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ISRAEL

BDS and Israel Diane Bederman

https://dianebederman.com/bds-and-israel/

BDS, Boycott, Divest and Sanction of Israel is a policy shared by millions upon millions if not billions of people. BDS is meant to destroy Israel, the Jewish homeland for more than 3000 years. Why? Because these people are Jew haters. Hitler tried to kill  us. He managed to murder a third of the Jewish individuals; 6 million. BDS wants to destroy Israel itself. I mean, what else does “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” mean?

BDS accuses Israel of being an apartheid state – like South Africa.

From the BDS horse’s mouth:

The BDS movement was launched by 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the Palestinian BDS call urges nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law.

So what is Apartheid? It is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘separation’ and was the name given to the system of racial segregation and subjugation of the African and other non-white population of South Africa by white settlers from 1948 to 1994.

According to BDS, there are many similarities between apartheid in South Africa and modern day Israeli apartheid. South African apartheid was characterised by settler (white) colonialism and the forced displacement of the indigenous population (black), the division of the colonized into different groups with different rights, severe restrictions on movement and violent suppression of resistance. These, say BDS, are all key characteristics of Israel’s modern day regime over the Palestinian people.

Really? It’s not the Palestinian Authority? But I digress.

Hmmm. Muslims are in the Israeli government and Arab Israelis serve on the Supreme Court. Awad Suleiman  is the first Druze colonel to take command of Air Maintenance Unit 22.Col. Talk about diversity inclusion and equity – here it is.

Iran Fantasizes That It Has Israel On The Run The Mullahs’ delusions. Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/iran-fantasizes-it-has-israel-run-hugh-fitzgerald/

Iranian leaders have a rich fantasy life. Possibly It has something to do with their deep belief in the Return of the Hidden Imam. Twelver Shi’ism may have its points, but a grasp of reality is not one of them. Iran has recently become convinced, despite all the evidence, that it has been outplaying Israel ever since its drone attack on the MV Mercer Street in the Gulf of Oman.

The report on this development is here: “Iran believes it has Israel on the run,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2021:

When tensions rose with the US, UK and Israel after the attack, Iran shifted the frontline to Lebanon and Gaza, targeting Israel with rockets last week. When Israel responded, Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired more than 10 rockets from southern Lebanon at Israel on Friday.

Was the Iranian attack on the MV Mercer Street a success? It turned out that the vessel was Japanese-owned, and had been for some months; Israel’s only connection was that it managed the ship for its owners. Iranian naval intelligence had not kept abreast of that recent change in ownership. Now Iran, embarrassed at its mistake, has denied that it was behind the attack, but the intelligence seen by Israel, the U.S., and the U.K. have convinced all three that Tehran is lying. It is the U.K., one of whose citizens was killed in the attack, that has introduced a resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Iran for the attack. Iran’s denial of responsibility has convinced no one, but made it look even more foolish than if it had simply remained silent. The attack on the MV Mercer Street, any way you look at it, has become for Iran a public relations fiasco.

In an attempt to deflect attention away from the MV Mercer Street, Iran instructed Hezbollah to launch rockets into Israel, a response, so it was claimed, to Israeli artillery fire on Hezbollah targets. In its largest attack, Hezbollah launched 19 rockets toward Israel. Not one did any damage to Israel. Ten of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. Six were not intercepted because the Israelis, having calculated from their trajectories that they would fall harmlessly in open fields, didn’t need to shoot them down. The remaining three fell short, landing in Lebanon itself; the damage they may have done to Lebanese civilians is not known. This attack, like that on the MV Mercer Street, did no discernible damage to Israel or Israeli interests; the successful interceptions of all ten Hezbollah rockets that potentially could have caused harm showed how accurate are Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defenses.

Bennett should beware of CIA director William Burns By Ruthie Blum

In a tweet on Wednesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he had emerged from a productive meeting with CIA director William Burns.

“We discussed the strengthening of intelligence and security cooperation between Israel and the United States, the situation in the Middle East, the emphasis on Iran and the possibilities for expanding and deepening regional cooperation. We will continue to cooperate with our closest friend,” Bennett wrote, signing off with an icon of an American flag next to an Israeli one.

