RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.thejc.com/news/dr-denis-maceoins-letter-to-the-edinburgh-university-students-association-pf63hsy2

This letter was written in 2011 by the late Professor Denis MavEoin of blessed memory in 2011. It was reprinted in the Jewish Chronicle on February 25, 2025. It is both apposite and relevant today, rsk

“May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain’s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a ‘Nazi’ state.

In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nüremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When?

I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out

No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/moral-case-mass-relocation-joseph-schechtman

“Population transfer is a grave surgical operation, justifiable, not for cosmetic reasons, but only where the sole alternative would be chaos and destruction.” —Joseph Schechtman, 1953.

President Donald Trump’s proposal to permanently relocate the entire population of Gaza to neighboring countries has caused a storm of condemnation. Foreign leaders, U.N. officials and experts have decried the plan as ethnic cleansing, a violation of international law, and a war crime. But in the years before and after World War II, the imperial powers, the fledgling international bodies, and global leaders alike, operating within the post-Versailles order founded on the breakup of large multiethnic empires, saw population transfer, both voluntary and compulsory, as a humanitarian tool to avoid future wars. In fact, they considered it not only necessary and legal, but also morally justified and advantageous. For British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, who negotiated the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, population transfer would achieve the “removal of old and deep-rooted causes of quarrel”—an act that reflected the very basis for the existence of nation-states, which gave a political voice to individual peoples.

A pressing problem for the post-Versailles order occurred when part of the people of one nation-state found itself trapped by map-makers and the realities of defensible geography into living in someone else’s national home. The problem was especially acute when these ethnic minorities became embroiled in war between the nation-state of their ethnicity and their country of birth. To avoid both national disenfranchisement, and to limit future wars, the answer to such problems, whenever practical, was population transfer. The first internationally sanctioned example of “unmixing populations” after the Great War was the voluntary exchange of respective ethnic minorities between Bulgaria and Greece. The Treaty of Lausanne then sanctioned the compulsory exchange of Greeks in Turkey and Turks in Greece. While 1.6 million people endured all kinds of suffering in the process, in the end the misery was widely judged to be worth the price as the transfer created a new reality in which ethnic, religious, and culturally monolithic populations were formed, putting an end to violence and conflict.

Understanding the complexities of migration, refugees, and population transfer desperately requires a capable historian. Fortunately we have one in Joseph Schechtman, a Russian Jew who authored seminal books such as European Population Transfers, 1939-1945 (1946); Population Transfers in Asia (1949); The Arab Refugee Problem (1952); and The Refugees in the World: Displacement and Dislocation (1964). Schechtman was a believer in the utility of mass population transfer, which he saw as a useful solution to thorny and bloody nationality disputes and presented a difficult subject in political terms that leaders, politicians, and ordinary people could understand.

Schechtman saw the postwar population transfers as beneficial to peace in the continent. ‘To have saddled the Polish state with millions of ardently nationalistic Germans,’ he wrote, ‘would have threatened not only the existence of Poland but the peace of Europe.’

https://www.frontpagemag.com/searching-for-condemnations-in-the-muslim-world/

After Hamas paraded the coffins of 9-month-old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel to the cheers and jeers of its supporters, before turning over the coffins, locked with keys that did not fit to Israel, people looked for something to restore their faith in the goodness of mankind in the Muslim world.

Millions thought they found it in fake quotes from the grand muftis of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“What we say today in Gaza is a disgrace to Islam, an act of blasphemy against Allah,” Saudi Grand Mufti Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh (pictured above) reportedly claimed in one viral social media post.

“Hamas has brought shame to Islam on a level never seen before,” Grand Mufti of Dubai Ahmed al-Haddad allegedly proclaimed.

Photos of the two Islamic religious leaders illustrated with these quotes racked up millions of views on social media. Some even found their way into news stories sourced from social media.

The problem was that the quotes were fake and never existed outside social media. The Saudi quote was soon disavowed while an Emirati journalist stated that the local media had “never heard of them” and that they were “mere rumors”.

