RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/refuting-disproportionality-libel-against-israel-richard-l-cravatts/

Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s observation that “Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence,” the world’s attention has turned once again to the clash between Hamas and Israel, as the Jewish state launched its defensive air offensive into Gaza to suppress a deadly barrage of 4360 rockets that killed 10 civilians in Israel and injured 330 others. And, predictably, as the body count rose on the Palestinian side, the moral arbiters of acceptable political behavior began condemning the Jewish state for its perceived abuses in executing its national self-defense.

Forgetting that Israel’s current campaign was necessitated by ceaseless rocket and mortar assaults on its southern towns from Hamas-controlled Gaza, international leaders and diplomats initiated their moral hectoring of Israel as it attempted to shield its citizens from harm.  Five so-called experts from The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), led by Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, released a statement which suggested that “This most recent violence has a depressingly familiar pattern to it.” And what was the familiar tragedy? Not that Hamas had tried to murder Israeli civilians with no justification, but that “Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza exchange missiles and rockets following dispossession and the denial of rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, with Israel’s far greater firepower inflicting far higher death tolls and injuries and a much larger scale of property destruction.” [Emphasis added.]

In addressing a special session of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was similarly condemnatory of Israel’s military behavior. While begrudgingly admitting that Hamas’s “indiscriminate” firing of thousands of rockets constitutes “a clear violation of international humanitarian law,” Israel’s response was equally questionable, especially the targeted strikes on buildings that were said to house terrorists and armaments. “Despite Israel’s claims that many of these buildings were hosting armed groups or being used for military purposes,” Bachelet noted, “we have not seen evidence in this regard.” And then, in creating a moral equivalence that is unsurprising when Israel is involved, she solemnly announced that Israel, too, may be condemned for its military misbehavior, that “If found to be indiscriminate and disproportionate,” Israel’s defensive “attacks might constitute war crimes.”  [Emphasis added.]

The words “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” are the most insidious refrains, uttered only when Israel’s enemies are killed (certainly not when Jews are murdered), and suggesting that Israel’s military response is too aggressive, that the force and effect of the sorties into Gaza are beyond what is permitted under human rights law and the rules of war.

https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/is-bibi-out-its-far-from-clear?token=

Yesterday, Israel got a new President (Isaac Herzog — more on whom in a later posting), and, more significantly, may have taken a step towards getting a new Prime Minister. We shall see. While Yair Lapid (on the right, above), who leads the centrist Yesh Atid [“There is a Future”] Party, has informed the (current) President that he can form a coalition, the actual vote on this coalition will probably not take place for twelve days. Bibi will use this time to do everything he can to undermine the fragile agreement. Netanyahu contends that as long as he is Prime Minister, he cannot be convicted in his corruption trial and sent to jail; if he’s out of office, he has no such protection. We should thus expect to see some very scorched earth as he desperately (and perhaps successfully) tries to cling to power.

While the question of who will be Israel’s “next” Prime Minister remains unresolved, what is clear is that some international coverage of what is unfolding here is so myopic as to be essentially wrong. According to the “all the news that’s fit to print” world (see screen shot below), Israel is lurching to the right under the leadership of a new “ultranationalist” leader. The real story is precisely the opposite.

So with a few quick bullet points, a brief illustration of how much more complex — and hopeful — the story really is.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/israels-lost-cause-joseph-puder/

Anti-Semitism, the undying virus that still infects millions in the Muslim world and beyond, found a pretext to once again show its poisonous venom. The anti-Semitic protests, in many European cities as well as Latin and North American communities, used the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, (the Islamist terrorist group controlling Gaza), to malign the Jewish state with ugly obscenities such as an “apartheid state,” and characterizing Zionism (the Jewish national liberation movement) as Nazi-like. The slogans voiced in these protests didn’t match the facts that led to the conflict. Israel was seeking a long-term peace accommodation with Hamas, and instead got a barrage of rockets from Gaza aiming to kill Israeli civilians in its capital – Jerusalem, central Israel, including Tel Aviv, and particularly, in the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Israel, charged with the sacred duty to protect its civilian population, retaliated by destroying the sources of the rockets, cannons, and mortar fire. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) avoided many terrorist targets when innocent civilian bystanders were in the vicinity. Moreover, the IDF warned Gazan civilians to evacuate prior to bombing a Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) specific target. Hamas did the exact opposite, seeking to maximize Israeli civilian casualties. Yet, in world capitals, be it in Europe, America, or the Middle East, the truth and the facts are irrelevant. Anti-Semitism is irrational, as are these ugly protests.

