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ISRAEL

Palestinians: Abbas Stands ‘Trial’ for Treason by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13880/mahmoud-abbas-trial-treason

To some, the mock trial in the Gaza Strip of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may seem trivial or like some sort of bizarre comedy act. The “trial,” however, is something else entirely: it is designed to send a signal not only to Abbas, but to any Palestinian who even thinks of making peace with Israel or recognizing its right to exist.

The “trial” is aimed at showing what awaits any Palestinian who dares to work with Israel by conducting security coordination or normalizing ties with it. Verdict: Any Palestinian who accepts a peace plan with Israel will also be found guilty — and signing his own death warrant.

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has made no secret of its desire to see Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas stand trial for betraying the Palestinians for his alleged “collaboration” with Israel and sanctions against the Gaza Strip.

Last year, a senior Hamas official, Ahmed Bahr, called for bringing Abbas to trial for “great treason” — a crime punishable by death. Abbas is not only refusing to make peace with Hamas, he wants it to hand over its weapons to his government, Bahr said. “For that, he should be brought before a popular and constitutional court on charges of great treason.”

Earlier, another Hamas official, Marwan Abu Ras, called for Abbas to be executed by hanging in accordance with Islamic sharia law. Abu Ras, accusing Abbas of “collaboration” with Israel, claimed that the Palestinian president was depriving the Gaza Strip of international financial aid. “Abbas is the biggest traitor the Palestinian cause has known,” he said. “He should be put on trial in the center of the Gaza Strip and sentenced to death by hanging in line with sharia law.”

ERIN GO BAD- IRISH ANTI-SEMITISM….

https://www.ipsc.ie/bds/in-pictures-boycott-eurovision-in-apartheid-israel-pr

With the announcement of Sarah McTernan as Ireland’s entry to the Eurovision in Israel, the Irish Campaign to Boycott Eurovision 2019 in Apartheid Israel held a large protest out RTÉ studios in Donnybrook. Campaigners handed in an additional 5,600 signatures to a petition calling on RTÉ and Ms. McTernan not to take part in the Eurovision, bringing the total number of signatures to over almost 17,000.

Addressing her comments to the Irish contestant, Zoë Lawlor, a spokesperson for the Campaign said “While we congratulate Sarah McTernan on her selection, which is a great honour for her, we must unfortunately draw the her attention to the call from Palestinian artists, journalists, LGBTQIA+ and civil society organisations for artists of conscience to refuse to take part in the Eurovision in Israel due to that state’s ongoing brutal oppression of the Palestinian people.”

Ms. Lawlor appealed for Sarah McTernan to refuse to take part: “Ireland has a proud tradition of standing with the oppressed and against injustice and we sincerely hope that Sarah McTernan will take this opportunity to stand on the right side of history by listening to the Palestinian and international calls for a boycott. It would be a principled stand for freedom, justice, equality and a show of solidarity and empathy with the oppressed.”

Netanyahu: May Be Down – But Certainly Not Out A glimpse at the Israeli PM’s legal challenges and election prospects. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273086/netanyahu-may-be-down-certainly-not-out-joseph-puder

The major media outlets both in Israel and the U.S. have already made the determination that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to go down and should resign. That comes following intense pressure put on Israel’s Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit to issue an indictment less than 100 days before the general elections scheduled for April 9, 2019. Mandelblit issued a recommendation to summon PM Netanyahu for a pre-indictment hearing due to alleged corruption.

Days before Mandelblit was to announce his intention to file corruption charges against PM Netanyahu, Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a lifelong liberal democrat, wrote an open letter to Mandelblit warning that if he (Mandelblit) were to proceed with the charges, he would “endanger democracy and freedom of the press” in Israel. Dershowitz pointed out that “Voters, not the police or the courts, should decide Netanyahu’s future.”

In his open letter to Mandelblit, Dershowitz argued:

“According to press reports, you are about to charge the Prime Minister with charges related to his relationship with the media. In my view, any such charges would, as I pointed out in the attached article, endanger democracy and freedom of the press… Such charges would open the Pandora’s box out of which would flow a parade of horribles: every government official – legislators , judges, prosecutors, police officers, administrators – who sought positive coverage with the media, and did anything that helped the media, would have to be investigated.”

