New York, April 17th, 2019 – UN ambassadors and senior diplomats from around the world came together at the UN headquarters in New York for a traditional mock Passover Seder to learn and reflect on the message of the “Exodus” as Jews around the world were preparing for Passover which begins on Friday. A mock Seder is an abbreviated version of the Seder which can be celebrated ahead of Passover.
At the event, which was co-hosted by the Israeli Mission to the UN and the Forum for Cultural Diplomacy, the diplomats were reminded of how the Jewish nation was born some 3500 years ago through what may be described as one of the most dramatic and fascinating stories of national liberation of all times ─ the “Exodus out of Egypt”. Despite two thousand years of dispersion, the Jewish people reconstituted the State of Israel in 1948 and became a member of the UN already the next year, 1949.
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon explained: “The Passover story, told and retold each year, reminds us of where we came from and how far we have come. Before, we were building pyramids in Egypt. Now, we are building rockets to send into space. Then, we were thirsty for water. Now, we are creating water out of thin air. In the past, we were slaves. Today, we are free.”
In his brief remarks ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell quoted from the Book of Exodus which records that “there arose a new king in Egypt who did not know Joseph”. “Today there are many people around the world, especially young people, who do not know their history or that of European Jewry during the Holocaust”, he said. “As Europe faces a rise of anti-Semitism and some even fear a future “Exodus out of Europe”, we have chosen to remember, appreciate and cherish our own Josephs, the Jewish people, who have helped make our nations what they are today”, he added.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14081/hamas-honesty-peace-deal
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s threats serve as a reminder that Hamas and other Palestinian terror group consider Israel one big settlement that needs to be annihilated. Above all, Hamas has never accepted the “two-state solution” or changed its charter, which explicitly states: “When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad [holy war] becomes a duty binding on all Muslims…. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.”
Hamas cannot reach any political deal with Israel because it does not agree to Israel’s right to exist. This is the message that Sinwar and leaders of all Palestinian terror groups want the world to hear. For the terrorist leaders, the only peace they will accept is one that results in the elimination of Israel and the evacuation of all Jews from their homes.
The Hamas Charter is a straightforward, unambiguous message that says: “[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]….There is no solution to the Palestinian problem expect by Jihad.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has undoubtedly read the Hamas charter. He knows that if he accepts any peace plan that does not include the expulsion of all Jews from their homes, he will be denounced by his rivals in Hamas as a traitor. Abbas is also aware of Hamas’s threats to shower Israel with rockets. He knows that at the same time as Hamas attacks Israel, it will seek to flatten him for “betraying” Arabs and Muslims in “allowing” Jews to continue living in “their” state. This is the Palestinian reality that the “Deal of the Century” is about to be dealt.
April 15 marked the 18th anniversary of the firing of the first Hamas rocket toward Israel. On this day, 18 years ago, Hamas’s military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, launched its first rocket attack at Israeli population centers near their border with the Gaza Strip.On the eve of this occasion, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader of the Gaza Strip, threatened that his movement will continue to fire rockets at Israel. The rockets, he said, will be fired at Israeli “settlements” not only near the border with the Gaza Strip, but also at supposed “settlements” in the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tel Aviv.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273479/25-years-after-oslo-elephant-room-robert-l-meyer
Author’s note: I have been a student of Islam for five+ years because I wanted to know what motivates so called “Islamist” or “Radical” Muslims against Jews, Israel and the West. I now understand. The short article below sets out the argument why “Land For Peace” is simply impossible under Islam, owing to Koran Sura 2, Verse 191 — and it is for this reason (and Western and Israeli diplomats and negotiators’ ignorance of it) that it has been, is, and will be impossible for Muslim Palestinians to make peace with Israel. This Palestinian position has been confirmed by the top Palestinian religious figures, who have corroborated that ALL of Palestine is a holy, Islamic waqf (Arabic: an inalienable religious endowment under Islamic Shariah law), and therefore it is prohibited to give up “even a millimeter” of it. The article has been vetted and approved for accuracy by a number of Islamic experts.
