RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273956/six-day-war-52-years-ago-joseph-puder

June 5, 1967 was a day that will live in glory in the annals of Jewish history.  On that day in 1967, the Israeli air force destroyed on the ground and in the air the Arab air forces, and gained full supremacy in the air, and ultimately on the ground and at sea. This was the Six Day War 52-years ago. It was one of the greatest victories in Jewish history, and a seminal event in Israel’s history.

It all began a month earlier. The Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser, made bellicose statements on the Voice of the Arabs radio station, including the threat of drowning the Jews in the Mediterranean Sea. It was not only verbal threats coming out of Nasser’s and his underlings’ mouths, it was the actions he took, including the closing of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli navigation, making Israeli trade from Eilat to Asia and the Far East nearly impossible.

The vital shipment of oil to Israel came through the Straits to Eilat. On May 23, 1967, Nasser, addressing Egyptian pilots in the Sinai, announced the blockade of the Straits. He stated, “The Gulf of Aqaba constitutes our Egyptian territorial waters…under no circumstances will we allow the Israeli flag to pass through…” Earlier, on May 21, 1967, Egyptian troops occupied Sharm el-Sheikh, and two days earlier the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) contingent, based in the Sinai, was ousted by Nasser, in contravention of the decade long armistice agreement following the 1956-57 Sinai Campaign, in which Israeli forces reached the Suez Canal and captured the Sinai Peninsula. Under pressure from the U.S. and western powers, Israel withdrew from the Sinai.  Israel was guaranteed freedom of navigation through the Straits and the Suez Canal, and a UN observer force was dispatched to the Sinai and serve as a barrier against aggression.    

In Israel, the news throughout May 1967 filled the people with doom and gloom. In the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, as well as elsewhere in Israel, it was felt that once again Jews were abandoned to their fate by the world. In Tel Aviv, ditches were dug to bury the anticipated thousands of casualties. A sense of desperation pervaded the country, and memories of the Holocaust came flashing back. The Maritime powers did nothing to fulfill their promise. Israel was alone to face the Arab world seething with hatred and revenge and promising a bloodbath.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/an-ill-deserved-assault-on-ambassador-david-friedman/

He said nothing controversial whatsoever about the West Bank, except in the eyes of those who consider any Israeli territorial or other claims illegitimate.

Palestinian and leftist Jewish leaders called for America’s Israel ambassador to be fired for telling The New York Times in a recent interview that the Jewish state has, “under certain circumstances, the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

Yes, for daring to suggest that Israel has the right even to “some” of its land, David Friedman was called a “settler” by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who had previously dubbed him a “son of a dog.”

And the P.A. Foreign Ministry announced that it would weigh filing a complaint against Friedman at the International Criminal Court for “trying to impose his racist visions and threatening peace and security in the region, as well as exposing the Palestinian people to several dangers and conspiracies.”

J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami was equally incensed, accusing Friedman of “once again [making] clear that he is acting not as the U.S. ambassador to Israel but as the settlement movement’s ambassador to the United States. By essentially giving the Netanyahu government a green light to begin unilaterally annexing Palestinian territory in the West Bank, the Trump administration is endorsing a flagrant violation of international law.”

Peace Now chimed in, referring to Friedman as a “Trojan horse sent by the settler right, which sabotages Israel’s interests and the chance for peace,” and urging U.S. President Donald Trump to “send him packing.”

The outcry over Friedman’s perfectly reasonable remark is worthy of note, particularly in view of what the U.S. envoy said next.

When asked how Washington would react if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed through on his campaign vow ahead of the April 9 Knesset elections to annex part of Judea and Samaria, Friedman replied: “We really don’t have a view until we know how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves. These are all things that we’d want to understand, and I don’t want to prejudge.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273964/remembering-operation-mole-cricket-19-ari-lieberman

June 9, 2019 marked the 37th anniversary of Operation Mole Cricket 19, a complex Israeli aerial undertaking that obliterated Syria’s air defense capabilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. In the immediate term, Mole Cricket 19 gave the Israeli Air Force complete dominance over the skies of Lebanon, but the long term effects of Mole Cricket 19 were far more consequential.

The sequence of events leading up to the operation began in London, where a PLO terrorist hit squad attempted to assassinate, Shlomo Argov, who was Israel’s ambassador to the UK. That provocation sparked an Israeli reprisal raid against PLO elements in Lebanon. The PLO responded with indiscriminate rocket and artillery fire on Israeli communities in Galilee forcing much of the population into bomb shelters. On June 6, 1982 Israel answered the PLO’s aggression with a full-scale counter insurgency campaign aimed at creating a 40 kilometer buffer zone between PLO forces and Israel’s northern border. The overall operation was codenamed “Peace for Galilee” but the stage had been set for Operation Mole Cricket 19.