Growing global interest in Israel’s hightech Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

https://bit.ly/2SPKEgZ

1. The growing interest, by global hightech companies, in Israeli technologies, is represented by the Pennsylvania-based Qlik, acquiring Israel’s data-integration Attunity for $560MN (Globes Business Daily, February 25, 2019). In January, 2019, Thoma Bravo private equity, which owns Qlik, acquired Israel’s cybersecurity Imperva for $2.1BN.

2. The Silicon Valley-based global cybersecurity leader, Palo Alto networks, acquired Israel’s automated security solutions, Demisto, for $560MN (Tech Crunch, February 19). In April, 2018, Palo Alto acquired Israel’s endpoint detection and response, Secdo, for $100MN.

3. Google acquired Israel’s cloud migration, Alooma, for $100MN. In January, 2019, Amazon acquired Israel’s Cloud Endure for $250MN (Globes, February 21).

4. Intel (which employs 13,000 Israelis, exporting $4BN from Israel) intends to invest $11BN in constructing a new fab in Israel – in addition to last year’s investment of $5BN – asking Israel for a 10% grant (Globes, January 29).

5. According to Bloomberg, February 12, 2019, “big carmakers are flocking Israel… dealing not with sales, but with research and development…. Volkswagen, Renault, Hundai, Skoda and Seat are a few of the companies that have opened such innovation centers… investing and collaborating with local startups…. Only two international carmakers have full-fledged R&D centers in Israel: General Motors (since 2008; 300 employees) and Daimlers, the parent company of Mercedes (since 2018)…. The user interface installed in the Bolt, Chevrolet’s electric car, and in many late-model Cadillacs was developed in Israel… which is a center for smart transportation…. Israeli startup entrepreneurs come with experience from the Israel Defense Forces hightech units….”

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Freezing bladder tumors. Israeli startup Vessi Medical has developed unique bladder-specific cryotherapy technology for treating surface cancer on the inside lining of the bladder. Existing therapies are invasive and have a high recurrence rate. Vessi has conducted clinical trials and hopes to begin human trials shortly.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-startup-seeks-to-freeze-bladder-tumors-after-seeing-success-in-pigs/

A computer in your heart. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported 3 years ago (see here) when Israel’s Vectorious Medical raised funds to trial its V-LAPTM microcomputer that monitors for imminent heart failure. The device has just been successfully implanted in the first human trials in a six-minute procedure, under local anesthesia. It is said to be the world’s first digital, wireless, battery-less device that can communicate from deep within the body.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/vectorious-1st-human-trial-wireless-heart-monitor-implant/
http://vectoriousmedtech.com/

ReWalk’s soft suit completes trials. I reported previously (see here) about ReStore, the soft suit exoskeleton from Israel’s ReWalk that enables stroke patients to walk. ReStore recently completed successful trials at five US rehabilitation centers and ReWalk has now applied for US FDA and European CE approval.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3756695,00.html

Treatment for refractory seizures. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Teva has launched a generic version of Sabril (vigabatrin) in the US for the treatment of refractory Complex Partial Seizures (CPS). It is meant for adults and children over 10 with this form of epilepsy who have failed to respond to several alternative treatments.
https://www.tevapharm.com/news/teva_announces_u_s_launch_of_a_generic_version_of_sabril_vigabatrin_02_19.aspx

Unique way to mend a broken heart. A 29-year-old Israeli staggered into Sheba Medical Center with a left ventricle aneurysm (ruptured heart artery). Cardiologist Professor Victor Guetta performed a “first in the world” procedure using a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) occlude (normally used to open arteries) to plug the hole.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-israeli-doctor-plugs-heart-bleed-with-innovative-procedure/

