RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/why-are-palestinian-leaders-rejecting-arab-israeli-pea

Palestinianism is a form of identity politics intended to make Arab Palestinians think of themselves as victims of Israel, Jews and their supporters, and to promote terrorism.

In order to understand why Arab Palestinian leaders, led by the PLO and Hamas, reject the Abraham Accords and efforts to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors, and why they refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist, it is necessary to understand their ideology: Palestinianism.

Palestinianism is not a national movement. It is an anti-Jewish movement conceived and dedicated to opposing the right of the Jewish people to reestablish their historic homeland in Eretz Yisrael. 

Although demanding “self-determination” and statehood, and promoting a vague “Palestinian national identity,” their agenda is focused on and committed to destroying Israel. Nearly the entire contents of the PLO and Hamas covenants are devoted to this genocidal goal, and are the basis of Palestinian law and culture.

Palestinianism is essentially a form of identity politics intended to make Arab Palestinians think of themselves as victims of Israel, Jews and their supporters, and to promote terrorism.

Suggesting a “two-state solution,” or “two states for two nations,” therefore, begs the questions: Are Palestinian Arabs a nation, or a people? On what is “Palestinian national identity” based? How will creating a terrorist-run state serve the interests of peace and Palestinians? Although considered a legitimate expression of nationalism, Palestinianism has neither a long, nor distinguished history, which explains why the peace process between Israel and Arab Palestinians has failed and will continue to fail.

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Rolling out the vaccine. 140,000 Israelis were vaccinated in the first three days of the Pfizer vaccine rollout. (This editor received his first dose of vaccine on the sixth day). In addition, Magen David Adom are deploying unique mobile vaccination caravans, made by Israel’s Caravila.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-fastest-country-in-the-world-vaccinating-its-population-against-covid-19/

https://worldisraelnews.com/israel-prepares-vehicles-for-mobile-covid-and-flu-shots/

Fat treatment proved to kill Covid-19. Hebrew University scientists have completed a study of 1500 Covid-19 patients receiving anti-cholesterol treatments. The study showed fast recovery and no deaths. Now a full clinical trial is to commence on the fat-busting treatment Fenofibrate (Tricor) (reported here previously).

https://campaign.huji.ac.il/news/could-fibrates-turn-effects-corona-little-more-common-cold

Microbiota shrinks melanoma tumors. A small Phase 1 trial of 10 terminally ill melanoma patients at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center resulted in the lives of two patients being extended and one cured completely. Doctors transplanted fecal material from the gut microbiome of previously cured melanoma patients.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/fecal-transplants-may-help-flush-tumors-from-body-israeli-doctors-find/

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/09/science.abb5920

New approach to Dry Eye Disease. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Azura Ophthalmics is tackling Dry Eye Disease (DED) by preventing its root cause – Dysfunction of the Meibomian Gland or MGD. Azura has reported good results during the Phase 2 clinical trials of its AZR-MD-001 ointment, applied to the lower eyelid.

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-dry-eye-treatment-co-azura-ophthalmics-raises-20m-1001346802

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/azura-ophthalmics-announces-primary-endpoints-130000591.html

https://azuraophthalmics.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfjkv7Qxymc

Blood test detects early-stage lung cancer. (TY Atid-EDI) In tests, the Lung EpiCheck blood test developed by Israel’s Nucleix (reported here previously) detected 85% of early stage lung cancers among smokers and ex-smokers with a high risk for developing the disease. On low-risk individuals, the accuracy increased to 91%.

https://nucleix.com/news_and_events/nucleixs-lung-epicheck-liquid-biopsy-test-detects-85-of-early-stage-lung-cancers-in-high-risk-smokers-study-published-in-european-respiratory-journal/

The sight of blood. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Scopio Labs (reported here previously) has added software to its next generation of high-powered microscopes. It uses AI to scan, digitize and analyze blood for hematological diagnosis. Scopio has just received FDA clearance for its Full Field Peripheral Blood Smear Application.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scopio-labs-receives-fda-clearance-for-its-ai-powered-full-field-peripheral-blood-smear-full-field-pbs-application-301156907.html    https://scopiolabs.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOdglVTX150

Senior’s cancer prize. Israel’s Nutek has won the Merage 45+ Entrepreneurs’ Competition. Founder and Exec Chairman, Dov Cohen received the $100,000 prize, which rewards Israeli entrepreneurs aged 45 and over. Cohen’s Nutek has developed probes that locate cancer cells remaining in a patient during tumor removal.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/12/22/startups-not-only-for-gen-z/ https://nutekmedtech.com/

Interfaith charity donates medical kits and more. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) recently donated 160 emergency medical kits for the volunteer medics of Israeli NGO United Hatzalah. The IFCJ also donated personal protection equipment and communication devices, for use by first responders.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/interfaith-organization-provides-medical-kits-to-israeli-volunteers-652865

Donation to complete blood center. The Marcus Foundation is donating $10 million to ensure completion of Israel’s new MDA shielded national blood services center at Ramla (reported here previously), that will protect Israel’s strategic blood reserves against missile, chemical, and biological attack.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293532

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/2020-hindsight-israels-year-in-review-653213

As of Tuesday night, when the Knesset voted against the bill to postpone the budget, Israel began the countdown to its fourth general election in two years. Some pundits are pointing to this as a sign of political dysfunction. Others are hailing it as democracy in action. But everyone has been noting the “here we go again” aspect of the ongoing fray.