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It is now more than 25 years since the Oslo Accords were signed in October 1993. Yet in the many published opinion pieces and reporting on this anniversary and the failure of the parties to agree on a final two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, nowhere is found any Israeli politician or journalist who has the slightest inkling of the massive effect of Islam in influencing and motivating the Palestinian supposed peacemakers.
Islam is indeed “The Elephant in the Room.”
The Koran, chapter 2, verse 191 states: “Drive them out from where they drove you out.”
Islamic scholars universally have interpreted this verse to mean that once land becomes Islamic, by conquest or otherwise, it stays Islamic forever and that Muslims must drive out any non-Muslim government that takes power in a land once ruled under Islamic law.
https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/2019/04/coalition-of-pro-israel-organizations-asks-president-to-let-israel-decide-on-sovereignty/
Twenty-one diverse pro-Israel organizations sent a joint letter to President Trump today, urging him to permit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand to extend Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The letter comes in response to one from left-wing groups, dominated by arms of the American Reform and Conservative Jewish movements, calling upon the President to indicate that he will “not support any Israeli proposals to annex the West Bank, in whole or in part.”
The new letter was organized by Rabbi Pesach Lerner and Rabbi Yaakov Menken of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) and Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz of the Jewish Heritage Preservation Society. “It is important for those who believe in traditional values, who believe in a strong and safe State of Israel, who appreciate the actions of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, to speak up,” said Rabbi Lerner, President of the CJV. “We cannot allow the liberal left to be the only voice.”
https://www.jns.org/opinion/netanyahu-and-jewish-worry-about-what-the-neighbors-might-think/
America is already divided, as is Israel, between those who favor appeasing enemies while reprimanding friends, and those who espouse the opposite view.
A few days ahead of the Knesset elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to extend Israeli sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria. This campaign promise, which was reported by many unfriendly news outlets as a ploy to garner votes from the far-right, had nothing to do with his ultimate victory, however. The real reason for his win was simple. The Likud Party that he heads is most closely aligned with the position of mainstream Israeli society, which holds centrist views laced with the realism born of experience.
This is not to say that Netanyahu’s annexation announcement was insignificant. On the contrary, it was so straightforward and insistent that it led many right-wingers say that they’d believe it when they saw it.
Politicians tend to talk a big talk, after all, particularly during a campaign. And Netanyahu, as Israelis across the political spectrum agree, is nothing if not a brilliant politician. A “magician” is what he was called on election night by left-wing pundits shifting from elated to despondent as exit polls gradually were replaced by actual country-wide vote counts.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/16/moral-case-israel-annexing-west-bank-beyond/
Jason D. Hill is honors distinguished professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago. His areas of specialization include ethics, social and political philosophy, American foreign policy, cosmopolitanism and race theory.
The April 2019 election victory for Benjamin Netanyahu will see him serve a record fifth term as Israeli prime minister and form a new right-wing coalition government. It also brings the promise of a commitment Netanyahu made to the nation during his campaign: That he would annex Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.
Vowing to extend sovereignty without distinguishing between settlement blocks and the isolated settlements, Netanyahu promised not to transfer any sovereignty to the Palestinians. His victory in the elections will, hopefully, see the enactment of Netanyahu’s promise.
Israel has the moral right to annex all of the West Bank (even Area C) for a plethora of reasons.
Israel’s Mistake Was Allowing the Palestinian Pretense
Israel made an altruistic mistake toward the Palestinian people after the 1967 defensive war with Jordan. Rather than regard them as “war settlers” or refugees or, after legally occupying conquered territory, as “illegal occupants,” they made the Palestinian people their political and moral problem.
After victory, the “war settlers” could have been seen as enemies of the state: supporters of the Fatah (Palestine Liberation Organization) Charter, which basically calls for the end of Jewry in the region. Under a malevolent and illiberal regime, they would have been regarded and treated as such, not as Israel did treat them: as human beings with specific, inalienable rights.