Why did so many people spread and probably invent these fake social media posts? Because they wanted to believe that Muslim religious leaders would condemn Hamas mocking the bodies of the Jewish children it murdered and there was still some hope for decency left in the world.

But those condemnations don’t exist.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21424/hamas-jihad-to-destroy-israel

Some people in Israel are demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu step down and agree to Hamas’s demand to end the war in the Gaza Strip…. These Israelis fail to understand that the October 7 massacre is just another phase of the Islamists’ Jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Since its violent, brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has done nothing to help the local residents. Instead of building hospitals, schools and economic projects, Hamas, with the help of Iran and Qatar, has devoted huge resources to manufacturing weapons, such as rockets and missiles, and building a massive network of tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, in a document published shortly after the October 7 attack, openly admits that it is opposed to the presence of Jews in Israel. The document frankly admits that the conflict did not start as a result of the Holocaust, or when Israel declared independence in 1948, or on October 7, 2023, but 105 years ago, “including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation.” The document goes on to explain that Hamas “is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.”

Hamas’s 1988 charter emphasizes the importance of Jihad as the main means for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to achieve its goals…

Significantly, the charter quotes Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, as saying: “Israel will arise and continue to exist until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished what went before.” Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

US President Donald J. Trump would do well to designate the Muslim Brotherhood, the font of all the Islamic jihadist organizations, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Such an act would make it difficult for those countries that promote and finance jihadi terrorists to keep on doing so.

What happened on October 7 should be seen in the context of Qatar’s, Iran’s and Hamas’s continuing Jihad. The massacre on October 7 was just another phase in the Islamist groups’ efforts to eliminate Israel. After the October 7, massacres, the Qatari government media consistently praised the massacres, and weeks ago vowed more of them.

Anyone who believes that Hamas would abandon Jihad as a result of a ceasefire agreement is engaging in extreme self-deception. Hamas has not yet accomplished its mission of destroying Israel. Hamas’s main goal, especially now, is to remain in power after the war…. Any deal that keeps Hamas in power would pave the way for the Islamist murderers, rapists and baby-killers to carry out still more massacres against Israelis.

Regrettably, there is no alternative to eradicating Hamas.

Some people in Israel are demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu step down and agree to Hamas’s demand to end the war in the Gaza Strip, as if Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was just another round of fighting with the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group.

These Israelis fail to understand that the October 7 massacre is just another phase of the Islamists’ Jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Hamas did not attack Israel on October 7, 2023, just because it wanted to release Palestinian convicts from Israeli prisons or improve the living conditions of the Palestinians under its rule in the Gaza Strip. The attack, resulting in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the wounding of thousands more, as well as the abduction of more than 250 to the Gaza Strip, came as part of Hamas’s Jihad to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.

https://bda1776.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

“So let’s be very, very clear here. The idea that the PLO had reformed, at its best, represented the elevation of hope over evidence. It evaporated entirely in September 2000, when Arafat launched a terror war rather than accept a state.”

Here’s what it means to break the Overton Window.

A couple of weeks ago, President Trump suggested evacuating the Gazans from the hellhole in which they’ve been trapped since 1948. The world was aghast. But all that Trump did was speak an obvious, overdue truth that some of us have been shouting from the sidelines for decades.

For years, we’ve heard a unanimous chorus of “respectable” voices chanting their mantra: “There is no alternative to a two-state solution.” They chanted it even though it was obviously false. The status quo, for example, was an alternative. So was the alternative around which the entire Palestine Liberation movement had been founded: Genocidal extermination of the Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state. So was the completion of the population exchange that had begun when the Arab countries exiled all of their Jews into Israel. So was an Israeli military victory resulting in either another refugee crisis or a massive body count.

The “respectable” crowd just disliked all those alternatives, so they pretended they didn’t exist. Of course, many of these same folks also hewed to the mantra “there is no military solution” to conflicts, even though nearly every important turning point in history followed a decisive military solution to a longstanding conflict. Credibility and consistency were never big with that crowd.