Obligatory positive pronouncements aside, Bennett would do well to view Burns’s trip this week to Israel and the Palestinian Authority with wariness.

“The visit shows that the Biden administration is serious about restoring Washington’s relations with the Palestinians and strengthening the Palestinian leadership under President Mahmoud Abbas,” a PA official told The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh on Tuesday.
Noting the CIA chief’s scheduled rendezvous with Abbas and PA General Intelligence Service head Majed Faraj, the official pointed to the PA’s “sharp financial crisis” that requires “urgent [US] aid,” without which “Hamas will come to power in the West Bank.”

If Israel had a shekel for every time the PA whined to the West about its victimhood, the Jewish state’s coffers would be overflowing. In case the most recent example of this incredible chutzpah has escaped attention, a review of the events leading up to Operation Guardian of the Walls is in order.

Israel’s Tech Boom Will Include Arabs A new satellite called Ramadan symbolizes the effort to expand the workforce. By Orit Farkash-Hacohen

https://www.wsj.com/articles/arab-israelis-tech-startups-ramadan-satellite-impact-raam-abbas-orit-farkash-hacohen-blue-and-white-11628710898?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

A small satellite called Ramadan will soon be launched to track the moon and detect the beginning of the lunar month that determines the start of many holidays. It’s an initiative of a landmark Israeli government plan to promote technology and science within Arab Israeli society.

The new Israeli government, in which I serve as minister for innovation, science and technology, is a government of firsts. It is the first time an Arab Israeli party is part of the ruling coalition. I worked with my colleague Mansour Abbas of the Ra’am party and the Ministry for Social Equality on developing a plan for government investment in technology and research and development.

My vision is to use Israeli technology—the bedrock of our economy—to help people on the periphery of society.

Aptly dubbed Impact, the $100 million, five-year plan, aims to bridge a gap in tech jobs. Israel’s Arab community makes up around 20% of the country’s population but accounts for only about 2% of tech workers. The Jewish ultra-Orthodox demographic, with more than 12% of Israel’s population of 9.3 million, makes up only 3% of tech workers.

The plan aims to help the Arab community develop skills to work in science and technology. It will include educational programs, vocational training, and technology incubators for entrepreneurs and startups. We plan to establish technology and science centers for Arabs, an incubator hub with seed funding for promising minority entrepreneurs, and two new research-and-development centers, one of them for the Bedouin community.

Ruthie Blum: Iranian aggression and Israel’s fragile coalition

At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed the country’s security situation.

Referring to the Israel Defense Forces attack on Hamas targets in Gaza following the latest wave of incendiary balloons, he warned the terrorist organization that it will be held accountable for any such flareups, no matter which group is behind them.

“We’re not interested if they’re dissidents, or bored or whether they have any other excuse,” he said. “Hamas is responsible.”

Referring to Lebanon—without specifying the missile attacks on northern Israel on Saturday or Israel’s retaliatory strikes—Bennett pointed to the “very important awakening by many citizens [there] against Hezbollah and Iranian involvement.”

He added that “even during the severe economic and political crisis in Lebanon, Iran and Hezbollah are entangling [its] citizens in a front against Israel.”

The Israeli premier went on to caution “Lebanon and its army” that they “must take responsibility for what is happening in their backyard,” even if the perpetrators of the recent rocket launches hailed from a Palestinian organization, belonged to a dissident group or acted independently.

“The State of Israel will not accept firing at its territory,” he stressed.

Turning to Iran’s deadly suicide-drone assault on the Israeli-managed Mercer Street tanker on July 29, he commended the G-7 countries for having condemned the attack, which was proven by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) to have been carried out by the Islamic Republic. While on that topic, he invoked Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, the “‘hangman of Tehran,’ a brutal extremist even for the Iranian regime,” and cited “Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East—on land, at sea and in the air.”

Itamar Marcus Video: The World of the Palestinian Child How the PA indoctrinates young children to see Jews as a dangerous force in the world.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/itamar-marcus-video-world-palestinian-child-frontpagemagcom/

This video is brought to you by a Freedom Center-Glazov Gang collaboration on a new exclusive webinar series, Teach-Ins for the Twenty-First Century. Join us as some of the leading thinkers and pundits on the scene today discuss key issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and its ongoing implications, confronting the Left, the jihad terror threat, and much, much more. And make sure to ask your own questions of our experts.