Under a different set of political sensibilities, the Palestinian people would have been militarily removed from the area because, morally speaking, after the 1967 war, they never belonged there. The proper response from Israel should have been to immediately annex the land and make the people there the responsibility of their original political homeland: Jordan.
https://www.nysun.com/foreign/winner-in-israel-turns-out-to-be-new-voting-law/90646/
Who was the real winner in the recent Israeli elections? The answer: the 2014 electoral law. It requires a list to garner at least 3.25 % of the vote to get seats at the Knesseth.
In 2015, the first time it was in force, it helped both Prime Minister Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party and Yitzhak Herzog’s liberal Zionist Union to emerge as the country’s main political forces, with 30 and 24 seats respectively out of 120 — against eight smaller parties, Right and Left, who got from 5 to 13 seats each.
This time, it was even more effective, providing 36 seats to Likud and 35 seats to the Blue-White Coalition, the indirect heir to ZU, and leaving less than one half of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to nine lesser lists. In other words, the 2014 law is turning proportional representation into something closer to a bipartisan system. Quite an achievement.
Pundits like to argue about the comparative theoretical merits of the majority system, a feature most famously of America, and proportional representation. More often than not, however, countries just pick up an electoral system for practical reasons.
http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/2019/04/israels-good-news-newsletter-to-14th.html
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
First live op using holographic imaging. Surgeons at Toronto General Hospital performed the first live medical procedure using real-time holographic imaging developed by Israel’s RealView Imaging (see here). The 3D images allowed the surgeons to see inside the heart prior to a mitral valve replacement procedure.
http://nocamels.com/2019/04/israel-holographic-imaging-tech-1st-live-medical-procedure/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63ofSXSWgs http://realviewimaging.com/
First ever vein transplant from living donor. Avi Yavetz from Modi’in suffers from peripheral vascular disease (PVD) and a leg amputation was imminent. However, his son, 27-year-old Snir donated a long vein, which was implanted into his father in a first of its kind operation. Two weeks later and both are doing fine.
http://hadassahinternational.org/first-ever-vein-transplant-from-living-donor-son-saves-fathers-leg/
Brain monitoring in real time. I reported previously (Mar 2015) on the computer interface device from Israel’s Neurosteer used to monitor brain activity. The three-strip wearable device is now in clinical trials in Israel, Europe and the United States and proving far simpler and more useful than EEG and fMRI alternatives.
https://www.israel21c.org/new-monitoring-tool-could-revolutionize-brain-treatment/
US approval for surgical mesh. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Apr 2017) on the innovative FasTouch fixation system from Israel’s Via Surgical for hernia repairs. The company has just announced that it has received US FDA approval for the system. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/via-surgical-receives-fda-clearance-for-its-fastouch-absorbable-fixation-system-300813799.html http://viasurgical.com/science/
European approval for aortic arch repair system. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Apr 2018) when Israel’s Endospan received the CE mark for its Horizon stent graft system to treat Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. It now also has received the CE mark for its Nexus Stent Graft System to treat Aortic Arch Disease.
https://www.fdanews.com/articles/190639-endospan-earns-ce-mark-for-aortic-arch-repair-system
Fast test to identify the right antibiotic. I’ve reported previously (see here) on the many Israeli innovations that are trying to prevent antibiotics from becoming ineffective. Now Israeli startup Nanosynex offers a 4-hour test to determine which antibiotic will be effective and what dose to use to prevent it developing resistance.
https://www.israel21c.org/diagnostic-test-from-israel-aims-to-stop-superbug-surge/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieECO-C7XnM https://nanosynex.com/
Smart migraine patches heading for US. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Oct 2016) on the Nerivio Migra smart patch from Israel’s Theranica to provide migraine relief. Since then, Theranica has successfully completed a 12-center pivotal study of the patch and has raised $35 million for US FDA approval and beyond.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/theranica-announces-results-from-pivotal-study-of-device-for-treating-acute-migraine-832012898.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/theranica-raises-35m-to-bring-innovative-migraine-device-to-the-usa-300813846.html
Successful trials of pregnancy monitor. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Jun 2015) on the PregSense wearable fetal monitor from Israel’s Nuvo. Renamed Invu,,multi-center trials produced fetal and maternal heart rates comparable to existing standalone cardiotocographs (CTGs). US FDA review is in progress.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nuvo-group-ltd-presents-data-on-remote-monitoring-in-pregnancy-at-the-66th-annual-society-for-reproductive-investigation-sri-meeting-300813907.html
Good trial results for NASH treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Oct 2014) that the Aramchol treatment from Israel’s Galmed for Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) had been fast-tracked by the US FDA. Latest trials show that twice-daily dosages of Aramchol significantly increased blood plasma levels.