Now, it was bad enough when we had to hear that nonsense from the anti-Israel crowd and the ignorant pollyannas (both very large groups). What was worse was hearing it from savvy pro-Israel analysts who should have known better.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/23/suffer-the-little-children/

In his most powerful novel, Russia’s greatest 19th-century novelist wrestles with the most difficult moral problem faced by people – the suffering of innocents. At their father’s funeral, Ivan Karamazov recounts to his younger brother Alyosha, who is training to be a monk, graphic examples of sadistic acts committed against children.

“Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her,” Ivan says. “They’ve planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby’s face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby’s face and blows out its brains.”

If evil exists in the world for the purpose of granting mankind free will, thereby revealing the existence of God, Ivan wants no part of religion. He also tells his brother of a married couple, “cultivated parents,” who subject their daughter to horrific beatings and torture and lock her in the outdoor privy in the freezing cold.

“Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her?”

“The Brothers Karamazov” is fiction. But such horrors describe the real-life world we still live in. It was the world on display today when Hamas released the remains of four Israelis it kidnapped in the savage attack of Oct. 7, 2023. The oldest was Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when abducted. Who takes an 83-year-old man?

The other three were members of a family whose names and likeness are familiar to everyone in Israel. They should have been known to everyone in the civilized world. Shiri Bibas was 32 when she was kidnapped by Hamas along with her red-headed sons, Ariel, then 4, and Kfir, who was not quite 9 months old. “Leave her alive, she has children with her,” one of the terrorists can be heard saying on a video they shot. “Let no one harm her so that they know of our humanity.”

Hamas’ idea of “humanity” was on full display Thursday in Gaza, as Hamas used the four dead hostages’ coffins as a grotesque prop, complete with their photographs and a photo of Benjamin Netanyahu rendered as a vampire. An inscription reads, “The war criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi army killed them with missiles from Zionist warplanes.”

There is, of course, no reason to believe these four people were inadvertently killed in an Israeli airstrike. It’s possible, but Hamas lies constantly about its crimes. It lies about its own hospitals being bombed, lies about casualty numbers, lies about food in Gaza, lies about hostages’ well-being, lies about everything. Its propaganda is as transparent as it is crude.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21421/disastrous-ceasefire-deal

Ever since Hamas launched its murderous assault on Israel in October 2023, Hamas leaders, together with their supporters in Qatar and Iran, have calculated that any outcome from the Gaza conflict that enables Hamas to remain in control of the enclave counts as a victory.

This agenda for its long-term-client, Hamas, explains why Qatar, which claimed to be a neutral player during the ceasefire negotiations in Doha, has been so keen to oversee a deal that favours Hamas at the expense of Israel’s long-term security. This is the same country, after all, that helped to facilitate the deal with the first Trump administration that resulted in the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.

If Trump and Netanyahu are really serious about achieving lasting peace in Gaza, they must abandon the disastrous ceasefire deal — and especially the well-intended but painfully out-of-his-depth U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who has mindlessly promoted it.

Regrettably, Witkoff is on his way to wrecking Trump’s election triumph by equally disastrous negotiations in Ukraine, where the US is punishing the victim, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and rewarding the aggressor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. If Trump succeeds in torpedoing his month-old presidency, the blame goes to Witkoff.

Nothing better illustrates the dire shortcomings of the flawed ceasefire deal agreed between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas than the terrorist organisation’s despicable mistreatment of the Israeli hostages it has so far agreed to set free.

By far the most grotesque exhibition of Hamas’s contempt for the hostages was their handling of the handover of four Israelis murdered as a result of the October 7, 2023 attacks. Not only was the handover ceremony staged as a propaganda rally for Hamas, it later transpired that one of the slain hostage bodies was not that of Shiri Bibas, as had been agreed in the ceasefire deal. In addition, the Israeli authorities revealed that Bibas’s two sons, Ariel (four years old at the time of his abduction) and Kfir (9 months old), whose bodies were returned at the same time, had been murdered by Hamas, and not killed in Israeli airstrikes as the terrorist group had claimed.

Hamas’s shocking disrespect for the dead hostages prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare that Hamas would “pay the price for this cruel and wicked violation of the agreement.”

https://www.jns.org/babies-in-bandanas/

Exactly seven months before their abduction on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were photographed getting ready to celebrate Purim—a particular favorite among children, since it involves parading around in costume.