Lab-grown bone patient competes in triathlon. Danny Yaakobson suffered a serious leg injury in a car accident and risked losing his leg. He was the first patient to receive a transplant using bone grown from his own fat cells by Israel’s Bonus Bio. Danny completed the 112-mile cycle race of Eilat’s 2019 Israman triathlon.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/world-1st-patient-lab-grown-bone-implant-israman-triathlon/

Predicting the spread of melanoma. Scientists at Ben Gurion University, working with others at the University of Texas, have used microscopic cameras to film live cancer cells. They then used artificial intelligence to identify cells with metastatic potential that were likely to spread to other parts of the body.
http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/ai_melanoma.aspx
https://www.the-scientist.com/image-of-the-day/image-of-the-day–bad-behavior-65202

Finding the cause of genetic diseases. Israeli biotech Emedgene has developed a platform that can pinpoint the genetic mutation(s) responsible for rare genetic diseases. Emedgene gets cases from healthcare organizations and uses Artificial Intelligence and information databases to help geneticists uncover the underlying problem.
https://emedgene.com/emedgene-raises-6-million-to-scale-genomics-based-care-with-ai/

Hope for safer skin grafts. It’s early days, but Shahar Ben-Shaul from Israel’s Technion Institute looks to have improved the success rate for skin grafts. In laboratory trials, she and her team were able to connect blood vessels faster and safer using more mature (14-day-old) cells grown in the lab, in combination with real skin.
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-study-shows-more-successful-method-for-skin-grafts/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/8/2955

The Pro-Palestinian Charade Too many activists who claim to support Palestinian rights only care about attacking Israel BY: Aaron Kliegman

https://freebeacon.com/blog/the-pro-palestinian-charade/

Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has tried to couch her recent anti-Semitic comments as legitimate criticism of the Israeli government. Omar’s progressive colleagues in Congress have done the same, saying that charges of anti-Semitism are meant to stifle debate about Israel. This defense is of course absurd: accusing the world’s only Jewish state of cosmic evil and judging it by a standard different from that applied to all other countries are, historically, the two key features of anti-Semitism. But push aside the facts for a moment and assume their defense is serious. Why do Omar and like-minded progressives criticize Israel so often? Why do they oppose the Jewish state so reflexively, with such visceral hatred? Many of them justify their activism as support for the rights of the weak and oppressed Palestinians, who, they argue, suffer under Israel’s rule. In other words, Omar and her allies say they largely oppose Israel because they are pro-Palestinian. The truth, however, is that many of these progressive voices in the media and on college campuses—and increasingly in Congress—who claim to be pro-Palestinian do not actually care about Palestinian rights—unless of course they can attack Israel.

UNHRC Spews Another Modern-Day Blood Libel Irredeemably-biased UN body demonstrates its Jew-hate yet again. Ari Lieberman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273063/unhrc-spews-another-modern-day-blood-libel-ari-lieberman

The United Nations Human Rights Council, the body that sanctioned and peddled the now infamous and thoroughly discredited Goldstone Report (later repudiated by its principle author, Richard Goldstone) is at it again. Late last week, the UNHRC, whose membership includes democracy stalwarts like Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan and China, released a commission of inquiry (COI)report accusing Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately targeting “journalists, health workers, children and persons with disabilities, knowing they were clearly recognizable as such.”

The 22-page report purportedly examined the deaths of 189 Gazans allegedly at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces since March 30, 2018. That date coincides with the beginning of the Hamas–orchestrated and choreographed Palestinian riots along the Gaza border, dubbed by the terror group, “the Great March of Return.”

Israel did not cooperate with the UNHRC’s investigators and for good reason. The UNHRC is an irredeemably flawed organization whose well-documented bias has made it the poster child for antisemitism on the world stage. The body is obsessed with vilifying Israel to the exclusion of all other nations and maintains the infamous Agenda Item 7, which mandates debate on Israeli actions against Palestinians at every council session. No other nation on the planet, including those with abysmal human rights records, is subjected to such outrageous treatment.