Jews, having served as scapegoats in Christian Europe for almost 2,000 years, and a somewhat shorter period in the Muslim Middle East, became a convenient target for regimes to let their majority population vent their political, economic or social frustrations on the minority of Jews in their communities. Today however, the Jewish state – the collective Jewish body, has become a more convenient target, not that individual Jews in Europe or the Americas are immune as we have clearly seen in recent years. Some of the European governments, in seeking to appease their violent Muslim immigrants (Germany alone invited more than a million Muslim migrants into their country, who were brainwashed with pathological hatred for Jews and Israel) often criticize Israel, creating fertile ground of increased anti-Semitism. In the US, the Biden administration is being pressured by an anti-Semitic group of radical Democratic Party members in the US Congress, to disassociate the US from Israel. What we see in large portions of the West is moral equivalency, where actual right and wrong has become irrelevant. 

Demographics alone point to an unfair fight between Israel and the Palestinians. 1.6 billion Muslims, most of whom automatically support their fellow Muslim Palestinians, are arrayed against less than 16 million Jews worldwide, with a sizeable percentage being anti-Zionist. It means that Muslim voices on behalf of Palestinians will always be louder than Jewish voices, as well as violent and intimidating, whether it takes place in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Montreal, or Santiago de Chile. This is true for the social media as well.

Demographic disadvantage notwithstanding, Israel it seems rarely mounts on effective worldwide informational (hasbara in Hebrew) campaign to go along simultaneously with its far more effective military campaign. This anomaly is unfortunate since Israel has justice on its side. Hamas clearly and deliberately initiated this war, and its declared agenda is to destroy the Jewish state. One often hears those voices in the West who bemoan the fact that Gaza Palestinians have far more casualties than Israel does.  Consider therefore these simple facts. While Israel built shelters to shield its people from bombs, Hamas built attack tunnels to penetrate into Israel in order to murder and kidnap civilians in particular. They do not, though, build shelters for their people. Moreover, Israel cares enough for the Palestinian civilians to warn them of an impending attack, and canceling certain operations that might hurt innocent bystanders. Of course, there will always be unintended consequences, and civilians will get hurt. This however, has to do with the simple fact that Hamas uses civilians as human shields, and places their firepower in residential areas such as schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings. Hamas then uses children who died because of its own negligence, for its propaganda, to generate international sympathy.

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-never-netanyahu-coalition/

Whenever I get asked about Israeli politics on the radio, the first thing I do is point out that Israeli politics isn’t America, it’s European.

Israel was controlled by the British. More of its founders were European than American. That means the same messy coalition parliamentary politics without even the benefit of regional representation and direct elections.

It’s a terrible system that serves all the wrong people.

The last few years have been a grinding disaster of repeat elections because first, a huge chunk of Israel’s political spectrum wants to oust Netanyahu. Those on the left, including pseudo-centrists like Yesh Atid Party leader Yair Lapid, are motivated by ideology. Others, on the right, are scrambling for power.

Second, no leader within Netanyahu’s Likud or outside has emerged as a viable alternative to him. Non-Likud parties have little credibility. Especially those on the left. The fake centrist parties that act as leftist stalking horses have even less credibility.

What finally happened is that one of the alternative right-wing parties got together with the left and Israel’s worst enemies to form a coalition. And the media is celebrating Netanyahu’s downfall while preparing to spin this as proof that Israel is terrible.

I’m not in the business of making political predictions, but I am skeptical that a coalition so ridiculously unwieldy can hold up. And Netanyahu is far from done. There are plenty of reasons for Israelis to be disappointed by Netanyahu, but this alternative coalition is the equivalent of Never Trumpers campaigning for Hillary. Except it’s even worse, by a factor of a few thousand.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twilight-of-the-netanyahu-era-11622495465?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Western democracies produce all manner of governments: Left- or right-wing, centrist, populist. But the new government taking shape in Israel defies categorization. If negotiations go through as planned, Israel could soon be led by a religious-nationalist Prime Minister backed by a centrist dealmaker, with the support of Arab and leftist parties.

American liberals will surely celebrate the departure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come to symbolize the Democratic Party’s rift with Israel over the last decade. But it would be a mistake to interpret it as a rejection of Israel’s rightward political and security direction, which the new government is likely to maintain.

