RUTHFULLY YOURS

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1. Arab integration in Israel. During 2017-2018, 18.3% of Israeli students studied engineering, compared to 17.9% studying social sciences.  25% of Israel’s undergraduates study engineering and computer sciences. During 2012-2018, the number of Israeli students studying tech subjects (electronics, engineering, software, optical, math, computers) grew 30%, compared to a 100% surge in the number of Arab students. In 2018, the number of Arab students in the hightech subjects accounted to 12% of the total, compared to 8% in 2012 (Israel Council for Higher Education).

2. Economist Intelligence Unit, May 15, 2019: Israel’s GDP of $356BN and $40,230 per capita in 2018 is expected to surge to $667BN and $62,070 in 2030, reflecting Israel’s advantage – over developed and developing countries – in the areas of technology and demography.  Israel spends the highest GDP proportion, in the world, on civilian research & development. Its high investment in military research & development has had positive impact on civilian technology. For example, Israel has overcome low rainfall through desalination and water/sewage recycling, evolving into a major exporter of water technologies. More than 50% of Israel’s workforce has gone through tertiary education, and is expected to grow due to a relatively high fertility rate and positive net-immigration. Population growth is faster than any high-income country. Israel’s dynamic hightech sector will continue driving export growth, together with a strong contribution by business services. Exports of natural gas will make an increasing contribution in the 2020s. Israel’s isolation in the region will diminish gradually, as relations with Egypt and Persian Gulf Arab countries are improved. Israel will maintain the free-trade agreements with the US and EU and will expand trade ties with Japan, China and India and mid-size Asian economies. Israeli exports will rise from $111BN in 2018 to $283BN in 2030, as imports rise from $108BN to $233BN.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/06/03/for-second-straight-day-israel-strikes-military-targets-in-syria/

Israel fired missiles at a Syrian military air base in the country’s center late Sunday, killing at least one soldier and wounding two others, hours after another Israeli strike in southern Syria, which came in response to a rocket attack on the Israeli Golan Heights. Sunday’s strike killed three soldiers and wounded seven, Syria’s state-run media said.

Unconfirmed reports said Monday that five soldiers were killed in the strike, three of them Syrian.

According to Syrian media, the Israeli strike targeted the T4 air base in the central province of Homs – long used by Iranian forces in Syria – just before midnight Sunday. There was no immediate comment from Israel about striking the air base.

Syrian state TV quoted an unidentified military official as saying that one soldier was killed and two others were wounded in the strike and that an arms depot was hit as well. Israel has attacked the T4 base in the past.

Earlier Sunday, the IDF confirmed it targeted several military positions in southern Syria, including two artillery batteries, several observation and intelligence posts and an SA2 air defense unit, in response to two rockets launched from Syria late on Saturday, which caused no casualties.

https://freebeacon.com/blog/israel-heads-again-to-elections-as-one-politician-gambles-it-all/

Five weeks after being sworn in, the 21st Knesset voted to dissolve itself. It’s a first for Israeli politics; the country has never held back-to-back elections. Two freshman legislators even burst into tears. One man, Avigdor Liberman, is responsible for both the most recent April 9 elections and the new elections to be held Sept. 17. The question is why? Consensus is building that Liberman brought down the previous government (when he resigned as defense minister) and refused to join a new one in a bid to put himself back on the political map as his influence fades.

Liberman refused to join the government over a proposed military conscription bill for ultra-Orthodox Jews, or haredim (literally “ones who tremble” before God). Liberman’s position—that not one clause of the bill be touched—was first viewed as merely an opening position that would soften as the weeks went by. Up to last week’s Wednesday midnight deadline, there was a lingering belief that a last-minute deal would be struck.

But Liberman refused to budge, leaving Netanyahu one seat short of the 61 Knesset seats he needed to form a government.

Netanyahu, visibly furious, in a kind of verbal excommunication, announced to the press on Wednesday that Liberman was “on the left now,” calling him “a serial destroyer of right-wing governments.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273889/gaza-conundrum-ari-lieberman

Like an open sore that refuses to heel, Gaza continues to be a thorn in Israel’s side. Though things remain on simmer for now, a full scale conflagration against Hamas and its junior affiliate, Islamic Jihad, is inevitable. As if to underscore this point, on Thursday, Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, announced that his group’s rocket capabilities have improved, and threatened that Hamas would not hesitate to launch rockets at Tel Aviv if attacked. He also stated that Hamas-orchestrated protests along the Gaza border would continue and intensify. Tellingly, Sinwar noted that Hamas receives financial and military support from Iran and that but for Iranian assistance, Hamas would not have been able to improve its military capabilities to the level where it’s at today.