This new webinar features Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch. One of the foremost authorities on Palestinian policy and ideology, Marcus has been instrumental in exposing the PA duplicity, hate and terror promotion. He has presented PMW’s findings to members of government and parliaments of over 30 countries, leading to a major drop in foreign funding to the PA, with 4 countries cutting off all funding. His book Deception, co-authored with Nan Jacques Zilberdik, was acclaimed by the founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein, as “one of the most important books you handle in your lives.” He was recognized as being among the world’s “top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life or the State of Israel,” by The Algemeiner newspaper.

Itamar discusses The World of the Palestinian Child, revealing how many Palestinian terrorists in recent years are teenagers including some as young as 13-year-old. He explores how the PA successfully indoctrinates even young children to see Israelis/Jews as a powerful and dangerous force in the world — turning even good people and children into terror supporters.

Don’t miss it!

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com  

On the evening of September 6th, 2021, the holiday Rosh-Ha-Shana celebrates 5782 years of Jewish life. I hope that included in the rituals of observance and sermons will be an accounting of Israel’s outsize contributions to every aspect of human endeavor throughout the globe. Millenia, centuries, and decades are daunting, but Michael Ordman’s weekly newsletters gives us updates on medical, scientific, technologic, and social institutions that dazzle and evoke admiration in lieu of libel and bias. rsk

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Successful Covid-19 treatment trial. A successful Israeli trial of Covid-19 treatment EXO-CD24 (see here previously) has now been reinforced by a trial on 88 patients in Greece. 90% of the moderate and serious patients (aged up to 85) were released within five days of treatment. None required to be put on ventilators.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/88-patients-0-intubated-israeli-precision-covid-drug-wrapping-up-early-trial/
 
Second most coronavirus innovations. (TY Hazel) The 2021 report by research center StartupBlink cited Israel as the source of 38 of some 1,300 pandemic-related innovations, ranking it world number 2 after the USA. The report praised Israel’s many innovations relative to its small size and also its vaccination program.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israel-ranks-second-in-world-in-coronavirus-innovation-study-675728
 
Breakthrough in detecting metastatic breast cancer. Researchers from four Israeli medical institutes have identified early signs in the body that indicate breast cancer is about to spread to other organs. The discovery could save millions of lives. They also discovered that the protein MYC speeds the growth of cancerous cells.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/breakthrough-in-the-battle-against-metastatic-breast-cancer-in-tau-study-675842
 
Eat up those cancer cells. A US clinical study involving Irving Weissman of Ben Gurion University is using the antibody Magrolimab to enhance “scavenger macrophages” – cancer cell-eating white blood cells. Magrolimab blocks the CD47 molecule that cancer cells produce to signal “don’t eat me” to the macrophages.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/bgu_stanford.aspx
 
Understanding Alzheimer’s. (TY WIN) It is known that a build-up of Amyloid plaques in the brain is common in Alzheimer’s patients, but what do they affect? Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have just found that they are a catalyst to the degradation of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and adrenaline.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/Amyloid-Plaques-Alzheimer.aspx
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667109321001366?via%3Dihub
 
Removable heart implant. Israel’s Append Medical is developing the Appligator – an implantable device for closing the Left Atrial Appendix (LAA) to prevent blood clot leakage and strokes in those suffering from atrial fibrillation (AF). However, unlike other implants, the device is removed after surgery, leaving just stitches.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3914175,00.html   https://www.appendmedical.com/
 
President’s booster. Honest Reporting’s Daniel Pomerantz was interviewed on Turkish TV about Israel’s coronavirus activities. He revealed that President Isaac Herzog was one of the first to receive a third (booster) vaccination against SARS-Cov-2. It was administered at Sheba hospital by Muslim Arab nurse Lina Ahmad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y1ZFi16DAs  
 
Heart monitoring smartwatch ready to launch. Israel’s CardiacSense (see here previously) is about to ship its first heart-monitoring smartwatches around the world. This article gives the history and technical details of the low-cost product that can save many lives, at a fraction of the cost of hospital sensors and implants.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3913705,00.html
 