***

The unusual coalition is coming together after Israelis went to the polls four times since 2019, most recently this March. Though his security policies had wide support, Mr. Netanyahu—who has been Prime Minister since 2009—was unable to form a majority coalition from among Israel’s 13 fractious parties.

The conventional wisdom this month said Hamas had given Mr. Netanyahu a new political lease on life by launching its rocket assault on Israel, elevating the security issue that built Mr. Netanyahu’s career. Yet a week after the fighting stopped, Naftali Bennett of the conservative Yamina party announced that he would accept an offer from the centrist Yair Lapid to form a government without Mr. Netanyahu. Under the agreement, Mr. Bennett will be Prime Minister immediately, with Mr. Lapid taking over in 2023, if the government lasts that long.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/06/14/israel-has-every-right-to-destroy-hamas/#slide-1

The goal should be to end missile terrorism, not get a cease-fire

For more than 50 years, the diplomacy surrounding major outbreaks of Israeli–Arab violence has followed a standard progression. The United Nations Security Council goes into emergency session, with most members calling for an immediate cease-fire. America uses its veto power to stave off Security Council action for a few days or weeks, buying Israel a bit of time to in­flict significant damage on its enemies. Then America decides that time’s up, and Israel — beholden to America’s moral and material support — is forced to suspend large-scale military operations. All sides declare victory and live to fight another day.

The bloody ritual was performed once again last month, and once again Israel’s principal assailant was Hamas, which brutally rules over 2 million Palestinians in a part of the “occupied territories” known as the Gaza Strip, which is be­tween Israel and Egypt, and which Israel stopped occupying in 2005. Hamas is an Islamist terrorist organization that is supported by Iran and totally devoted to Israel’s destruction; it has stockpiled tens of thousands of missiles for the purpose of terrorizing Israeli communities whenever the fancy strikes.

This time, the fancy struck over a mundane landlord–tenant dispute in East Jerusa­lem and Palestinian riots on the Temple Mount. Hamas used this as a pretext to unleash a new barrage of missile terrorism across Israel, reaching every major city with hundreds of missiles per day in its most expansive and destructive offensive yet. Even as Israel’s sophisticated Iron Dome missile-defense system knocked most of those missiles out of the sky (at the lopsided cost of about $80,000 per intercept), millions of Israelis scrambled into bomb shelters, and scores were injured or killed. After eleven days of fighting, Israel caved in to American pressure and agreed to an Egyptian cease-fire proposal.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Israel goes way beyond what should be expected of any nation of comparable size and population. This week’s medical highlights include therapy for “incurable” wounds and diseases, life-saving discoveries, fast cancer diagnosis, organ donations and even the treatment of citizens of an enemy terror state. Israeli technology is literally “out of this world”; it is re-inventing the wheel and saving the planet from starvation. Israeli artists and athletes are smashing records, while Israeli organizations are ensuring that the Jewish State prospers financially and socially even in difficult times. Michael Ordman

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Blood clot treatment for chronic wounds. Israelis Dr Igal & Alon Kushnir founded RedDress Medical to develop ActiGraft – a revolutionary fast treatment that uses blood clots made from the patient’s own blood to heal chronic wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers. It is saving lives in Israel, the US and 15 other countries.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israelis-invent-revolutionary-blood-clot-that-heals-chronic-wounds/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmiAeO2bH44 (testimonial from a South African Muslim)
https://reddressmedical.com/technology/
 
Early warning of dialysis problems. Israel’s PatenSee has developed an image system to detect deterioration of fistulas – the artery / vein connection from dialysis machines to patients. Over time these connections fail due to blockages (stenoses), risking blood clots and thromboses. The system is in trials at two Israeli hospitals.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3907910,00.html   https://www.patensee.com/
https://www.medxelerator.com/patensee-initiates-first-in-human-trial-with-its-contactless-imaging-surveillance-system-for-patients-undergoing-hemodialysis/
 
Swiss partner to fight bowel disease. Israel’s CytoReason (see here previously) is partnering Swiss multinational Ferring to find new treatments for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). CytoReason’s AI technology will enable the joint building of models of diseased cells on which therapies will be tested.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/swiss-pharma-firm-ferring-israels-cytoreason-join-to-battle-bowel-disease/
 
Clues to the origins of Parkinson’s. Researchers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Penn State College of Medicine have made an important discovery about the protein alpha-synuclein, associated with the development of Parkinson’s and dementia. It gives hope for new therapeutics to delay or halt their progression.
https://www.afhu.org/2021/05/19/protein-simulation-experiments-unveil-clues-on-origins-of-parkinsons-disease/  https://www.cell.com/structure/fulltext/S0969-2126(21)00160-X
 