Israel is accustomed to such belligerent talk from its enemies, which is often more bark than bite. Nonetheless, Israel’s leaders have every reason to take these types of threats seriously. A miscalculation by Hamas can instantly trigger a wider conflict.

Hamas has two immediate goals. The first is to hold on to the reins of power at all costs. Hamas does this by controlling Gaza with an iron fist, brutally suppressing all forms of dissent. But the terror group also needs to pay the salaries of those who ensure the regime’s survival. To this end, it relies on cash handouts from entities like Qatar and Iran, as well as taxes on goods smuggled in tunnels between Gaza and northern Sinai, and other extortion schemes.

Hamas’s second goal is to maintain relevancy. Wider issues affecting the Mideast, such as the Shia-Sunni divide, Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, the Islamic State, and proxy wars in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Libya have regulated Gaza and the Palestinian issue at large to third tier. Hamas addresses this problem by causing disruption and mischief. To this end, Hamas employs various schemes to keep itself in the news cycle. But the terror group recognizes that it cannot push the envelope too far lest it incur the full brunt of the Israel Defense Forces and invite disaster upon itself.

https://worldisraelnews.com/israel-retaliates-for-syrian-missile-strike-blasting-targets-near-damascus/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1559455948&pushcrew_powered=1

Israel hit a number of military targets in Syria overnight on Sunday in retaliation for two rockets fired at Israel’s Mt. Hermon on Saturday.

“Fighter planes and helicopters of the IDF attacked a number of military targets belonging to the Syrian army, among them two artillery batteries, a number of observation and intelligence posts on the Golan Heights front and an air-defense system of the SA-2 type,” the IDF reported.

Ten people were killed in the Israeli airstrikes, three Syrian soldiers and seven Hezbollah and Iranian forces, reports the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, an independent watchdog group based in London.

Syrian state media reports only three killed and seven wounded.

The Israel Defense Forces says it has no information about casualties on the other side. It released a video on Twitter showing one of its missiles striking a target.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Regenerating bones. (TY Hazel) Israeli startup Bone Sci Bio is developing a peptide product PeptOss that promotes the formation and repair of bone tissue. It also delivers treatments (antibiotics, chemotherapy, etc.) directly to the bone.  PeptOss’s first application is to treat peri-implantitis that affects 30% of dental implants.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-startup-seeks-to-boost-bone-renewal-and-allow-targeted-drug-delivery/
 
Treatment for resistant Myeloma. Israel’s Pi Therapeutics (PiTx) is developing a treatment for PI-resistant Multiple Myeloma (MM) and solid tumors. Its small molecule non-catalytic UPS inhibitors have worked in lab tests. MM is an incurable blood cancer. PiTx has just raised $19.7 million for a formal clinical proof of concept.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3763205,00.html
https://www.futurx.co.il/portfolio/pi-therapeutics/  
 
Monitor breathing at home. (TY Hazel) Israeli startup Resmetrix Medical has developed a device that allows respiratory patients to monitor their condition at home. It could give an early warning of problems and reduce unnecessary hospitalizations for millions of asthmatics and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease sufferers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-chest-strap-keeps-tabs-on-pulmonary-patients-breathing/
http://www.resmetrix-medical.com/
 
After the heart. Now that Tel Aviv University scientists can 3D-print a heart using human tissue (see here),  they are working to engineer tissue for marrow, brain, eyes and intestine. They are regenerating spinal cord tissue and cells to fight Parkinson’s disease. And they are working to make a 3D-printed heart grow and pump.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/what-do-you-do-after-you-3d-print-a-heart-go-straight-back-to-work-apparently/
 
Health matters most to Israelis. (TY Jacques) A survey conducted by the Haredi Institute of Public Affairs identified the top priorities of Israelis (Jews & Arabs) were health, personal well-being and family life.
http://israelbetweenthelines.com/2019/05/23/health-matters-most-in-israel-study-shows/
 
EU approval for soft Exo-suit. I reported previously (see here) about the ReStore Exo-Suit from Israel’s ReWalk Robotics that helps stroke victim recover their mobility. ReStore has just received the CE mark, allowing ReWalk to market the device to rehabilitation clinics in the European Union.
https://rewalk.com/rewalk-robotics-receives-ce-mark-restoretm-exo-suit-stroke/
 
To heal, to teach, to discover. Israel’s Technion Institute is partnering with Cleveland Ohio’s University Hospitals (UH) to advance medical training, as part of UH’s mission, “To Heal. To Teach. To Discover”. The strategic affiliation includes joint R&D projects, plus 4th-year Technion medical students can train at UH.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/university-hospitals-and-technion—israel-institute-of-technology-announce-new-education-affiliation-300850983.html
 