US approves 3D medical holographs. Israel-based RealView Imaging (see here previously) has received FDA clearance for its HOLOSCOPE-i holographic system. The system creates spatially accurate, 3D interactive medical holograms, based on data received from standard CT scans and 3D ultrasound systems.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3914003,00.html  
 
Ribbons of Hope. The Israel Cancer Research Fund is holding a virtual gala on 10th Aug to raise funds to help the most promising Israeli scientists advance ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. ICRF has already provided more than 2,500 grants that have been responsible for major cancer research breakthroughs.
https://www.icrfonline.org/
 
His father’s son.  Having watched his father save many lives as a volunteer EMT for Israel’s United Hatzalah, 16-year-old Shaked decided to learn how to administer CPR himself. So, when bystanders didn’t know what to do when a woman collapsed in Afula, Shaked stepped right up and saved her life.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/311232
 

Israel beats Russia, wins gold in gymnastics; Angry Russians accuse judges of bias

https://worldisraelnews.com/israel-beats-russia-wins-gold-in-gymnastics-angry-russians-accuse-judges-of-bias/?utm_source=

Linoy Ashram becomes first Israeli woman to take Olympic gold as Russians accuse judges of bias.

Her blue ribbon soared halfway to the rafters, and Israel’s Linoy Ashram spun and swirled and caught it, winning gold in a performance that ended Russia’s decades-long dominance in rhythmic gymnastics.

But Russian sports officials accused the judges of bias and said they would lodge a complaint.

Ashram, 22, became the first Israeli woman to ever win an Olympic gold medal, edging out a pair of Russian identical twin sisters who were the favorites heading into Tokyo.

Dina Averina, 22, placed second and her sister, Arina, fell to fourth place. Alina Harnasko of Belarus won the bronze medal.

“This is history. I’m proud of represent Israel here, on the biggest stage in the world,” Ashram said after her victory. “It’s like a dream, I think it’s like I’m not here.”

Ashram, 22, has served as an Israeli military secretary since 2017, and she works there every day when she’s not performing. Israeli women are required to perform at least two years of military service, and she said it is important to her to give time and energy to her country.

In her final performance in the four-round competition, she danced to a techno remix of the Jewish celebratory folk song “Hava Nagila” as the crowd clapped along. Ashram, wearing a blue and white feathered bird leotard in the colors of the Israeli flag, missed a catch, and spectators gasped.

Dina Averina, who was set to perform just after Ashram, saw her mistake and was hopeful it was a chance for her to take the gold medal back to Russia.

Denying the Centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish People Alex Z. Grobman

https://jewishlink.news/features/45306-denying-the-centrality-of-jerusalem-to-the-jewish-people

Attempts to deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem is part of this unrelenting war against Israel. The Palestinian Authority (PA) accuses the Jewish state of fashioning a false Jewish history, while appropriating Palestinian history, culture and heritage. The Palestinians Arabs refer to these actions as “Judaization.” As Palestinian Media Watch founder Itamar Marcus explains, the main target is supposedly the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which Israel allegedly schemes to demolish to build the Jewish Temple. PA political and religious leaders, officials and academics refer to the Temple as Al-Haikal Al-Maz’oom, the “alleged Temple.”

A Palestinian Arab “specialist” on Jerusalem declared that the well-known verse from the Book of Psalms 137, “If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill,” is not of Jewish origin, but was originally spoken by a Christian Crusader and “borrowed” by Jews and “falsified in the name of Zionism.”

Irrefutable Evidence

The question of the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people is irrefutable from many sources. Historian Rivkah Duker Fishman examined the works of Greek and Roman authors of classical antiquity from nearly 20 diverse sources dating from the third century BCE to the third century CE, roughly six centuries. Fishman found that the authors of these historic works unanimously agreed that Jerusalem was Jewish since it was “founded by Jews, its inhabitants were Jews and that the Temple, located in Jerusalem, was the center of the Jewish religion.” Even though some of these authors like Manetho, Apion, Tacitus and Juvenal held clearly negative views about Jews and Judaism, they were completely in accord about the Jewish identity of Jerusalem.