The by-now famous snapshot shows the toddler and his baby brother each dressed up as Batman. Age three and a half at the time, Ariel must have been familiar enough with the comic-book superhero to request the get-up. As another widely circulated image illustrates, the whole family, including mother Shiri and father Yarden, wore Batman pajamas.

Two-month-old Kfir certainly wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the Purim outfit. But his doting parents clearly couldn’t resist cloaking him in the action figure’s garb for the cuteness of it all.
Little did they realize at the time that the whole world would come to know just how adorable these two little redheads in Batman bandanas were. Indeed, their faces have been etched in our hearts and minds since Oct. 7, 2023.

That was the day on which Hamas invaded southern Israel. With the gleeful help of average Gaza residents, thousands of Palestinians from the neighboring terrorist-infested enclave committed the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.

They slaughtered around 1,200 people, among them Shiri Bibas’s parents. They raped, stabbed, shot, burned and decapitated anyone and everyone they encountered, ultimately kidnapping more than 250 innocent Israelis and foreign nationals.

Yarden and Shiri, residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz—known for its peace activism and generous assistance to Gazans in need of work or medical treatment in Israeli hospitals—were among the latter. Bleeding from his wounds, Yarden was hauled off on a motorcycle by the barbarians who raided Nir Oz. He was released three weeks ago as part of the ceasefire deal.

During the 483 days of his captivity, he had no idea what had happened to his wife and sons. To add torment to torture, his captors told him that his loved ones were dead.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Here are some statistics to think about:

According to most recent estimates, the population of Australia in 2025 is projected to be around 26.9 million people. 

In January 2025, Israel’s population reached 10 million people. Israel’s population is projected to continue to grow, with a fertility rate that is higher than most Western nations. 

And, thanks to the diligent research of Michael Ordman, here is a list of the outsize contributions of Israel to global health and a better future.  It speaks for itself. Israel is an amazing nation.

“Isaiah 49:6–7: “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” rsk

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Standing together. Brian Mast, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress, met with IDF soldier Ari Spitz. Rep Mast lost his legs in Afghanistan; Ari lost his in Gaza; both have prosthetic legs.  Rep Mast said, “As the only member to serve with both the US Army and the IDF, I will always stand with Israel.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403476
 
Released hostages plant trees at hospital. (TY UWI) A few days before Tu Bishvat (New Year for Trees) the five IDF female lookouts, who returned from Hamas captivity, planted olive trees at the entrance to Beilinson Hospital on the day they were discharged. The olive tree symbolizes stability, continuity, and resilience.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403461
 
Five lookouts ask to return to IDF service. Less than two weeks after their release from Hamas captivity, former hostages Liri Albag, Naama Levy, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa and Karina Ariev have asked to return to the army. The army responded that they needed more time to recover and that it was too soon.
https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/freed-israeli-hostages-ask-to-return-to-idf-service-rdh8vmxn
 
Trains resume to Sderot. (TY Yanky) The Sderot-Ashkelon train line resumed operations for the first time since Oct 7 2023. The IDF has prepared for the line to reopen by deploying new technologies, physical defenses and surveillance capabilities costing NIS 40 million.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sderot-ashkelon-train-line-resumes-operations-for-first-time-since-october-7-attack/
 
LEGO man is still building. (TY Sam Kramer) For the last 14 years, the “The Lego Man” Maor Cohen (see here previously) has brought over 10,000 Lego sets to children with cancer. Since Oct. 7 he has taken on a new role: bringing Lego to injured Israeli soldiers. And now, for returned hostages, including the Thai captives.
https://jewishjournal.com/community/376281/the-lego-man-maor-cohen-brings-lego-to-injured-israeli-soldiers-an-interview/   https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403992
 
From farms to frontlines. On the Jewish National Fund-USA (JNF-USA) alternative winter break trip to Israel, 30 US students brought joy to kids at youth centers, worked on farms, raised funds for ADI Negev in their “Run for Inclusion”, and connected to the land and its people. www.jnf.org/volunteeril
https://www.jns.org/wire/from-farms-to-frontlines-students-bring-hope-to-israel-post-oct-7/
 