Clearly, there can be but one reason for such “special” treatment. Seventy-four years after the Holocaust and the martyrdom of six-million Jews, the United Nations chooses to obsessively focus its negative energies on the world’s only Jewish nation. The same fascist, anti-Semitic ideology that infected Germany then, infects today’s UNHRC and similar UN committees like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO is driven by a near-mad obsession with severing the Jewish nexus to the Land of Israel.

Right From Wrong: Sexual-harassment hypocrisy? Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-From-Wrong-Sexual-harassment-hypocrisy-582783
The exception to this rule, it turns out, is a woman whose accusations could cause problems for the only candidate who poses a threat to Netanyahu’s continued premiership.

When Israeli ex-pat Navarone (Nava) Jacobs came forward on February 27 with a Facebook post about having been sexually victimized by Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz some 40 years ago, the only person who seemed to respond without stammering was the alleged perpetrator himself.

Indeed, while the Israeli #MeToo movement barely blinked over the allegations – and said that there is “no corroborating evidence” to back up Jacobs’s account – Gantz immediately filed a NIS 500,000 ($142,000) libel suit against her at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court. The suit claims that Jacobs’s accusations are “false from start to finish,” and that she “acted at the behest of, or with the help of political parties that seek to humiliate and discredit Gantz,” ahead of the April 9 Knesset elections.

In her social-media post, the New York-based Jacobs, who has been living in the United States since 1980, wrote that when she was a 14-year-old freshman at Hakfar Hayarok boarding school in Ramat Hasharon, Gantz — who was 17 or 18 at the time and a senior at the same institution — cornered her in the cowshed and exposed himself.

Israel in the Cross Hairs of the International Criminal Court How Israel can counter the Palestinians’ lawfare strategy at the ICC. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273065/israel-cross-hairs-international-criminal-court-joseph-klein

The Palestinians have weaponized the International Criminal Court (ICC). Leveraging the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to bestow Palestine with the title “Non-Member Observer State,” the Palestinian leaders decided to join the ICC, which accepted its application with open arms. Then, on May 15, 2018, the Palestinians exercised their “right as a State Party to the Rome Statute to refer the Situation of Palestine for immediate investigation” of alleged Israeli crimes to the ICC prosecutor, who had previously opened an informal “preliminary examination” on her own initiative.

The Palestinians’ referral checked many of the boxes defining the crimes subject to ICC jurisdiction, particularly the alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. On May 24, 2018, the ICC’s Presidency assigned the “Situation in Palestine” to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber, which took steps to begin informing alleged “victims” as to the ICC’s role and activities, so they can “properly exercise their rights.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s office issued its “Report on Preliminary Examination Activities” for 2018 dated December 5, 2018, which included a section on the Palestinian situation. It appears that a decision is near on whether to open a formal investigation into Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza mentioned in the report, including demolition of Palestinian property, eviction of Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, plans to evacuate residents of the Bedouin village Khan al-Ahmar, settlements construction, the 2014 Gaza war, and more recent violence in and around the Gaza Strip border with Israel stemming from Palestinian mass protests. Experts believe that the prosecutor will open such an investigation with the Pre-Trial Chamber’s blessing in the near future, especially in light of her recent expressions of concern over continuing casualties in the proximity of the Gaza border with Israel.

Ruthie Blum The Palestinians continue to prove the peace fantasists wrong

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-palestinians-continue-to-prove-the-peace-fantasists-wrong/

As Mahmoud Abbas himself told leaders in Baghdad, the Trump administration “is encouraging Israel to be a state above the law,” as well as “biased and not suitable to be a sponsor of peace talks.”

The Palestinians have been busy for the past week demonstrating in word and deed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” will be dead on arrival.

In an op-ed on Sunday in the official, Palestinian Authority-controlled daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, who served as national-affairs adviser to former P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, launched an assault on the White House. While he was at it, he offended all people with special needs.As Palestinian Media Watch reported, Al-Ghoul wrote, “Anyone who looks at [Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt] discovers that he has external and inner characteristics similar to those suffering from Down syndrome: He is short, his eyes are similar to Mongoloid eyes, he prattles unrestrainedly, and is politically retarded.”