RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://carolineglick.com/pompeos-statement-on-settlements-is-a-diplomatic-turning-p

Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past generation. Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital has been a matter of U.S. law since 1996. There was little interest in Washington in recent years in pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. But the issue of the legality of Israeli settlements has been the defining issue of much of the international discourse on Israel for a generation.

In the vast majority of cases, the discourse has revolved around the widely held allegation – with no basis in actual law – that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal. This allegation has served as the justification for a continuous barrage of condemnations of Israel in international arena and for anti-Israel legal verdicts in international courts including the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 2004 and the European Court of Justice last week. The unsupported allegation that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal was also the basis for UN Security Council Resolution 2234 from 2016 and is a basis of the International Criminal Court’s ongoing probes of Israelis.

Pompeo made two revolutionary assertions in his statement. First, he said that “after carefully studying all sides of the legal debate,” like the Reagan administration before it, the Trump administration has concluded, “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”

Second, Pompeo noted, the near ubiquitousness of the false assertion that settlements are illegal has not advanced the prospects for peace. To the contrary, it has harmed the chances of getting to peace.

In his words, “calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/israel-world-leader-tech-diversity-human-frontpagemagcom/

Reprinted From World Net Daily.

With the aim of improving accuracy in reporting about Israel, the Israeli government press office hosted Christian Media Summit 2019 from Nov. 3-6. It kicked off at the Friends of Zion Museum, featuring speeches by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

As a Summit delegate, I represented the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem-Canada. Most striking to me amid the pomp-and-ceremony, impressive lectures and historic sites was Israel’s embrace of life, which was evident in the fabric of its culture.

Israel is like a world unto itself and the epitome of diversity, despite the tainting of the word “diversity” by progressives. Israel’s Aliyah process of the return of Jews from the four corners of the earth, including Africa, China and India, makes its diversity obvious. One can also observe in a single day the catering to both devout Christian evangelicals and gay party seekers, the latter of whom must hide for their own safety in surrounding Islamic lands.

From Old Testament stories to the Crusades to the Ottoman Empire, and ongoing efforts to obliterate it, Israel has seen it all and has bloomed in adversity. But beneath Israel’s overt intrigue is her soul, which shines from her love of life, her appreciation of human worth and nurturing of it, contrary to the grim public image foisted upon her during decades of wrangling with a “peace process” through which her enemies have sought her delegitimization and dissolution. From the day Israel was born on May 14, 1948, she has fought for her life. Her first breath was already frail as she emerged from a Holocaust. Yet nothing has impeded her pursuits of life and liberty.

Conference of Jewish Affairs

(212) 252-6861    conferenceofjewishaffairs@gmail.com

November 18, 2019 — Conference of Jewish Affairs spokesman Rabbi Aryeh Spero made the following statement today regarding the Administration’s announcement that the United States will no longer consider Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem as “inconsistent with international law”.

“Conference of Jewish Affairs endorses President Trump’s and Secretary Pompeo’s breakthrough thinking and willingness to seek out and abide by historic and legal truths.

“President Trump and Secretary Pompeo are to be commended and admired for recognizing Israel’s historic and legal right to build housing on the Jewish land of Judea and Samaria and for boldly recognizing the right of individual Jews and the Jewish nation of Israel to implant communities and Jewish social life on the ancestral and holy ground which constitutes Eretz Israel.

“President Trump and Secretary Pompeo are trailblazers and the world is fortunate for their courage, vision, and consummate abilities.”

Rabbi Spero concluded, “Israel and the Jewish People have never had a greater friend than President Donald J. Trump.”

https://worldisraelnews.com/us-set-to-revoke-illegal-status-of-judea-and-samaria-communities/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=vwo_notification_1574098636&vwo_powered=1

Secretary of State Pompeo is expected to announce on Monday that the U.S. no longer deems Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria “illegal.”

By World Israel News and AP

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to revoke a 1978 State Department opinion called the Hansell Memorandum, which claimed that civilian settlements in Judea and Samaria are “inconsistent with international law.” The move will likely anger Palestinians and put the U.S. at odds with nations that favor their position.

According to a report by the Jerusalem Post, the State Department’s legal office embarked on a year-long review of the Hansell Memo and met with international law experts and officials from various governments.

The State Department issued the Hansell Memo in 1978 under the Carter administration, but President Ronald Reagan rejected its conclusion in 1981.

The State Department undertook review of the memo fter the Obama administration, in one of its final moves, facilitated the United Nations Security Council’s passage of Resolution 2334 in December 2016, which condemned Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as “flagrant violation[s]” of international law and with “no legal validity,” the Post reported.

According to the statement Pompeo is set to release, the Trump administration concluded that the Hansell Memo represents a distraction, and that any legal decision about the issue is appropriate for resolution by Israeli courts, according to a draft of Pompeo’s remarks obtained by The Associated Press.

“Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace,” Pompeo says in the draft. “The hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace.”

Previous U.S. policies under the Trump administration have included the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the movement of the U.S. Embassy to that city and the closure of the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington.

Administrations that followed paid varying levels of lip service to the notion the Jews building towns in Judea and Samaria represented an “obstacle to peace.”

According to a 2019 report sponsored by Bet El Institutions, an organization with ties to U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, the population in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria grew to 449,508 as of Jan. 1, 2019 up 3.3 percent from 435,159 people one year earlier.

Shifting tide?

Even though the Trump Administration’s decision is largely symbolic, it could also give a boost to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political survival after he was unable to form a coalition government following recent elections.

In addition, it could spell further trouble for the administration’s oft-promised peace plan.

Last week, the European Court of Justice ruled that products made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria must bear special labels identifying their origin.

Pompeo is expected to announce that the U.S. does not take a position on the legality of specific settlements and that the new policy would not extend beyond Judea and Samaria to other territorial disputes.

He also planned to announce that the decision did not mean the administration was prejudging the status of Judea and Samaria in any eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

The shift is a victory for Netanyahu, a longtime booster of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and had been strongly supported by Ambassador Friedman and Trump donor Sheldon Adelson. Friedman was a major fundraiser for tJewish communities in Judea and Samaria before becoming ambassador.

It may be taken by Netanyahu and the settlement movement as a green light for additional construction, or even annexation, of lands claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

Israel captured Judea and Samaria, including eastern portions of Jerusalem, in 1967’s Six-Day War, during which four Arab states attacked Israel.

After the war, Israel declared a “united Jerusalem,” home to Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall structure.

Israel has yet to annex Judea and Samaria, despite the hundreds of thousands of Jews that call it home.

The Palestinian Authority, which has not held elections in since 2006, claims that territory in Judea and Samaria will be a part of a future independent state.

Many Israelis maintain that the Palestinian Authority’s open support for terrorism, in addition to the handful of Palestinian terror groups with which it competes for power, make the prospect of an autonomous Palestinian state on its borders a major security threat.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Good results in sepsis treatment trial. As reported previously (see here)Israel’s Enlivex Therapeutics has developed Allocetra which rebalances the immune system. Allocetra was given to six patients suffering from severe sepsis at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem. All survived.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/04/c_138528152.htm
 
Amazing medical innovations.  Great video by Naftali Hananya about Israeli medical innovations previously reported in this newsletter. It highlights nano eye drops to restore vision (see here); Savicell’s lung cancer test (see here); the multiple myeloma treatment XPOVIO (see here); and Relivion’s migraine headset (see here);
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh3b5z1rqKM
 
Teva launches anti-cancer treatment. Israel’s Teva is launching Truxima, a biosimilar for Rituxan – Roche’s oncology treatment. It is initially targeted at non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients but also could treat rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3773475,00.html
 
Early diagnosis of autism. Professor Ilan Dinstein of Israel’s Ben Gurion University has developed a method of detecting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from the early age of 18 months. He tracks eye-movements of children watching films. ASD children have significantly more idiosyncratic gaze patterns.
https://aabgu.org/bgu-professor-making-strides-in-autism-early-diagnosis/#8230;-early-diagnosis/
 
Another discovery about memory. Researchers from Ben-Gurion University working with Spanish scientists have discovered that single-cell organisms such as amoebas are capable of developing memory capabilities. The breakthrough could help treat patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
https://aabgu.org/memory-breakthrough-could-help-dementia-patients/
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5589348,00.html
 
Seven joint UK-Israel medical projects. The British-Israel research organization BIRAX is granting funds of £2.8 million to seven, new, three-year bilateral scientific research projects in the field of ageing. These focus on vascular, brain and eye diseases, plus diabetes and involve precision medicine and Artificial Intelligence.  
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/271385
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3773637,00.html
 
Sheba’s Innovation Center. (TY Stuart) Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has launched its ARC Innovation Center, with world-class medics plus top technology experts developing new approaches for treatment and rehabilitation. It is the first hospital in the world to provide a virtual reality rehab facility.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-israeli-hospitals-innovation-center-brings-personal-medicine-to-life/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbnRwXllIlM
 
The robot will see you now.  Israeli startup Diagnostic Robotics has developed an Artificial Intelligent Emergency Room triage robot that assesses the urgency of each patient to determine their priority in seeing a human doctor. The robot also provides the doctor with a preliminary diagnosis and recommendations.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3773621,00.html
 
Volunteer paramedic delivers 3 babies in 48 hours. Israel’s Issachar Weiss is a volunteer paramedic for Magen David Adom in the Tel Aviv area. He delivered one baby at 4:30am Sunday in Givatayim, another at 5am Monday in Bnei Brak and a third at 5pm Monday in Hatikvah Tel Aviv. It may be a new record.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/volunteer-paramedic-delivers-3-babies-in-48-hours/
 

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-wrongAmnesty-Internationals-offensive-defense-607892

As has been a long-standing tradition for Amnesty International – the “world’s largest grassroots human rights organization” that boasts being “independent of any political ideology” – the UK-based NGO castigated Israel this week for a crime that it didn’t commit.
Unlike most of Amnesty’s past distortions and outright lies about the Jewish state, however, the one in question was immediately refuted, even by members of the left-wing media who normally view Israel as the root of all evil.

