RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274219/perspective-israel-joseph-puder

To many, Israel today is the Start Up nation, a wealthy, and a militarily powerful state. It did not become that overnight. Some radicals anti-Israel voices describe Israel erroneously as “white.” The facts however are different. There are over one hundred thousand immigrants from Ethiopia, African economic migrants in the thousands, and Mizrahi Jews from the Arab Middle East, who comprise about half the population. Israelis of all colors and creeds made the desert bloom, overcoming the hardships of wars, terror, and absorbing millions of Jewish refugees without any natural resources.

Known today for its unique entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, Israel started its independence in 1948 as a country bereft of natural and financial resources. A pervasive joke in the country went like this… “Moses made a mistake in direction. Instead of leading the Israelites from the Sinai to the Land of Milk and Honey northeast of the Sinai, he should have gone East across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia. That way, we would have oil and wealth.”

Joking aside, the Jewish State in the early years had no monetary reserves, little economic infrastructure, and few public services. In the 1950’s the government instituted rations known as the “Tzena” (austerity) era. Families were allocated food stamps that allowed them to buy limited amounts of sugar, flour, and oil, as well as eggs a month. Meat was rationed as well, and red meat was rare and expensive to serve at the time. As a small child in the 1950’s and early teenager in the 1960’s, I remember the paucity of toys available for children. This reporter played with matchboxes which became imaginary Israeli tanks that liberated Auschwitz and saved the Jews. I grew up with families of Holocaust survivors including my own. Their ordeals shaped the minds of children, including this reporter.

http://q4j-middle-east.com

Israel is still playing the pathetic, losing game of tit-for-tat.

Five more young Israelis recently became statistics of Arab terror as they were rammed by a vehicle a bit north of Jerusalem.

The Arab hero, who escaped, will likely be rewarded handsomely by Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderates.” Such folks and their families typically receive thousands of dollars from Israel’s “peace partners” for such deeds. They get streets, buildings, and other sites named for them too.

Besides hunting down the actual assailant, Israel must hold accountable those who encourage and abet such actions by their policies–like educating their children from kindergarten on up in schools, camps, plays, rallies, books, radio and television programs, mosques, etc.–to slaughter Jews.

Abbas’s Fatah and Palestinian Arab Authority have prized possessions that need to be turned into rubble when such heroism is perpetrated.

The alleged good cops are no better than the Hamas/Islamic Jihad bad cops. They simply play the current system to milk the dumb and/or collaborative dhimmis in the West to amass the same fortunes their late Egyptian ghoul leader, Arafat and his cronies, did while other Arabs were deliberately kept wanting to display to the rest of the world.

Gaza thugs throw incendiary balloons and rocks, the media and academics continue their libels, ignorant cretins continue their street theater demonstrations, and in spite of it all Israel makes outsize contributions in medicine, science, technology and cybersecurity which benefit the citizens of every nation on every continent. Amazing indeed! My friend and e-pal Michael Ordman compiles this list almost every week. rsk

http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Hadassah surgeons realign baby’s organs. In a first-of-its-kind operation, a team of doctors at Hadassah Medical Center repaired the hernia (muscle between chest and abdomen) of a new-born baby.  Then using low-invasive thoracoscopic surgery, they pushed the baby’s small intestine and spleen back into the abdomen.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265335

Positive autism treatment results. (TY Stuart) Professor Lidia Gabis of Sheba Medical Center has published two important research articles on the treatment of autistic children. One showed that combined Donepezil and Choline improved their language skills. The other highlighted the benefits of medical clowning.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-019-03415-7 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31230222

The protein that weakens the immune system. Researchers from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, working in an international team, have identified that the protein known as TOX represses T-cells within the immune system. By neutralizing TOX, scientists could restore the immune system to fight cancer and chronic or viral diseases.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/study-identifies-protein-that-causes-exhaustion-of-immune-system-cells/

Device for treating ADHD. I mentioned previously (Feb 2017) about Israeli-Arab startup InnoSphere, which was developing a wearable device for treating ADHD. This article describes in detail InnoSphere’s electrode-embedded cap that stimulates neurons in the brains of ADHD sufferers to make new connections.

https://www.israel21c.org/high-hopes-for-new-adhd-treatment-device/

New way to unblock arteries.  (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Transseptal Solutions announced the first TSP Crosser transseptal puncture procedure in the US. Transseptal’s innovative device helps surgeons to insert diagnostic and therapeutic devices into the left atrium with control, speed and precision. It is FDA and CE approved.

