RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272203/israeli-mom-and-premature-infant-battle-their-ari-lieberman

On Sunday, seven Israeli civilians were wounded after Palestinian terrorists in a white sedan sprayed a group of people waiting at a bus stop with automatic machinegun fire. The attack occurred near the community of Ofra, which is situated north of Jerusalem in the Samaria district.

The injured included a pregnant woman, identified as Shira Ish-Ran, who was hit in the abdomen and was initially listed as critical, though her condition has improved somewhat. Her unborn child, who was 30-35 weeks old, was delivered by emergency cesarean section and placed in the neo-natal intensive care unit. His condition is listed as critical and doctors fear he may have incurred a brain injury as a result of the attack. He is currently in a medically induced coma. Both mother and son are at Shaarei Zedek Medical center in Jerusalem.

The attack was captured on CCTV and Israeli security officials believe that there were at least two perpetrators. The Israel Defense Forces in combination with the General Security Service have launched an intensive dragnet for the terrorists, conducting sweeps of nearby hostile villages, including Silwad and al-Bireh. The Palestinian Authority-controlled Wafa propaganda outlet in the nearby city of Ramallah was also raided.

When I saw the headline, I was naturally shocked by the indiscriminate heinous nature of the attack and saddened for the fates of Mrs. Ish-Ran and her newborn baby boy, who were among the most seriously wounded. This bestial act of violence perpetrated by lowly cowards, was praised by Hamas, who referred to the attack as “heroic.” The Palestinian Authority has yet to issue a statement condemning the attack but judging by their past actions, they will likely name streets and squares after the perpetrators and issue hefty stipends for their families, a repulsive practice known as pay for slay. Under the leadership of Donald Trump, the United States has curtailed aid to the Palestinians, citing among other things, the Palestinian practice of pay for slay. The Europeans seem oblivious to this practice and are still lavishly funding the Palestinian Authority, courtesy of EU taxpayer.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/silence-over-un-anti-israel-votes-exposes-disingenuous-concern-for-anti-semitism/

Was the concern for anti-Semitism in the wake of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue massacre among the media and political establishment heartfelt and genuine, or, sadly, more cynical and calculating?

Are white nationalists the primary drivers of a growing scourge of Jew-hatred, or are its purveyors largely to be found elsewhere?

Both of these propositions were put to the test recently at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The results are sobering, and challenge the prevailing chattering class narrative.

At the 73rd session of the UNGA, the vast majority of its 193 member states voted to share a rotten early Chanukah gift with the Jewish people: Six blatantly anti-Israel resolutions.

These resolutions collectively cast the New Jersey-sized, most liberal, democratic and prosperous nation in the Middle East – faced with existential threats from all sides on a daily basis – as a deplorable, illegitimate “occupying Power.”

Beyond leveling the usual calumnies at the Jewish state, among other things, the resolutions: (i) deem invalid any Israeli control over its own capital of Jerusalem; (ii) suggest that the Jerusalem-based Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism – yet where Jews are perversely forbidden from praying — is solely the domain of Muslims, referring to it by its Arabic name “Haram al-Sharif;” and (iii) cast as illegal all Israeli development in Judea and Samaria — also religiously and historically vital Jewish lands, seized in Arab wars of aggression and reclaimed by Israel in the Six-Day War — for which too, Israel’s legal claims under international law are robust. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/12/indivisible-jerusalem-belongs-to-israel/

Jewish Jerusalem is a shining symbol of our Judeo-Christian civilisation’s origin. Out of it has flowed individual freedom, a culture of tolerance and decency, science, technology, capitalism and prosperity. Nothing matches it — except in the inverse, the refusal to recognise the city as Israel’s rightful capital.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel

These are the first two lines of a well-known hymn which opened the service at my local Anglican church on Sunday last. It is apparently taken from a 9th-century Latin hymn. I assume it is no accident that Muslim invaders were occupying Jerusalem at the time. But it doesn’t matter whether that linkage is historically true, it is incidental to my theme which is that Israel and the people of Israel — to wit the Jews, distinctly not Palestinian Arabs — figure prominently in Christianity and in Western civilisation.