Avi and Eden are engaged. (TY Yanky) During her national service, Eden was assigned to “OneFamily – overcoming terror together,” and worked at Loewenstein rehab hospital. She met Avi, a critically injured Golani Brigade commander. A friendship flourished between them – and now they are getting married.
https://simchaspot.com/blog/2025/02/03/engagement-of-avi-and-eden-israel/
 
Stock options for reservist employees. Israel’s HiBob (see here previously) is showing its appreciation to its employees, granting 1,800 options to every employee who served more than 30 days of IDF reserve duty during the Swords of Iron War. HiBob’s CEO highlighted military service as “a cornerstone of Israel’s strength.”
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkaehmmyyx
 
Returning home. (TY TPS) Israel’s Ministry of Social Affairs has unveiled a structured support plan for the tens of thousands of northern residents returning to their homes from Mar 1.  Social workers and therapists have been provided with guidelines; families should visit their homes in stages to plan repairs and redecoration.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/a-roadmap-to-resilience-helping-northern-israelis-return-home-after-war/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
From collapse to pacemaker in 5 hours. By now you probably know about my personal experience of Israel’s terrific emergency medical service. If interested in the full details, I’ve written it up. More important, though, are the links to the sites of the wonderful Laniado and United Hatzalah. Please support them.
https://netanyareflections.blogspot.com/2025/02/from-collapse-to-pacemaker-in-5-hours.html
https://laniadosupporters.org.il/laniado-applies-advanced-idf-methods/  https://laniadosupporters.org.il/
https://israelrescue.org/stories/a-lifesaving-injection/  https://israelrescue.org/donate/
 
Bacteriophage can save lives. Sigal Vorzhev, a researcher at the Israeli Phage Therapy Center at the Hebrew University and Hadassah, has discovered a phage (a kind of virus) that kills deadly resistant bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae. She has named the phage “KpRaz1” after her life partner MSG Raz Abulafia who fell in Gaza.
https://www.afhu.org/2025/02/12/hebrew-university-researchers-name-newly-discovered-phages-in-honor-of-fallen-soldiers-and-civilians/
 
Unlocking the secrets of cancer. (TY Ron M) Tel Aviv University Professor Uri Ben-David shares insights regarding cancer biology and treatment strategies, including precision medicine. His specialty is aneuploidy, the presence of an abnormal number of chromosomes in cancer cells (see here previously).
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-841686
 
Doubling the IVF success rate. (TY Ron M) Tel Aviv University scientists have greatly increased the success rate of IVF from 34% to 65% by a precise and advanced method for selecting the highest-quality sperm cells. Their innovative imaging system analyzes internal sperm morphology, motility, and DNA fragmentation.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-841730
 
Don’t worry, be happy. Yuval Kutz is founder and President of Israel’s online Happiness Studies Academy, which uses scientific research to educate leaders about how to find and share happiness. Kurtz says, “Research shows you will be more productive, more resilient, more efficient, and that you’ll live longer” if you’re happy.
https://www.israel21c.org/if-you-want-to-be-happy-get-ready-for-some-hard-work/
https://www.happinessstudies.academy/abouthsa/  https://vimeo.com/414706530
 
What’s good about fat? (TY TPS) Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have identified new types of fat cells in the body and described their purpose – e.g. to control appetite. Their research findings, part of the international Human Cell Atlas project, could pave the way for personalized medicine in obesity.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-researchers-discover-new-fat-cell-types-that-could-transform-obesity-treatment/  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-024-02048-3
 
Volunteers to the rescue. (TY Gabrielle) This article gives a comprehensive insight into Israel’s largest volunteer organization – Yad Sarah (see here previously). The range of medical and social services that Yad Sarah provides is truly amazing, including to help rehabilitate wounded IDF soldiers.
https://israeldreams.com/2025/01/12/finallyan-uplifting-story/   https://friendsofyadsarah.org/donate-now