds were murdered or mutilated because in the investigation that followed, many were afraid to come forward. But that bloody event became known as the Farhud, meaning violent dispossession. The Farhud spelled the beginning of the end of Iraqi Jewry—more than 140,000 souls.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/university-torontos-jewish-problem-richard-l-cravatts/
As if to confirm the depth of its anti-Israel animus, the Student Union of the University of Toronto at Scarborough (SCSU) passed a poisonous motion during its virtual November 24th meeting stipulating that the student union “reaffirm its commitment to the BDS movement by . . . rais[ing] awareness about Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine and war crimes against Palestinian peoples;” in light of this, the union decided the University must “refrain from engaging with organizations, services, or take part in events that further normalize Israeli apartheid . . ,” and even ban speakers from campus who “support the military occupation of Palestine.”
More insidious was an item from an original motion passed in 2013 that will require that any kosher food brought to campus must be sourced from firms that do not support “Israeli apartheid,” not to mention the creation of a pernicious “BDS List” that will serve to blacklist organizations that support Israel.
This recent vote is the latest in a long campaign of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic actions at the University of Toronto, activism which has created a hostile climate for Jewish students, a situation which has not gone unnoticed. In June of 2020, for example, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, together with two U of T professors, Stuart Kamenetsky and Howard Tenenbaum, produced a lengthy and substantive report, “Confronting Antisemitism at the University of Toronto: A Path Forward,” written for the University’s president, Meric Gertler. That report, which fastidiously reviewed a long list of anti-Israel events and their deleterious effect on Jewish students, went largely ignored by the university’s administration, troubling in light of the many bigoted events cataloged in the report.
At this particular university, specifically, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) has the dubious distinction of being the only student union in Canada with a committee dedicated solely to promoting the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and in 2019 outrageously rejected Hillel’s request to recognize the “Kosher Forward” campaign to have kosher food offered on campus since, as the Union decided in their grotesquely anti-Semitic way, Hillel is pro-Israel and therefore kosher food should not be allowed.
What is next for the purge of anyone who might be considered pro-Israel? No Jews allowed in cafeterias that use Soda Stream products? The removal of Jewish names from endowed professorships or campus buildings if those benefactors supported Israel? Will “Open Hillel” centers—those renegade Hillels which allow pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel dialogue and events to take place in their spaces—be allowed to remain on campuses but conventional, pro-Israel Hillels not?
https://www.jns.org/opinion/irans-military-gears-up-for-vienna-talks-by-vowing-to-annihilate-israel/
Renewed negotiations over a return to or revision of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers from which former President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018—kicked off in Vienna on Monday with feigned fanfare.
The Islamic Republic has made it clear that no agreement can be discussed, let alone reached, unless all sanctions hindering the regime’s operations are removed. It has also been engaging in double-speak, bragging about its strides in uranium-enrichment, on the one hand, while insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, on the other.
Nobody buys the latter assertion, but the other parties to the JCPOA have convinced themselves that the interests of all concerned are best served through diplomacy. Never mind that Tehran refuses to allow American representatives anywhere near the room where the talks are being held. Washington is willing to have the mullahs dictate the terms of the entire arrangement, and let European, Russian and Chinese envoys enjoy face-to-face contact with their Iranian counterparts.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17978/palestinians-abbas-hamas
If Abbas is really interested in returning to the negotiating table with Israel, he needs to decide whether he is on the side of his peace partners in Israel or his political enemies in Hamas.
Abbas needs to decide whether he belongs to the pro-peace camp in Israel and the Arab world, or the enemies of peace, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and their patrons in Iran.
For now, it seems that Abbas wants it both ways.
Abbas, in other words, is telling Westerners that he supports peace with Israel while reaching out to the Iranian-backed terrorist group that openly states its intention to eliminate Israel and wage jihad (holy war) on Jews.
Instead of welcoming the UK’s decision to ban Hamas, Abbas was one of the first Palestinians to condemn the move. By condemning the decision, Abbas is sending a message to the international community that he actually does support terror and Hamas.
Yet, in the world of the Palestinian Authority, it seems that combating a radical terrorist group is a bad thing.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said this month that he is interested in resuming peace talks with Israel. Abbas made his statement on the eve of a meeting he held on November 23 with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Abbas specified that he wants the peace talks with Israel to resume under the auspices of Russia and the three other members of the International Quartet: European Union, United Nations, and the United States.