Israeli ground forces required tactical air support but the IAF was hampered by the presence of 19 Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries situated in the Bekaa Valley. The Syrians deployed a dense anti-aircraft umbrella consisting of SAM-2, SAM-3 and the SAM-6 missiles. The formidable SAM-6 caused considerable problems for the IAF during the Yom Kippur War, and the NATO alliance was still trying to figure out a way to defeat the system. On June 9, 1982 Israel showed NATO how to it and in an instant displayed to the world the West’s technological dominance over the decaying Soviet Union.

https://www.hoover.org/research/israels-narrow-path-peace

Pitilessly, the past quarter century’s events have dismissed the hopes for peace with the Arabs that Israeli diplomats, often accompanied by U.S. counterparts, detailed to the world in 1993 as they explained the concessions they had finalized in Oslo. Previously, they had treated Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization as a terrorist organization to be marginalized if not destroyed. The list of its outrages, from bombing school buses and airports to murdering Olympic athletes, spoke for itself. In 1982, the U.S. saved the PLO from imminent destruction by an Israeli and Lebanese alliance, and sustained it in supervised exile in Tunisia. U.S. policy had always nourished hopes that, were the PLO to be given responsibility and treated as a partner, it would moderate itself. This would result in a Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel.

In Israel, substantial high-level opinion had come to share these hopes. And why not? The Soviet collapse, having removed the PLO’s main source of funding and hope of support, radically weakened Syria. The Israelis judged that the PLO had little choice but to take the generous option of peace and partnership offered to it. Besides, Israel had been suffering from a wave of PLO-organized violence in the West Bank, and longed for a broad path to peace. Hence, the Oslo Accords.

The accords delivered the opposite. Subsequent waves of violence, escalating demands, and outright wars, have convinced the Israeli public’s vast majority that its only path to peace is very narrow—a long-term commitment to very hard, defensible borders, coupled with encouraging Egypt and Jordan, who are almost as equally threatened as Israel by what the Palestinian people have become, to take control of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Only the Arab parties and the left wing of left-wing Meretz regret abandoning attempts at a “two state solution.”

So firmly is Israel on this path, so lacking are credible alternatives, that the highly touted “plan of the century” that Jared Kushner is to unveil in June 2019 may trouble it, but is unlikely to alter it.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14357/palestinian-leaders-butcher-truth

Yusef Wajih, the terrorist, came to Jerusalem armed with a knife to kill Jews. That was his only goal. He could have taken advantage of Israel’s easing of restrictions during Ramadan — a move that saw hundreds of thousands of Muslims to enter Jerusalem every Friday to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is also not concerned that two innocent Jews were stabbed by the terrorist. What the Palestinian Authority is disturbed about is the killing of the terrorist.

If the International Criminal Court ever looks into this incident, it should begin its inquiry by investigating the vicious incitement of Palestinian leaders, who use Jewish visits to a holy site in Jerusalem to butcher the truth, just as it whips up Palestinians such as Yusef Wajih to wake up in the morning and butcher the first Jew he meets. The blood of Wajih is on the hands of Palestinian leaders, and not the police officers who stopped a terrorist from stabbing yet more Jews.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is up in arms because Israeli policemen killed a Palestinian who stabbed two Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem. The terrorist, 19-year-old Yusef Wajih, from the West Bank village of Abwain, near Ramallah, stabbed one of the men in the neck and head near the Old City’s Damascus Gate, leaving him in serious condition.

The second victim was a 16-year-old who was stabbed by the terrorist in the back a few hundred meters away from the scene of the first attack. The teenager sustained light to moderate injuries. Police officers shot and killed the terrorist, thus preventing him from harming more Jews.

Such stabbing attacks are not uncommon on the streets of Jerusalem. In the past few years, Palestinian terrorists have carried out several stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli police officers and civilians, particularly ultra-Orthodox Jews who were on their way to or from prayer at the Western Wall.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Treatment for genetic pancreatic cancer. Researchers at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center have had positive results in trials of Lynparza (olaparib) for treating pancreatic cancer in carriers of BRCA mutations. An international trial of 154 patients showed improved response, time to progression and quality of life.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-researchers-find-potential-hope-for-some-pancreatic-cancer-patients/
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Sheba-medical-team-finds-treatment-for-4th-leading-cause-of-cancer-death-591409  
 
New early test for Parkinson’s. Tel Aviv University scientists have discovered a new method for detecting the aggregation of the protein alpha-synuclein, before Parkinson’s symptoms appear. Doctors can then monitor how treatments affect this aggregation.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/TAU-unveils-new-method-for-detecting-delaying-Parkinsons-591602
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-019-02023-x
 
Transmitting neural messages to the next generation. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have identified a nervous system mechanism that can transmit neural messages to future generations. They showed that data on environmental factors are stored in brain cells (neurons) and expressed in germline genes to one’s children.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israeli-study-Nervous-system-can-transmit-messages-to-future-generations-591795   https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-study-says-neurons-not-just-dna-can-affect-progenys-fate/
 