Jesus, the Apostles, Saint Paul were part of a Jewish population long occupying the land to the west of the Jordan River, including Jerusalem. They were not interlopers. The interlopers came later via conquest. Imams did not go barefoot into the unknown carrying copies of the Koran to proselytize by sweet reason.

But step back. Conquest was the name of the game for much of the history of mankind. It is useless to attach blame based on recent norms. That leaves us to make a judgment call. Who should ‘we’ recognise as being the rightful owners of the city of Jerusalem. Leave aside the broader question of the rightful geographical boundaries of Israel; though it has strong historical claims to all of Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank), which it currently occupies.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/news-services/article222709440.html

“We are most certainly not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region,” Airbnb stated in announcing that it would no longer list rentals by Israeli citizens in the West Bank. Arbnb’s modesty is commendable, but its ignorance is insidious.

Its policy for the West Bank subjects Israel to a singular global standard and reflects an all-too-common narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By empowering one-sided Israel-haters, it also makes peace less likely, not more.

The West Bank is obviously disputed territory, but Airbnb sees the dispute only through Palestinian eyes.

After all, it isn’t leaving the West Bank. If you want a place to rent there, you can use Airbnb to find one that’s owned by a Christian or a Muslim. You just can’t find any of the 200 or so owned by an Israeli Jew.

Airbnb concluded that “Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank” are “at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.”

So, Airbnb believes, what’s not “at the core of the dispute” is the rejection of Israel’s right to exist that’s broadly shared among Palestinians and their leaders; or the incitement to violence against Jews on Palestinian TV and social media; or textbooks that teach Palestinian school children that a future Palestine should encompass all of what’s now Israel; or Palestinian claims that Jews have no historical ties to key religious sites in Jerusalem.

https://freebeacon.com/blog/operation-northern-shield-notch-israels-belt/
Operation Northern Shield is a victory for Israel. In the early morning hours of Tuesday, Dec. 4, Israel’s military thwarted a Hezbollah plan to attack the country through tunnels. Israel revealed the first tunnel that day. It has since found two others. The Israel Defense Forces estimate there are 10 such tunnels.
It’s easy to become confused as to whether the operation should in fact be considered a success when confronted with Israel’s turbulent punditry, where everything is thrown into doubt, including whether even to call it an “operation.”
As one Israeli columnist noted (who argued it was indeed an operation), when Israelis hear that word they expect columns of troops marching into enemy territory, not a couple of soldiers standing around a rock drill with their hands in their pockets. The scene resembles peaceful preliminary work on a new highway.
Nevertheless, it’s difficult to overstate the catastrophe that Israel avoided. Hezbollah planned to use these tunnels—large enough to drive motorcycles and tractors through—to mount a small invasion, sending elite forces into Israel under cover of artillery fire to cut off Metullah and other Israeli towns in the upper Galilee.
The thought of hundreds of Hezbollah terrorists wreaking murder and mayhem is terrifying. It would have been a painful defeat for Israel. Yes, the IDF would have regained control, but Israeli society would have spun into depression while Muslim morale skyrocketed. Propaganda videos of Hezbollah killers planting victory flags over Metullah would have streamed throughout the Islamic world.

https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-pregnant-woman-critically-injured-in-shooting-attack-in-samaria

A pregnant woman was among six people injured after 9 p.m. in a shooting attack outside the commmunity of Ofra, north of Jerusalem. Her condition is critical. The others are in light to moderate condition.

“Shots were fired at Israeli civilians standing at a bus station from a passing Palestinian vehicle. IDF troops nearby responded by firing towards the vehicle, which fled. IDF troops are currently searching the area,” the IDF tweeted.

https://carolineglick.com/israels-gatekeepers-vs-democracy/

Israel has no written constitution – but all the same, it is steeped in a deep and dangerous constitutional crisis. In the balance hangs nothing less than the country’s ability to remain a democracy, where the people elect their leaders and the elected leaders govern the country.

Presently, a powerful group of unelected, self-appointed “gatekeepers” is challenging the foundations of Israel’s democratic order. These self-empowered “gatekeepers” seek to end Israeli democracy by acting as a wedge between the people and their elected leaders and preventing those leaders from using the power vested in them by voters.

