Cherry tomatoes were engineered in Israel.
Israel is the only county to have more trees today than it did 50 years ago.
After Tokyo and New York City, Tel Aviv has the most sushi restaurants per capita.
People of the book: Israel publishes more books per capita than any other country.
Israel has the world’s highest rate of entrepreneurship among women.
Israel has the highest number of university degrees per capita than any other country.
Buses around Israel have signs that quote the biblical passage, “You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old.”
One million notes are left in the Kotel (Western Wall) each year. They are cleaned out twice a year, before Passover and Rosh Hashanah.
Beersheva has the largest number of chess grandmasters per capita of any city in the world.
Israeli bank notes have Braille on them to assist the blind.
Microsoft has more employees in Israel than it does per capita anywhere in the world.
Israel has the highest number of museums per capita in the world.
Israel has more orchestras per capita than any other country.
Israeli academics produce more scientific papers per capita than anywhere else in the world.
Israel has more computers per capita than any other country.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the number of Christians is increasing.
Relative to its population, Israel has absorbed more immigrants than any other country, with newcomers from more than 100 countries.
Voicemail technology was developed in Israel.
Life expectancy in Israel is among the highest in the world, at 82 years.
Israel has won more Nobel Prizes than all other Middle East countries combined.
Jerusalem has over 1,500 public parks and gardens.
I am on my way to Israel to celebrate the 70th birthday of the Jewish state. Having experienced many of Israel’s birthdays before, when the country was noticeably less mature or prosperous, this birthday is a special occasion. With all the glory attached to the coming of age, there are also sets of precedents that require caution and good judgment.
The number 70 has meaningful commutations in Jewish tradition. It recalls the 70-year Babylonian Exile that led to the start of the Second Jewish Commonwealth in 530 BCE. The return to the Land of Israel occurred through the Charter given by the Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great, allowing Jews who wished to return to “Jerusalem that is in Judah” and build a “House for the God of Heaven” to do so. Prime Minister Netanyahu, in praising Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, compared him to King Cyrus the Great. Similarly, President Harry Truman was told that in recognizing the Jewish state, he would become another King Cyrus for Jews everywhere.
Zerubbabel, a descendent of King David, led the first wave of returnees to Jerusalem. The second wave come with the Scribe Ezra (book of Ezra in the third portion of the Hebrew Bible called Ketuvim). The third stage of mass return to the land occurred with Nehemiah, a high official in the Persian Empire administration.
The first returnees had to deal with the Samaritans and the Ammonites, in the same way the 19th and 20th century returnees had to deal with the Arabs. The Samaritans, like the Arabs of later times, were brought into the land of Israel by the Assyrian kings at the end of the Eight Century BCE in place of the Israelites they had deported. Arabs settled in the Land of Israel following the deportation of the Jews (most but not all) by the Romans in the aftermath of the Jewish rebellion, which ended in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Matching treatments to patients. (TY Hazel) Israel has launched the Israel Precision Medicine Partnership – an innovative $60 million program to enable researchers to target the best treatments for a patient’s disease (e.g. cancer). Precision medicine uses genetic sequencing to predict an individual’s response to specific treatments.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-launches-60m-initiative-to-boost-tailor-made-meds/
Artificial cell factory kills cancer from the inside. (TY NoCamels) Researchers at Israel’s Technion have successfully treated a cancerous tumor using a “nano-factory” – a synthetic cell that produces anti-cancer proteins when it comes into contact with the tumor tissue. The proteins can be varied to fit each patient.
http://ats.org/news/synthetic-cell-produces-anti-cancer-drugs-within-a-tumor/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adhm.201701163
Treatment for Adnoid Cystic Carcinoma. I wrote previously (10th Dec) about Israeli personalized cancer biotech Ayala and its partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb. One of the results of this tie-up is AL101 – a new treatment for metastatic Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma (ACC), which could also treat triple-negative breast cancer.
https://www.globes.co.il/en/article-cancer-drug-developer-ayala-pharmaceuticals-raises-17m-1001231474
Israeli medical databases. Israel’s four health companies maintain databases of 5 million records that (anonymized) will benefit medical researchers in the discovery of new treatments. The Maccabi health fund (see here) is already doing this. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3735645,00.html
Anaphylactic shock alert. Scientists from Bar-Ilan University partnered with Israel’s Magen David Adom to develop “EPIMADA,” a smartphone app that issues a local proximity alert in the event of a severe allergic reaction, known as anaphylactic shock. Anyone with an EpiPen (syringe containing adrenaline) can save the victim. http://nocamels.com/2018/03/israeli-researchers-emergency-app/
Predicting kidney disease in diabetics. I reported previously (see here) on the predictive artificial intelligence (AI) systems of Israeli biotech Medial EarlySign. Its AI algorithms can now predict which sufferers of diabetes will develop kidney dysfunction within a one-year time-frame. Early treatment can then improve their outcome.