US approval for soft Exo-suit. Last week (see here) ReWalk’s soft exoskeleton received European (CE) approval.  This week, the US FDA approved the Israeli innovation. Things are “looking up” for stroke victims.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fda-issues-clearance-for-the-restore-exo-suit-the-first-soft-robotic-system-for-stroke-therapy-300861824.html
 
Tracking response to cancer treatment. Israel-based Techsomed develops an image analysis system that helps track tissue response to thermal ablation – the process of destroying tumors using extreme heat or cold. It works with ultrasound to simulate the effects over time and provide surgeons with better control and accuracy.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3763298,00.html
 
Israeli diet is good for the brain. I reported previously (14th Apr) that Israel has the lowest rate of diet-related deaths in the world.  Now, the American Academy of Neurology medical journal has found that the diet can also help preserve memory and thinking abilities.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/new-study-israeli-diet-not-only-healthy-also-preserves-memory/
 
Foolproof Ambulance inventory list. Three students from Jerusalem College of Technology won first prize at the college’s third annual Great Minds hackathon. They devised a system using sensors to eliminate human error when checking crucial inventory on ambulances before they are dispatched from their stations.
https://www.israel21c.org/jlem-hackathoners-hatch-bright-idea-for-ambulance-crews/

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14342/palestinian-leaders-priorities

Let us consider some of those “other priorities….” Last week, Palestinian sources revealed that the ministers of the Palestinian Authority government have given themselves a $2,000 raise in their monthly salary… at a time when the Palestinian leadership is claiming that it is suffering from a financial crisis.

Hardly a day passes without another Palestinian reported killed in Syria. The latest victim died under torture in a Syrian prison last week. The victim’s family has requested that his name not be published out of concern for their lives… His death brings to 606 the number of Palestinians who died under torture in Syrian prisons in the past eight years.

When was the last time a senior Palestinian official talked about the torture and arrest of Palestinians in an Arab country? They really don’t have the time: they are too busy condemning Israel and the US administration to take note of the fact that thousands of their people are being killed, displaced and tortured in Arab countries.

Palestinian ministers take yet more money for themselves from the pockets of their own people. Hamas leaders are obsessed with gagging anyone who dares to call them out for their violent and despotic behavior…. This is the Palestinian leadership in action. When, one might ask, might we see some reaction on the part of the international community and media?

Some 18 Palestinian journalists, political and social activists, and academics have been killed in Syria in recent years, while dozens of others have been arrested. This figure was recently revealed by the Action Group For Palestinians of Syria, a London-based human rights watchdog organization that monitors the situation of Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria.

This revelation, however, did not make it onto the radar of the international community or “pro-Palestinian” groups in the US, Canada, Britain and other Western countries. The most probable reason: Israel had nothing to do with the deaths of the Palestinian journalists, political activists and academics. They died in an Arab country (Syria). They were killed by their own Arab brothers, not by Israelis.

Had the Palestinians been killed or injured or arrested by Israel, their plight would have been immediately criticized by the international community, foreign journalists and media outlets. Yet, why should major media organizations report on these Arabs when they are victims of Arab brutality and repression?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273943/ron-desantis-challenges-bds-movement-caroline-glick

“If you openly support BDS in Florida, you’re dead, politically.”

That was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s conclusion from the surprisingly large role the issue of the antisemitic “boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) campaign against Israel played in his close race against Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum in Floridan’s gubernatorial election last November.

DeSantis edged out the hardcore progressive Democrat by a mere 0.4 percent, or 32,000 votes.

DeSantis made the remark during the course of his official visit to Israel last week. He led a massive trade mission of Florida business leaders, cabinet secretaries, and university presidents on a five-day trip to the Jewish state. During the course of the mission, Florida universities signed collaboration agreements with Israeli universities spanning a vast spectrum of undertakings from water purification to space research.

The mission merged the twin goals of increasing Florida-Israel economic, academic and commercial ties; and fighting anti-Semitism generally, and the BDS campaign against Israel specifically. Its success was a stunning expression of DeSantis’s state government’s friendship with Israel. It also placed the sharp contrast between progressive Democrats — like his opponent, Gillum — and DeSantis in stark relief.

Throughout his three terms in Congress, DeSantis distinguished himself as one of the most active defenders and promoters of the U.S. strategic alliance with the Jewish state. In contrast, in the years preceding Gillum’s general election run for Florida governor, he cultivated and benefitted from close ties with BDS groups.

DeSantis made his remark about the negative effect his opponent’s support for Israel’s worst opponents in America had on Gillum’s election prospects during a visit Wednesday to the Hub Etzion in the Gush Etzion industrial park. The Hub is a flexible work office space and a central meeting place for the growing hi-tech, small business and self-employed community of Gush Etzion and Efrat in Judea and Samaria.