The present crisis was revealed starkly on Tuesday in an otherwise unimportant and deeply boring hearing on Israel’s dairy industry at the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee.

But to understand what happened, it is important to go back to November 5. That day, Deputy attorney-general Dina Zilber was asked to represent the position of the government regarding a controversial bill that would block state funding to artists and productions that campaign against Israel. Rather than present the government’s position, Zilber brutally attacked the bill. In an outburst entirely bereft of legal argumentation, Zilber effectively said that Israel was losing its soul.

This statement was in keeping with Zilber’s long record of abusing her power as the deputy attorney-general to advance her far-Left political agenda on everything from undermining the development of Israeli communities beyond the armistice lines to requiring religious groups to either permit men and women to participate in their events or be denied access to public facilities.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Israeli innovations in this week’s newsletter are illuminating – so very appropriate for Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights. Israel’s “Maccabees” are making the world safer with medical treatments and devices, genetic matching, paramedics, safe harbor, security for the G20 Summit, the UN in Africa and South Korea, and protection against mortars, terrorists, cyber attacks, dangerous driving and toxic fuel.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Cell-therapy for advanced kidney disease. Israeli biotech KidneyCure is developing personalized cell-therapy technology for treating advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). An estimated 30 million adults in the US have CKD (most are undiagnosed) with 600,000 on dialysis.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3750177,00.html

Non-Hodgins lymphoma treatment approved. Israel’s Teva has received US FDA approval for its Truxima treatment for several conditions of the deadly non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Truxima is a bio-similar (tested low-cost alternative) to Rituxan (Rituximab) manufactured by Roche.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3750979,00.html
https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/InformationOnDrugs/ApprovedDrugs/ucm627035.htm

Good results in H. pylori treatment. Israeli biotech Redhill announced positive top-line results from its confirmatory Phase 3 study using its TALICIA treatment for H. pylori Infection. Of 455 trial participants, the antibiotic-resistant infection was eradicated completely in 85% of cases compared to 58% using an alternative.
https://www.redhillbio.com/RedHill/Templates/showpage.asp?TMID=178&FID=1384&PID=0&IID=10196

Giving an amputee a reason to live. 72-year old Israeli Yehuda lost both legs after an infection and was considering ending his life. But when volunteers from NGO United Hatzalah’s ‘Ten Kavod’ project heard of his plight, they took him swimming in the sea and even on a yacht trip. It has totally changed his life.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-team-of-angels-gives-amputee-a-reason-to-live/

Boosting Israel’s life-science powerhouse. Israeli NGO 8400 Network is building a network of 400 top Israeli health-tech brains over 8 years (hence 8400). These leaders are using the best practices of global life-sciences ecosystems to initiate projects that promote growth in the health-related industry in Israel.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-medicine-converges-with-technology-israel-faces-tremendous-opportunity/

EU award for cancer breath-test inventor. Israel Technion Professor Hossam Haick (see here) received the European Commission Innovation Prize in Lisbon for inventing the SniffPhone, a smartphone device to detect cancer in the breath. He was “the most innovative scientist realizing an idea in the field of electronic systems”.
http://nocamels.com/2018/11/hossam-haick-technion-eu-award-sniffphone/

Nursing training for Ethiopian-Israelis. Israeli NGO JobKatif has established Achotenu – a program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, for Ethiopian-Israelis to earn a degree in nursing and long-term employment. The current program has 58 students including those in this inspiring video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCnL9EzT9D8 http://www.achotenu.org/stories/

Israeli leads the cardiovascular world. (TY Hazel) Israel is number one in the world for medical patents per capita. These patents have led to numerous revolutionary cardiovascular procedures and devices. E.g. aortic valve replacement, mitral valve repair, tiny pacemakers, heart monitoring chips and especially stents.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shaare-Zedek-lauds-Israeli-innovations-in-cardiology-572747

Charity’s 3,000th transplant. Israeli charity Ezer Mizion is celebrating the 3,000-milestone for the number of life-saving stem-cell transplants performed as a direct result of its bone-marrow registry. Prior to Ezer Mizion, chances of a Jewish patient finding a genetic match was 8%. Now, 76% of requests receive a positive response.
http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/because-of-you-57/