https://www.transseptalsolutions.com/

Generic treatment for hypertension. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Teva has launched a generic version of Tracleer tablets in the US. The treatment allows sufferers of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) to exercise better and slows progression of the disease.  PAH is high blood pressure in the blood vessels of the lungs.

https://ir.tevapharm.com/investors/press-releases/press-release-details/2019/Teva-Announces-Launch-of-a-Generic-Version-of-Tracleer-bosentan-Tablets-in-the-United-States/default.aspx

Europe approves diabetes support system. (TY Atid-EDI) I’ve reported previously (see here) on Israel’s GlucoMe diabetes monitors. GlucoMe’s new Decision Support System (“DSS”) has just received the CE Mark. The DSS’s algorithm-based, clinical decision support software helps doctors monitor type 2 diabetes patients.

https://www.glucome.com/about-us/news/GlucoMe-now-has-CE-Mark-for-Diabetes-Decision-Support-Technology

Anyone can save a life. Ezer Mizion’s data processor found she was a DNA match on the Israeli NGO’s bone marrow registry for a woman suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). She flew halfway around the world to donate some of her stem cells. She tells both her story, and of those still needing a transplant.

http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/what-was-it-like/

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Jerusalem-Affairs-A-tale-of-one-city-594668

BY KHALED ABU TOAMEH, BRADLEY LEVIN, DAVID DIMOLFETTA

Never in their wildest dreams did the Arab residents of Silwan imagine that US President Donald Trump would send his Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, the US ambassador, to their neighborhood. 

When the pair arrived on Sunday and helped crack open an archaeological tunnel, the residents’ cynicism toward Israel and America only grew.
The Palestinian Authority and Silwan political activists responded with fiery rhetoric to the opening of the “Pilgrimage Road.” Silwan-born east Jerusalem activist Fakhri Abu Diab said the excavating already caused damage to several houses and a mosque nearby.
However, the situation in Silwan, located southeast of the Old City of Jerusalem, has been calm during the week. Flowers are in bloom, and the streets are full of Arab and Jewish schoolchildren returning home. Jews and Arabs seem to coexist, though they mostly avoid interacting with one another.

The strong condemnations by PA officials do not seem to have impressed the residents of Silwan, many of whom said they lost confidence in the Ramallah-based leaders a long time ago. Even claims by local activists that the archaeological excavations in the City of David have caused damage to at least 16 houses in Silwan have failed to instigate unrest in the neighborhood.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/A-day-in-the-life-of-the-surreal-Jewish-state-594643?fbclid=IwAR1rs2pg_7G-rG7YwREu4zZOBHD6ydaT82DI8MGuueXwxx3J2q3nxF-oexI

Hundreds of people arrived at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center on Tuesday evening to attend the US Embassy’s annual Independence Day celebration. 
 
That the giant 4th of July gala was held two days early was not unusual. Nor was the long list of VIPs from Israel and the United States – among them members of Congress and the Knesset – seen networking at the bar and buffet, or lining up at the McDonald’s and Ben & Jerry’s stands.
 
What made this year’s flag-studded event most notable was its location. As both US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed in their speeches to the cheering audience, it was the first time in history that the American Embassy bash was held in Jerusalem. 
 
The reason for the change of venue was significant. Until last year, when Friedman decided to move it to an air-conditioned locale in Tel Aviv, the party to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence had taken place in the garden of the US ambassador’s residence in Herzliya.
 
It was not the coastal town’s oppressive summer heat and humidity that led to the break with tradition, however. Rather, it was US President Donald Trump’s 2017 official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, and subsequent move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which enabled the welcome shift. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pilgrimage-road-and-palestinian-memory-11562264411

It was a striking sight: David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, wielding a sledgehammer at an archaeological site in Jerusalem. But his presence there was about more than a unique photo-op. It began 15 years ago, when construction workers repairing a burst sewage pipe discovered an ancient staircase directly south of the Temple Mount. The steps closely matched stairs abutting the original ancient entryways of the temple complex. Archaeologists realized that the sets of stairs were linked. They had chanced upon a road leading to the temple. After years of excavations, members of the public soon will be able to walk the Pilgrimage Road.