European certification for AI cancer detector. Israel’s Ibex Medical Analytics (see here previously) has received Europe’s CE Mark for its Galen Breast image analysis solution to help pathologists detect various types of cancer. It follows successful trials in Israel and France.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3908568,00.html
 
The easy road to recovery. Israeli founded Laguna Health aims to reduce costly hospital readmissions and shorten recovery times. Its app can provide patients in the US either with a fully digital and personalized recovery journey or enable interactions with live expert recovery coaches via text, telephone or video.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3908592,00.html  https://www.lagunahealth.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1wRbuL-vu4
 
The inventor of the first ingestible camera. Technion UK’s webinar on 31st May features Israel’s Rafi Nave, senior researcher at Israel’s Technion. He headed the development of the PillCam, the world’s first ingestible camera for imaging the digestive tract. NHS UK is about to use PillCam for 11,000 patients across England.
https://technionuk.org/event/early-cancer-detection-the-nhs-and-israel/
 
Gazan children in Israeli hospital. Children from Gaza, being treated free of charge by doctors at Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), normally go home after surgery. But due to Hamas rockets, 3 post-surgery Gazan kids had to stay in the SACH children’s house and six more in the hospital itself.
https://www.israel21c.org/gazan-kids-celebrate-ramadan-in-israeli-hospital-despite-rockets/
 
More supplies for the South. Israeli volunteer medical equipment organization Yad Sarah (see here previously) has sent hundreds of home hospital equipment, wheelchairs, crutches, respiratory aids etc. to reinforce its branches in the south of the country.
https://www.jns.org/yad-sarah-provides-medical-equipment-support-services-to-israeli-citizens-under-fire/
 
Saving lives has no boundaries. Two real-life stories highlight the lengths that United Hatzalah volunteers will go to treat Israeli citizens of any religion, whose lives are in danger.
https://israelrescue.org/blog/amid-the-tensions-jewish-emts-perform-cpr-in-east-jerusalem-save-a-muslim-mans-life/ https://israelrescue.org/blog/muslim-doctor-lightly-injured-after-protecting-a-jewish-man-with-his-own-body-during-an-attempted-lynch-in-tamra/

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/did-unrwas-gaza-director-lose-the-plot-opinion-669433

Normally, I wouldn’t take pity on anyone associated with UNRWA, whose entire existence is based on a false premise: that millions of Palestinians who are not refugees by any measure get to be categorized as such. The semantic trick has kept the NGO in clover since 1949, with its coffers filled and replenished for decades by the international community, in spite of its outdated mandate.

But Schmale deserves at least some sympathy for the wrath that he aroused in Gaza this week. In an interview with Channel 12’s Arad Nir, he had the gall to tell the truth about Operation Guardian of the Walls and the situation in Gaza following last Friday’s ceasefire.

Nir had to try hard to hide his surprise. Bashing Israel in general, and in the wake of a war in particular, is a no-brainer for UNRWA representatives. Yet Schmale actually attempted to portray a complex reality, not merely launch into the kind of tirade that would have matched the footage of Gaza selected to illustrate the three-minute Zoom conversation.

Asked about the “humanitarian situation” in the Strip, Schmale said that though at least 1,000 residential units were destroyed, leaving “a couple of thousand people who don’t have a home they can go back to,” he considers the “biggest damage [to be] psychological,” because “building and rebuilding buildings is easy, and easy to plan for.”
Nir’s attempt to goad him into bemoaning the Gazans’ lack of basic needs also flopped.

“During the 11 days of war, we did not run out of food, water and supplies, [though] we would have if Kerem Shalom and the border would have stayed closed,” he stated. “So, from my point of view, there is no acute or serious shortage of medical supplies, food or water, as long as this now starts – continues – to come in.”

Nir then wanted to know Schmale’s opinion on “claims by Israeli officials that the IDF bombardments were very precise.” Shockingly, the bigwig replied: “I’m not a military expert, but I would not dispute that. I also have the impression that there is a huge sophistication in the way the Israeli military struck over the last 11 days. So, that’s not my issue. My issue is another one. I’ve had many colleagues describe to me that they feel that, in comparison to the 2014 war, this time the strikes felt much more vicious in terms of their impact. So, yes, they didn’t hit, with some exceptions, civilian targets, but the viciousness, the ferocity, of the strikes was heavily felt.”