http://galmedpharma.investorroom.com/2019-03-12-Galmed-Reports-Positive-Results-From-Pharmacokinetic-Split-Dose-Study-of-Aramchol
Hope for flu sufferers. The 3rd episode of Israel’s Weizmann in Focus, highlights that, since October, 7.3 million Americans have been sick with the flu virus with over 80,000 hospitalized. Weizmann Professor Ruth Arnon’s work has led to the development of the Universal Flu Virus, being trialed by Israel’s BiondVax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR0gNCcKGzw
Israelis have lowest diet-related deaths. An analysis of dietary data has shown that Israel has the lowest rate of diet-related deaths in the world. The Global Burden of Disease study, published in UK’s The Lancet, reported that in Israel, just 89 people out of every 100,000 die each year in deaths related to poor-quality diet.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-has-lowest-rate-of-diet-related-deaths-in-the-world-major-study-finds/
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30041-8/fulltext
Probiotic chew for women. Israel’s Anlit has launched a probiotics chew targeting women’s health. Feminine Probiotics contains a blend of six different strains of live probiotic bacteria plus cranberry extract to support genitourinary tract health. It comes as a vanilla-cranberry flavored chew that melts in the mouth.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/feminine-probiotics-in-a-delicious-format-300823754.html
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/the-bds-movement-is-a-cleverly-disguised-campaign-to-destroy-israel/
Don’t be fooled by talk of ‘social justice’ and ‘human rights.’ The movement is anti-Semitic to its core.
Outrage ensued on social media and university campuses across America this past week when it was reported that the U.S. government had denied prominent Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti entry into the country. Barghouti had planned to come to the U.S. to promote the highly controversial Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement he co-founded.
BDS supporters claim that they want to put economic pressure on Israel to reach agreement on a peaceful and fair solution to its conflict with the Palestinians, and their message has found increasing traction in the U.S. The controversial Democratic representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have lent the movement high-profile support. The New York Times Magazine recently published a pro-BDS cover story written by a highly controversial political journalist. Altogether, 31 universities have passed BDS measures since 2015, and, since 2005, 127 such measures have been considered.
The truth is that many of the students and activists who support the movement have been duped into thinking they’re supporting a noble cause. In fact, BDS is little more than a ploy established and run by radical anti-Semites who deny Israel’s right to exist and seek to destroy it.
https://saraacarter.com/netanyahu-says-annexation-world-faints/
The foreign and the hostile local media were in an uproar: “The end of democracy in Israel!” they shrieked.
They were responding to the audacity of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of two super-charged words, “sovereignty” and “annexation,” regarding the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank,” as it is improperly referred to by most of the world) just days before Israel’s national election on Tuesday, April 9. This area is more properly referred to as Disputed Territory.
There is much to untangle here: geography, history and linguistics, just to name several threads. For a backgrounder on the area widely referred to as the “West Bank,” please see the section at the end of this article.
Netanyahu said several things to several different news outlets over the course of several days, some of which have been wildly misreported.
WHAT NETANYAHU SAID
Netanyahu said very clearly that Palestinian statehood would “endanger our [Israel’s] existence.” He ruled out that option. On the other hand, he said that the Palestinian Arabs would “run their own lives.” This means that for purposes of day-to-day governance, the Arabs are in charge of the residents of their communities. The one caveat to this is that Israel will continue to be in charge of non-domestic security, that is, terrorism against its own citizens, when committed by those residing in the Arab sectors.
