RUTHFULLY YOURS

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/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/the-u-n-gives-palestinian-terrorists-a-free-pass/

The General Assembly expresses solidarity with the Palestinians by endorsing violence against Israeli civilians.

On Thursday the United Nations had an opportunity to speak with moral clarity and denounce the terrorist group Hamas. Instead, the General Assembly (UNGA) rejected a U.S.-sponsored resolution that called for an end to violence, encouraged intra-Palestinian reconciliation, and condemned terrorism.

A disappointed Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., lamented, “Over the years, the UN has voted to condemn Israel over 500 times . . . and not one single resolution condemning Hamas. That, more than anything else, is a condemnation of the United Nations itself.”

Moreover, the U.N. indicated that Jews’ praying at the Western Wall is more worthy of condemnation than Hamas’s lobbing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. The UNGA passed another resolution calling for an end to “Israel’s occupation . . . including of East Jerusalem,” the location of Judaism’s holiest shrine.

This was the seventh anti-Israel resolution in as many days. Last week, on November 29, the U.N. celebrated its annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People with a series of anti-Israel speakers and resolutions highly critical of the Jewish state.

Marc Lamont Hill, one of the speakers, endorsed violence against Israelis and a boycott of the Jewish state and called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” That slogan is widely understood to be a euphemism for destroying Israel, and it led to his termination from CNN.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/refute-palestinian-lies-to-promote-mideast-peace-1544139570

‘Our demand for fairness for Israel is actually a demand for peace,” declared Nikki Haley in July. It’s important for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to stress fairness, and above all truth, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because Palestinian rejection of peace frequently hides behind falsehoods. Ending the acceptance of these falsehoods is critical to putting Middle East diplomacy on a path toward peace.

The U.S. has already acted to gain recognition of three key truths that had long been diplomatically ignored: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel; very few of the Palestinians that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency supports are actually refugees; and the U.N. has been unacceptably biased against Israel.

Now the U.S. can tip the political balance toward peace and stability by insisting on two other truths. First, despite widespread use of the term in diplomatic documents and debate, there is no such thing as “occupied Palestinian territory” because there has never been a Palestinian territory to occupy. As some Palestinians point out, they have never had a state of their own. This is far more than a game of semantics. If the land was Palestinian, then Israel could have stolen it. If the land isn’t Palestinian, then Israel couldn’t have stolen it. It’s critical that the U.S. actively combat the falsehood that Israel exists on stolen Palestinian land.

The second falsehood is married to the first. The Palestinians not only claim that all the land is theirs, they also deny any Jewish connection to it. During the failed Camp David talks in 2000, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat stunned President Clinton by asserting the Jews had no connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the place where the first and second Jewish temples stood.

Mr. Clinton may have been surprised, but the Palestinian denial of any historic Jewish connection to the land is nothing new, and it continues. Since the Palestinians know that hardly anyone outside the Arab who would agree with them, they rarely say it in English.

Oman’s unique geo-strategic location has enticed China’s recent $10BN investment in an industrial park at Oman’s southern port of Duqm on the northern Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea. Moreover, the Port of Rotterdam – the largest port in Europe – has played a key role in the impressive expansion of Oman’s Port of Sohar, located near the Strait of Hormuz and one of the fastest growing ports in the world. Furthermore, Denmark’s Maersk, the largest shipping company in the world, has played a major role in the development of Oman’s largest port, Salalah, which is situated near Yemen on the northern Indian Ocean.

Oman adheres to the moderate Ibadiyyah branch of Islam, and is ruled by the effective, but ailing, 78-year-old Sultan Qaboos, who is diversifying the economy, attracting foreign investment and moderating internal tribal rivalry, which could haunt the country upon his departure. Homeland security-driven attempts are being made to reduce the number of foreign laborers, who account for about 40% of Oman’s 4.8MN population.

Oman is located at the strategically critical Strait of Hurmuz, which is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean (the Gulf of Oman/Indian Ocean), the route of 20% of the global petroleum.

Oman is sandwiched between Iran’s megalomaniacal Ayatollahs (21 nautical miles apart), Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – which are threatened by the Ayatollahs’ subversion, terrorism and conventional military – and the volcanic Yemen, which is a major platform of Islamic terrorism, extending the Ayatollahs’ reach in their attempt to topple the House of Saud.