Late Tuesday morning, about six hours after the IDF assassinated Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata in Gaza, the office of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) was struck by a rocket. The hit, which was witnessed by Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst and others on the scene, was the result of a flubbed launch aimed at Israel by Islamic Jihad terrorists.

“Israel did not strike this building,” Yingst tweeted. “A rocket misfired from Gaza. I was across the street when it happened.”

But in its impatience to pounce on Israel, Amnesty expressed its outrage on social media before doing any fact-checking.

“We strongly condemn [the] attack on the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, whose office in Gaza was struck by an Israeli missile earlier this morning,” Amnesty tweeted. “Strikes targeting civilian buildings is [sic] a violation of international law. We are sending our solidarity to @ICHR_Pal.”

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/11/13/amnesty-international-called-out-for-falsely-accusing-israel-of-attacking-gaza-building-which-was-actually-hit-by-misfired-palestinian-rocket/

Amnesty International falsely accused Israel of bombing a Palestinian human rights organization’s office on Tuesday, when the incident actually involved a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.

The projectile struck an office building on Tuesday morning in Gaza City where the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights is headquartered.

Amnesty quickly issued a tweet saying, “We strongly condemn attack on the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights whose office in Gaza was struck by an Israeli missile earlier this morning. Strikes targeting civilian buildings is a violation of international law. We are sending our solidarity to @ICHR_Pal.”

Quickly, however, Amnesty’s version of events proved false. Trey Yingst, a foreign correspondent for Fox News, witnessed the incident and tweeted, “Israel did not strike this building. A rocket misfired from Gaza. I was across the street when it happened.”

Amnesty’s claim was conclusively disproven by a report in Israeli daily Haaretz written by Amira Hass, a famously pro-Palestinian journalist.

The rocket that struck the building, Hass wrote, was “a missile that went astray on its launchers.”

http://thejewishvoice.com/2019/11/13/j-street-responds-to-jv-editorial-blurs-lines/

Jeremy Ben-Ami, is described in the bio that accompanies his latest article on The Times of Israel website as “the executive director of J Street.” The J Street website describes him as the “president.” Just as it is unclear what exactly Ben-Ami’s true title is there are many other things about this Jewish organization created to advocate for the creation of a Palestinian Arab state in Judea-Samaria (which it calls the West Bank) that seem to be just as deliberately blurred.

In his Nov. 10 column Ben-Ami responds to The Jewish Voice’s Nov. 8 editorial (“The J Street Danger to Israel”). Ben-Ami argues “Those attacking J Street and presidential candidates for even examining the concept of restricting the use of US aid are in many cases people who have loudly called for restrictions on aid to the Palestinian Authority or the United Nations.” Elsewhere in the article he claims that J Street “supports the provision of security assistance.” Which is it? J Street can’t have it both ways.

The views of J Street’s critics on issues related to the PA or the UN have nothing to do with J Street’s new pledge to lobby to reduce U.S. aid to Israel unless the Israelis agree to Palestinian Authority demands.

The Jewish Voice is proud to be the only Jewish newspaper we see that challenged J Street on this with an editorial and we will continue to speak out against J Street when they side with Israel’s enemies.

http://thejewishvoice.com/2019/11/13/the-legality-of-israels-settlements/

Next month will mark the third anniversary of the Obama Administration’s parting shot at Israel in the U.N. This was when Obama and company first failed to vote against the U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement-building and followed up that slap in the face against Israel by sending Secretary of State John Kerry to give an anti-settlements tirade of a speech at the Dean Acheson Auditorium at the State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom on December 28, 2016.

The Trump Administration has the opportunity to neutralize the nonsense that was at the foundation of Kerry’s attack on Israeli settlements just as it did the question of Israel’s rights to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The Administration seems unaware of the ease with which it can remove the stick that was used to hit Israel.

While the December 28 Obama Administration attack came from Secretary of State John Kerry, the ammunition came from Jimmy Carter’s State Department.

Here is what Kerry said “virtually every country in the world other than Israel opposes settlements. (…) In fact, this resolution simply reaffirms statements made by the Security Council on the legality of settlements over several decades. It does not break new ground. In 1978, the State Department Legal Adviser advised the Congress on his conclusion that Israel’s government, the Israeli Government’s program of establishing civilian settlements in the occupied territory is inconsistent with international law, and we see no change since then to affect that fundamental conclusion.”