Two thousand years ago Jews traversed this path as they came from around the world to visit the temple. Such pilgrims were obeying a biblical commandment. Deuteronomy obligated Israelites to stand in the presence of God three times a year: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Rabbinic texts abound with descriptions of the processions that occurred, and the road parallels these details in an exquisite way.

One large stone on the side of the thoroughfare, which seems to have no structural purpose, may be explained by an ancient Talmudic reference to a “stone of claims.” This was an ancient form of a “lost and found,” upon which one who had dropped an object amid the throngs of pilgrims would stand and shout to Jerusalem’s visitors. The stone reminds visitors that the entire site was once hidden and now uncovered, just as the city of Jerusalem was once lost to the Jewish people and is now returned.

The Temple Mount pilgrimage was meant to be a journey to a spiritual summit. Yet today if visitors come from the western part of the city they often descend when approaching the site. Now pilgrims will be able to ascend stairs as their predecessors once did. To walk in their footsteps is to understand what Jerusalem meant to them and why it remains a beacon to the Jewish world today.

But, this being the Middle East, everything is subject to controversy. The Pilgrimage Road is located on land in East Jerusalem that Palestinians claim for themselves. Mr. Friedman, who on Sunday participated in an event inaugurating the site, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel relinquishing this portion of Jerusalem “would be akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty.” Palestinian official Saeb Erekat criticized Mr. Friedman for his attendance and contended that the road is a “lie that has nothing to do with history.” Yet Mr. Erekat and many other Palestinian leaders have long denied what archaeologists and historians consider basic and uncontroversial facts, such as the existence of the Temple.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14488/palestinian-war-on-businessmen

By boycotting the conference in Bahrain, in fact, Palestinian leaders had already sent a message to the world that they would rather see their people continue to suffer economic hardship than receive billions of dollars in aid…. Rather than spitting in the faces of businessmen, Palestinian leaders should be working closely with Israel and the US and any other party that wants to help the Palestinian people.

Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account…. They want the conflict to continue for as long as possible so that they can continue receiving funds from Americans, Europeans and others.

Palestinian leaders want to continue blackmailing the international community into giving them unconditional and unlimited financial aid, while at the same time depriving Palestinians of any opportunity to improve their living conditions. They want their people to continue living in misery so that Abbas and his officials can blame Israel and the rest of the world for the “suffering” of the Palestinians.

These leaders’ biggest fear is that economic prosperity might divert Palestinians’ attention from the fight against Israel. Like his rivals in Hamas, Abbas seems afraid that once Palestinians start enjoying the fruits of a strong economy, they will stop thinking of killing Israelis or abandon the Palestinian dream of destroying Israel.

The Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on Palestinian businessmen who participated in the recent US-led “Peace to Prosperity” economic conference in Bahrain signals strongly how Palestinian leaders act directly against the interests of their own people.

Even more worrying is the message that this crackdown sends to the Palestinian public: anyone who dares to work with US President Donald Trump’s administration will be denounced as a traitor and collaborator with the “enemies” of the Palestinians: the US and Israel.

https://bit.ly/2RYFccY

1. Pratt & Whitney – one of the three largest helicopter and airplane jet engine manufacturers in the world, accounting for a substantial portion of United Technologies’ activity – concluded a long term contract with Israel’s Bet Shemesh Engines.  The contract will extend Bet Shemesh’s manufacturing jet engine parts for Pratt & Whitney until, at least, 2039, yielding an $800MN revenue for Bet Shemesh, which brings its total revenues during the 35 year association with Pratt & Whitney to $2.6BN (Globes Business Daily, June24, 2019).

2. Intel’s Senior Vice President and President of Intel Capital, Wendell Brooks: “Innovation drives economies, and the two best places of this are Israel and the US.” He added that Israel was one of three tech hubs that Intel Capital (Intel’s investment arm) is intently focused on (alongside China’s Beijing/Shanghai and the Silicon Valley).  Moreover, often Israeli entrepreneurs have “better ideas than in the Silicon Valley.” Intel Capital capped 2018 with $120MN invested in 14 Israeli startups and companies – a record year of investments in Israeli startups. Intel is building a new plant in Israel (Kiryat Gat) involving an $11BN investment. (Israel Today, April 25).