Descriptions of the Temple are a part of the reports on Jerusalem and on Judaism, ranging from fact “to the libelous and bizarre. For the Greeks and Romans, Jerusalem was famous for its Temple, which served as the focal point of the xenophobic, strange, and possibly menacing rites of the Jews whose contributions brought much gold into the city…. After its destruction in 70 CE, the memory of the Temple persisted in the retrospective histories by Tacitus and by Cassius Dio.” These ancient texts, therefore, refute current efforts by Muslims and others to deny the historic connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and the site of the Temple.

Israel’s Place in the New Order: A Practitioner’s Perspective by Yaakov Amidror

https://jstribune.com/yaakov-amidror-israels-place-in-new-world-order/

The world Israel lives in is dramatically different from the one in which our elders grew up, amid Cold War tensions and with large Arab armies at Israel’s borders. Within the last decade we witnessed the rise of China, America’s announced intention to reduce its presence in the Middle East, the aggressiveness of a weakened but assertive Russia, and the consequences of turmoil in the Middle East. We are faced with multiple threats, including a shifting balance of power in Asia and an increasingly lawless global system—scarred by the failure of globalization during the COVID-19 crisis. Amid all this, it is imperative that Israel sustain its own strength, while working hard to restore bipartisan support in the United States and making good use of the new alignments in the Eastern Mediterranean and with like-minded Sunni Arab nations.

A World of Difference

How different is the world we live in from that which we have been raised to expect? To answer this question we need to define the relevant timeframe discussed in this essay. Clearly this is a world radically different from the one in which I came of age and learned my trade as an intelligence officer—the post-1945 world in which two overly armed nuclear powers, the US and the Soviet Union, faced each other in deadly competition across the globe (with a block of the “non-aligned” trying, not always successfully, to stay on the sidelines); and the post-1948 world in which Israel faced the threat of enemy Arab states surrounding it with a million armed men, thousands of tanks, and hundreds of fighter aircraft.

Since then, the Soviet Union has fallen apart and in our region, no Arab army (other than the Egyptian military) is large or significant enough to constitute a threat. But to better understand the world in which Israel must function, the changes—globally as well as regionally—within the last decade provide the relevant frame of analysis. This has been a decade in which the global distribution of power became much more evident, in light of several developments:

Eight years of rule—now set to be extended indefinitely—by Xi Jinping in China, under whose leadership the People’s Republic of China pursues a strategy of aggressive growth. It is already America’s peer rival, as it seeks a revision of the global order; this, in turn, has set in motion drastic changes in the global alignments and alliances.

The return of the Democrats to power in both branches of government in the US and the ensuing debate (and internal fissures) on aspects of policy—including the “special relationship” with Israel—amid signs of radical polarization, leading the US away from the traditional role it is expected to play in the region and beyond.

The willingness and ability of Russia, despite demographic decline and severe economic limitations, to play an outsized role due to its readiness to use force, led by an assertive president and backed by an impressive and intimidating nuclear arsenal.

The dramatic and confusing events of the so-called Arab Spring, which brought about the disintegration of several states. It is now evident that the non-Arab powers—Iran, Turkey, and Israel—are the tone-setters in a region once viewed as the heartland of Arab nationalism.

Looking toward the future, five key cycles of dynamic changes seem to have a transformative role and need to be addressed by policy makers.

The Chinese Challenge

China is fast becoming the dynamic revisionist power in the global order—deliberately and rather aggressively expanding its circle of influence. It does not fear competing with the US; rather, it seeks to pose the Chinese model as an alternative to Western democracy and pushes for structural change in any international organization and forum it is part of, or uses existing organizations to implement its own interests. It has become more centralized and utilizes modern technology to tighten its grip on its citizens; hence, its overt self-confidence is evident as Xi rewrites the rules that have held for the last 30 years.

Additionally, the People’s Republic of China did not recoil from the use of force to impose its will on Hong Kong and integrate it within the Chinese system, in breach of the understanding reached with the United Kingdom as to the rights of the former colony. Nor did it hesitate to threaten Australia, to take over atolls and uninhabited islands within the so-called Nine-Dash Map, build military bases, and revive nationalist claims from the 1930s, and to do so in dangerous proximity to other nations in the South China Sea, which have competing claims over the same locations.