That the news coincided with a sharp spike in coronavirus morbidity, along with threats and then an announcement of another countrywide lockdown, only made matters worse for national morale. A third round of closures that demolishes small businesses and keeps kids at home is the last thing Israelis want. The latest warnings about the COVID-19 mutation, a few cases of which have arrived in Israel from Britain, further contributed to societal malaise.

The only silver lining, if you can call it that, has been the plethora of humorous coronavirus-spurred memes from around the world about everything from the hoarding of toilet paper to Zoom meetings in which participants are only dressed from the waist up.

Misery loves company, and in Israel as elsewhere, the consensus has been that 2020 is the “year that wasn’t.” A review of the past 12 months, however, reveals that this is far from the case, certainly where the Jewish state is concerned. Working our way backwards can provide a bit of perspective.

Let’s start with December. On December 9, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at Ben-Gurion Airport welcoming the arrival of a plane bearing the first shipment of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. This was the culmination of a $237.5 million deal that he had inked in November with the pharmaceutical giant, for the purchase of eight million doses, sufficient to inoculate nearly half the country’s population. This batch is only the beginning. The prime minister also signed a deal with Moderna for six million doses, enough to vaccinate another three million Israelis. Meanwhile, Israel’s own Institute for Biological Research vaccine, BriLife, is in the midst of advanced clinical trials.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/showtimes-pathetic-exercise-in-reagan-bashing/amp/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Mutating cancer cells. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute, working with others in the Netherlands and Norway, have discovered that melanoma cells can “frameshift” to grow whilst avoiding the immune system. The process, however, generates new peptides (short proteins) that scientists can now target with new therapies.

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/how-cancers-hurt-themselves-hurt-immune-cells-more

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-researchers-spot-new-peptides-that-could-point-way-to-slaying-cancer/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03054-1

Gastro sensor gets “breakthrough” designation. (TY Nevet & UWI) Israel’s Exero Medical (reported here previously) has received Breakthrough device designation by the US FDA for its implantable biodegradable wireless sensor designed to continuously monitor for gastrointestinal leaks and healing status after surgery.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/exero-medicals-smart-sensor-granted-fda-breakthrough-designation-301192665.html

Covid-19 vaccine progress. The Israeli-developed BriLife Covid-19 vaccine is moving into Phase 2 trials. Hospitals including Sheba and Hadassah will test the vaccine on 1,000 volunteers including seniors and those with previous conditions. Meanwhile rollout of the Pfizer vaccine began – the Israeli PM first to be vaccinated.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-corona-vaccine-approved-for-phase-2-trials/

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israels-vaccine-candidate-set-to-launch-phase-ii-clinical-trial-652110

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293351 https://youtu.be/SuNJQ85eG6o

One ventilator for 3 patients. Israel’s Yehonatan Medical together with Sheba Medical Center have devised a ventilation system with a high-power output and built-in disinfecting mechanism that can treat between three and five patients simultaneously. It includes AI technology for alerting and adjusting to patient responsiveness.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/12/14/israeli-ventilation-system-could-give-covid-the-smart-treatment/

More intelligent Covid-19 treatment. Israel’s Iguazio (reported here previously) is to provide Israel’s Sheba Medical Center with clinical, real-time predictive insights from its AI Data Science Platform to help optimize care for Covid-19 patients. Iguazio’s systems will also help Sheba reduce delays in transporting patients.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3882399,00.html

Doctors arrive to help fight Covid-19. The Israel Experience Doctors’ Program has just brought 50 qualified doctors to Israel to help alleviate the coronavirus crisis. The doctors intend to make Aliya and simultaneously will prepare for Israeli medical licensing. 700 graduates of the program are already working in Israeli hospitals.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293141

UV wavelength Covid-19 discovery. The ability of UV light to kill Covid-19 is well known. However, Tel Aviv University tests show UV with a wavelength of 285 nanometers kills 99.9% of the virus in 30 seconds – nearly as good as UV at 265nm. 285nm UV LED bulbs are cheaper and more readily available than 265nm.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-corona-discovery-uv-led-lights-kill-covid-19/

Brain-monitoring app tests for post-Covid symptoms. Israel’s Montfort (reported here previously) has enhanced its AI smartphone app that monitors neurological conditions. After six months of trials in Brazil, it now offers a test protocol for patients who have recovered from Covid-19 but still suffer long-lasting effects.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3881692,00.html https://www.mon4t.com/covid-19/

$30 million for emergency department. Philanthropist Sylvan Adams has donated $30 million to fund a new Emergency Medicine department at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center. A similar amount was allocated by the Israeli government. It will take two years to construct and will be the largest ER in Israel.

https://www.jns.org/sylvan-adams-donates-30-million-for-new-emergency-department-in-tel-aviv/

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-welcome-extradition-of-malka-leifer-opinion-652483

It appears that the extremely lengthy extradition saga of Malka Leifer is finally coming to an end. On Tuesday, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the accused pedophile against sending her packing to Australia, where she is wanted on 74 counts of rape and sexual abuse.