3. Israel’s Kornit Digital, which manufactures digital systems for printing on textiles, is raising $146MN on NASDAQ, which is five times more than its initial expectation. The underwriters are Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Berkleys, William Blair, Stifel, Needham and Craig-Hallum Capital Group (Globes, June 12). Israel’s SentinelOne Cybersecurity raised $120MN in a round of private placement led by the $23BN NYC-based Insight Partners, with the participation of the South Korean giant Samsung Venture Investment, NYC-based Third Point Ventures, Menlo Park-based Redpoint Ventures and NextEquity, Palo Alto-based Data Collective, etc. (Globes, June 6). Israel’s BrightWay raised $25MN in a round of private placement led by Japan’s Koito Manufacturing and the Japanese-Israeli venture capital fund, Magenta Venture Partners (Globes, June 26).

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274197/remembering-historys-m

On July 4th, 1976, as America celebrated its Bicentennial, four Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules planes carrying over 100 Jewish passengers, twelve Air France flight personnel, and their Israeli rescuers landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport. The safe landing of civilians and commandos marked the end of a week-long, nightmarish drama that gripped all of Israel.

The saga began on June 27, when a Paris-bound Air France commercial airliner took off from Tel-Aviv. The plane was scheduled for a stopover in Athens. Lax security at Athens International Airport enabled four terrorists with forged passports – two from the notorious West German Baader-Meinhof Gang and two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – to board the flight with their guns, grenades and explosives.

Their hijacking adventure set into motion a sequence of events that would reverberate around the world. It would also ultimately serve to further enhance the prestige and reputation of Israel’s vaunted, specialized commando units and intelligences services.

After a brief refueling stopover in Benghazi, Libya, the terrorists flew their commandeered Airbus A-300 to Entebbe airport in Uganda where they were given a hero’s welcome by their mercurial Ugandan host, the cannibalistically-inclined dictator, Idi Amin. In addition to providing them with safe haven, the despotic Amin placed elements of the Ugandan army at the hijackers’ disposal. In addition to the Ugandans, the terrorists’ ranks now swelled to seven, having been joined by three PFLP operatives during the Benghazi stopover.

https://worldisraelnews.com/shin-bet-nabs-hamas-bomb-maker-who-snuck-into-israel

Israel recently thwarted a Hamas plan to establish an explosives manufacturing network in Judea and Samaria using a medical permit to sneak in a key terrorist.

By TPS

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) recently exposed and thwarted a Hamas attempt to establish a bomb-making network in Judea and Samaria that relied on Israel’s humanitarian medical permits to sneak in terrorists, the security agency revealed Wednesday.

Fadi al-Sabah, a Hamas-trained bomb expert from the Gaza Strip, infiltrated Israel by taking advantage of a permit to receive medical treatment in the country. He was tasked with establishing a bomb lab that would supply suicide bombers with explosives.

The plans were exposed after a series of arrests among terrorists in Gaza.

Al-Sabah, 35, was arrested by Israeli forces in Teibe in May. He was recruited by Hamas operative Ashraf Sabah in July 2018 and underwent training in bomb building for several months. He was also trained on how to bypass Israeli security vetting and background checks.

Sabah was imprisoned for 12 years in Israel for his involvement in executing attacks against Israeli forces on the Gaza border.

Al-Sabah was recruited by Hamas after they learned that he was in the process of receiving a permit to enter Israel for medical treatment. Hamas decided to use him for terrorism purposes.

Some of al-Sabah’s trainers were released in the Shalit deal, the Shin Bet noted.

Before al-Sabah left for treatment in Israel, Ashraf Sabah sewed notes with code words into his jacket. The codes would have been used for communication between the various terror cells.

To obtain the proper medical records that would secure him an entry permit, al-Sabah got a Gazan doctor to provide him with a note that stated that he could not be treated in the Strip. After receiving the permits, he underwent training by Hamas.

In May 2019, Fadi entered Israel through the Erez Crossing with the message-containing jacket in his luggage. He was to be treated in a Hebron hospital, but never arrived there and instead met up with terror operatives.

He was arrested a few days later in Teibe in northern Israel and was recently indicted in a military court.

A senior Shin Bet official stated, “We are again witnessing Hamas’ exploitation of humanitarian permits provided by the State of Israel and its utilization of this medium to promote the organization’s hostile activities in Israel.”

Israel previously exposed several cases in which Hamas utilized Israel’s medical permits to promote terrorism.