If Abbas is really interested in returning to the negotiating table with Israel, he needs to decide whether he is on the side of his peace partners in Israel or his political enemies in Hamas. Abbas needs to decide whether he belongs to the pro-peace camp in Israel and the Arab world, or the enemies of peace, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and their patrons in Iran.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/shutting-down-pro-israel-speech-duke-richard-l-cravatts/
As if further evidence were needed for the hypocrisy about who may say what about whom on college campuses, the recent action by the Duke Student Government to withhold recognition to a new pro-Israel student group seems to confirm that academic free speech is not always free depending on who is speaking. On November 9th, DSG President Christina Wang made the outrageous decision to veto the recognition of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) after the group posted a response to an anti-Israel Duke sophomore, Elyana Riddick, who had captioned a now-deleted Twitter post about SSI by writing, “My school promotes settler colonialism.”
“To Yana and others like her,” SSI posted on its Instagram account, “please allow us to educate you on what ‘settler colonialism’ actually is and why Israel does not fall under this category whatsoever. These types of narratives are what we strive to combat and condemn, which is why Duke’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel has been officially established & is here to stay,” the post read.
While it seems that denouncing Israel, as Ms. Riddick did, as a racist colonial occupier of stolen Arab land is perfectly acceptable, SSI’s response to her was obviously totally unacceptable, violating, it seems, her sensibilities and right to express disdain for groups with which she disagrees.
Ms. Riddick posted on Twitter, a social media platform that is open for all to see, so she certainly could not and should not have what lawyers refer to as an “expectation of privacy,” since SSI did not quote her from statements she made in a private conversation or email exchange, for instance, where she had not agreed to have her opinions publicized.
And, more to the point, her counter-factual assertion that Israel is an example of settler colonialism is precisely the type of slander against the Jewish state that groups like SSI have as their mission to answer back to—and particularly when that type of characterization of Israel is both historically and factually inaccurate and slanderous. The campus enemies of Israel have regularly tried to suppress pro-Israel views from being heard or even debated in an honest dialogue with those with pro-Palestinian viewpoints, and the DSG’s decision to drop recognition of SSI at Duke achieved that very situation, making it impossible for SSI to correct falsehoods that are the animating content of the anti-Israel campaign at Duke and elsewhere.
https://www.jns.org/OPINION/BENNETTS-BIG-TWITTER-BLUNDER/
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett chose a particularly inopportune moment to enrage disgruntled voters. Though a member of his staff was likely responsible for the extremely poor judgment call, Bennett is the one in whose name the move was made. Its subsequent reversal after an outcry, then, proved insufficient.
The incident in question involved the bereaved father of Shir Hajaj, 22, a female Israel Defense Forces lieutenant killed in a 2017 Palestinian truck-ramming attack. She was murdered along with three other innocent IDF soldiers enjoying an educational field trip in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.
In a post on Sunday evening—mere hours after 25-year-old Eliyahu Kay, an immigrant to Israel from South Africa, was gunned down by a Hamas-linked terrorist on a rampage near the Western Wall in Jerusalem—Herzl Hajaj announced that Bennett had blocked him on Twitter.
Referring to him as the “prime minister of the terrorist [coalition] … who knew how to ask us to support him in the election,” Hajaj accused Bennett of “now being unable to handle my criticism of the formation of his government with the terrorist-supporting Ra’am Party. … Now he can embrace the terrorist-supporting [Ra’am leader Mansour] Abbas in peace, without criticism [and] without our reminding him of the truth.”
The stir caused by Hajaj’s tweet, which accompanied a screen shot of Bennett’s account blocking him, spurred the prime minister’s staff to engage in on-the-spot damage control. Less than an hour after it appeared, the prime minister unblocked Hajaj and issued an odd semblance of an apology.
Saying that blocking Hajaj had been done with “good intent,” the prime minister’s office claimed that “The moment his social-media team understood it, the block was lifted.” By “it,” the PMO seemed to mean the foolishness of the decision—taken by tech-savvy but otherwise pretty ignorant young people—to protect their boss by penalizing his critics.
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