Though she still has another chance to appeal after Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn signed off on her extradition, there is little chance that such a move would bear fruit at this point. By now, Leifer’s lawyers have exhausted every avenue and used any lame excuse to keep their client from being sent back to the scene of her “alleged” crimes.

The reason that “alleged” should be in quotation marks here is that one of her defense team’s arguments over the past six years was that her sexual relations with the girls in the Adass Israel School in Melbourne – where she served as principal – were consensual. In other words, she acknowledges that the sex took place.

Adding insult to injury, one of her attorneys, Nick Kaufman, said, “It is simply unreasonable that [the alleged victims] did not know what those sexual acts were, and that they were not able to refuse.”

To lend credence to his argument, he peculiarly quoted one witness who stated, “I was afraid to say no. [Leifer] had a powerful personality. If I hadn’t done what she wanted, she would have become angry with me.”

Kaufman argued – ridiculously – that this meant her fear had been “subjective,” as opposed to the result of an actual threat.

Not only is the assertion of the students’ “consent” preposterous, but it’s completely different from what Leifer claimed when the first complaint surfaced in 2008. At the time, she not only denied the accusation, but got huffy about how it would ruin her reputation.

Well, she was right about that. But any damage to her name is well-deserved. Someone who takes advantage of his or her position of authority to pray on subordinates for sexual gratification warrants no sympathy.

Leifer’s conduct – if an Australian court deems her guilty – was particularly heinous, however. As headmistress of a religious school, which keeps girls and boys completely separate and teaches the strictest interpretation of Orthodox Judaism, she would have been able to groom her victims without raising suspicion.

December 16, 2020, https://bit.ly/3njMqXI

The Palestinian conflict did not erupt in 1967, nor in 1948.

In November 1917, the Balfour Declaration called for the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish People” in Palestine, which was the accepted international name of the Land of Israel since the 5th century BCE. The declaration, by the British Foreign Minister, stated that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities [Arabs] in Palestine.” The declaration acknowledged the ancient national Jewish roots in the Land of Israel (Palestine), and that Jews were indigenous in Palestine, returning to – not colonizing – their homeland.

In April 1920, the post-World War I San Remo Conference reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration and laid the legal foundation for the creation of 22 Arab states and one Jewish state. It was signed by all 51 members of the League of Nations in the August 1920 Treaty of Sevres between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire.

Arab terrorism erupted in Jerusalem, Jaffa and the Galilee in response to the emerging reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East, which is considered by Muslims as the abode of Islam, “divinely-ordained to believers” and off limits to “infidel” sovereignty.

In July 1922, the League of Nations entrusted Britain with the Mandate for Palestine, which was authored by the San Remo Conference. The Mandate highlighted “the historical connection of the Jewish people to Palestine, and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” The sole purpose of the Mandate was to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, referring to the Land of Israel. The Mandate for Palestine has been included, since 1945, in Article 80 of the UN Charter, which preserves the inherent Jewish national rights in the Land of Israel.

In September 1922, the League of Nations and Britain transferred 3/4 of Palestine to the Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan, which gained independence in 1946.

https://thejewishvoiceandopinion.com/the-abraham-accords-and-the-intransigence-of-the-palestinian-arabs-in-judea-samaria-and-gaza/

 The Abraham Accords, the term given to the series of agreements reached last summer allowing normal relations between Israel and several of her Arab-Muslim neighbors, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and now Morocco, were greeted with optimism and approval by the Trump administration.

“Everybody who joined the Abraham Accords will see the benefits for their own people,” declared US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said he was “highly confident that many, many more nations will ultimately choose to do the right thing and recognize Israel as the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.”

In stark contrast to Pompeo’s confidence in other Arab nations’ ultimate decision to recognize the Jewish people’s return to their ancestral homeland, are the expressions emanating from the Palestinian Authority and its counterpart in Gaza, Hamas. These Palestinian groups have been brutal in their condemnation of the accords and those countries that have signed them.

Exploiting Children

Before his death this past November, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian politician and negotiator, called the accords “a poisoned stab in the back of the Palestinian people and an attempt to try and get around international legitimacy.”

Statements such as these have an effect on the Palestinian-Arabs as well as the Arab-Muslim populations in the countries that are making peace with Israel.

For example, a report from Palestinian Media Watch, a non-profit research institute that studies Palestinian society by monitoring and analyzing its media and schoolbooks, illustrates the opposition to normalizing relations with Israel. Posted on the official Facebook page of the PA faction, Fatah, headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, is a video clip of Bahraini children conveying their enmity towards the Abraham Accords.