SACH’s 5,000th patient. (TY UWI) 1-year-old Fatima from Zanzibar is the 5,000th child (from 60 countries) to be treated (for free) by Israeli charity Save A Child’s Heart. Ironically, 19 years ago, SACH surgeons gave Fatima’s 26-year-old mother, Balkis, life-saving treatment at the same Israeli hospital for the same condition.
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-medical-ngo-treats-its-5000th-child-from-abroad/
 
Doctors save toddler choking on popcorn. Specialists at Schneider Children’s Hospital managed to successfully extract popcorn from the airways of 2-year-old Ori Adler. Doctors and nurses extracted the small and sharp popcorn pieces that were stuck in the child’s airways using delicate bronchoscopy.
https://www.schneider.org.il/?CategoryID=1011&ArticleID=4039

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-Wrong-Electing-to-defend-Israel-from-Iran-591197

The last-ditch efforts of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to form a coalition, culminating Wednesday night in the dispersal of the newly instated 21st Knesset, overshadowed crucial events that help to explain why the ruling Likud Party has been and should remain at the helm.

A committee headed by Netanyahu – who has been serving as defense minister since Avigdor Liberman resigned the post in November and spurred the election that he just caused to go down the drain – announced its decision to award the 2019 Israel Defense Prize to the Mossad agents who bravely broke into a warehouse in Tehran and retrieved thousands of documents related to Iran’s nuclear program.
The massive amount of material, proving beyond a doubt that Iran has been working to build nuclear weapons, was presented by Netanyahu to the Israeli public a year ago in April. In a televised appearance, Netanyahu walked back and forth between shelves full of folders and a wall covered in compact discs, to illustrate the extent of the find – the contents of which are thought to have contributed to US President Donald Trump’s final decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the “Iran nuclear deal.”
As in the past, the Israeli prime minister was ridiculed in this case for his tendency to use “props” to make his point. Guffaws can still be heard from the peanut gallery of Bibi-detractors over the primitive graphic of a bomb, with a red line drawn just below its detonator, which he held up during an address to the UN General Assembly in 2012.
Mockery may be the only method that Netanyahu’s rivals can come up with to distract and detract from the actual message that he has been conveying throughout his career. But the joke is on them.
Whatever the voting public feels about his penchant for melodramatic devices, it knows he’s right about the threats that Israel faces, and trusts him more than anyone else to stave off, if not eradicate, them.
No amount of Bibi-bating, however, was able to counteract the general sense in Israel that the Mossad guys who seized such a consequential trove from deep in enemy territory, and whisked it back to Israel without a snag, were heroic. Not since Operation Thunderbolt – the 1976 Entebbe raid during which Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan, was killed rescuing hostages in Uganda – has the country experienced such a surge of national pride.
The Mossad maneuver was a reminder that the Jewish state still possesses the will, and often unparalleled ability, to pull off something so brazenly jaw-dropping.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14312/netanyahu-european-nationalists

The nationalist leaders of central and eastern Europe are a mixed picture when it comes to Israel. They strongly support Jewish nationalism, Zionism, and the nation state of the Jewish people. But their attitude toward Jews and the Holocaust is often highly questionable.

The prime minister of Israel must put the interests of his country before ideological purity or attitude toward Jews in general. In a world in which so few nations support Israel and in which so many vote routinely to condemn it at the United Nations, Israel must not easily give up support from right-wing nationalists.

So let us condemn European nationalists when their actions warrant condemnation, but let us welcome their support for Israel at a time when such support is becoming more and more essential.

Critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argue that he should never speak to European nationalists because European nationalism often goes hand in hand with anti-Semitism.

Ironically (or perhaps hypocritically) many of these same critics urged Israeli prime ministers to speak to Yasser Arafat and other terrorist leaders who have advocated and practiced the murder of Jews. What is the difference? In both cases elected leaders have to hold their collective noses to speak to other leaders of whose ideologies and actions they strongly disapprove. But when you are the leader of a country, pragmatic realpolitik must often prevail over pure ideology.

Recall the grimace on the face of Yitzhak Rabin when President Clinton urged him to shake the hand of Yasser Arafat, a man who was personally responsible for ordering the murder of Israeli children, women and men. When I subsequently discussed this with Rabin, he said that his hand was shielded by the velvet glove of diplomacy. The left praised Rabin, as well they should have. But many of the same people now condemn Netanyahu for extending the same velvet glove of diplomacy to extreme European nationalists.