http://nocamels.com/2018/02/israeli-ai-startup-diabetes-kidney/
Spinal surgery for Ethiopian children. (TY Hazel) Eleven medics from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center spent a week performing surgeries to fix severe spinal deformities in Ethiopia. In addition, the Israelis also provided training to medical staff at the Ayder hospital in the Northern Ethiopian city of Mekelle.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-doctors-perform-lifesaving-spinal-surgeries-in-ethiopia/
Crash led to new medical device. Another Israeli medical “miracle”. After a motorcycle accident, doctors found that Avi Yaron had a brain tumor. They couldn’t remove all the tumor, so Avi founded Visionsense that developed an imaging device to help in similar ops. Medtronic has just bought Visionsense for $75 million.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-exclusive-medtronic-to-buy-israeli-co-visionsense-for-75m-1001230992
EU supports Israeli electric socks. I reported previously (see here) on Israeli startup ElastiMed and its smart socks that improve circulation to treat swelling, blood clots, chronic wounds, sports injuries etc. ElastiMed is now to receive a $1.6 million grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3735625,00.html
Daniel Johnson: One of the issues that I know you’ve been very much embroiled in is this question of whether Israeli law will apply to the West Bank. This is clearly in the interests of not just settlers but Arabs too, Palestinians as well, so how are we going to resolve that and how are you going to present this to the world not as a bid to move the goalposts, but simply as doing justice?
Tzipi Hotovely: For many years the real argument about the settlements was not made. We made security the only issue. But since I got to the foreign ministry, I have put the issue of justice on the table. I think it’s very important to do so because if you make security the top issue then you end up with many countries saying, well, if this is not your land, we don’t care about your security interest, we might be tolerant about it but just give this land to whoever it belongs to. So I stood in the foreign ministry in my first speech and I said, “This is our land, this is the land of the Jewish people.” I think that, as simple as it sounds, this is a real revolution in the way we defend the case. For many years we said, “This is a conflict area, there are 200 areas under conflict in the international arena, please look at that like you look at any other.” What I am saying is, “No, this is where Israel started.” You can’t defend Tel Aviv if you don’t defend Hebron and Jerusalem, because this is where the heritage started.
There are two Israeli stories. One is of modern Israel — a modern state, re-established in 1948, the Zionist story of 100 years. This story is problematic — you know why? Now I am, of course, a big Zionist, and I think the Zionist movement is maybe one of the biggest miracles of the 20th century if not all humankind, this revival by re-establishing a state after 2,000 years in exile. But what is missing from the story is: what makes a bunch of people coming from Russia, Yemen, Morocco, Britain, from America, re-create a state in the Middle East?
I love telling this story: Arthur Balfour is asking Chaim Weizmann why he insists on establishing Israel in this region, because this is a very problematic area. And Weizmann said, “Would you like to have Paris as your capital?” To which Balfour replied, “Excuse me, Mr Weizmann, London belongs to the British people.” So Weizmann looks at him and says, “Well, Jerusalem belonged to the Jewish people way before London was established.” I use that as an anecdote when I meet audiences because I want them to have the sense of feeling that this is not occupation. We are not occupiers in our own land, as I always say. I fight this concept of occupation. This year is the 50th anniversary [of the Six Day War]. The thing that I put on the table in the foreign ministry is to fight the very basic idea of occupation. We’re not occupiers, even according to international law. Because there was never a Palestinian state.
The ruthless rhetoric the Palestinians are using against the US suggests that they have decided to put the Americans on an equal footing with Israel. They miss the days when the State Department sometimes seemed to be more pro-Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.
We are talking about the same Palestinian Authority (PA) that continues to receive millions of dollars in US aid annually. The same PA whose security forces are trained and equipped by Americans and Europeans. The same PA that has a “diplomatic mission” in Washington that is actively taking part in the campaign of incitement against the US and its leader.
The anti-US campaign paves the way for terrorists to kill Americans. It feeds into the ideology of the Islamic State terror group, Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, which considers the US the “Great Satan.”
Hate speech and incitement make up the core of the Palestinian narrative.
For several decades now, the Palestinians have been waging a massive and vicious campaign of incitement against Israel. This campaign has made it impossible for any Arab to even think about the prospects of peace with Israel. Notably, the Palestinian hatred of Israel is not linked to anything Israel does or does not do. Rather, the Palestinian hatred of Israel is based on Israel’s existence. Palestinians hate Israel because they believe that Jews have no right to a sovereign country of their own in the Middle East.
Palestinian hate speech against Israel is part of the global landscape: by now, no one even expects anything else from them. A Palestinian mosque preacher calling Jews “descendants of monkeys and pigs” is no story at all — just more of the same. Similarly, a Palestinian maiming or murdering a Jew has become the norm.
The day will come — and it is not far away — when reports of Palestinians not inciting against Israel and Jews will be a remarkable one. The day will come when the only story worth reporting is when a Palestinian did not carry out a terrorist attack against a Jew that day.
The world “should wait for our great move,” said a top Hamas leader, speaking to Palestinian protestors during violent clashes with Israeli forces along the Gaza border, “when we breach the borders and pray at al Aqsa.”
With hundreds around him chanting, “We are going to Jerusalem, millions of martyrs,” and with 20,000 Palestinians protesting along the border – some burning tires, others throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks – Yahya Sinwar declared during April protests that Hamas was “following in the path of martyr Yasser Arafat in resisting the enemy” and “if we explode we will explode in [Israel’s] face.”
That Sinwar and other Hamas leaders made clear that their “March of Return” is only the latest tactic in their efforts to destroy Israel, however, hasn’t convinced much of the global community, the West, or the media to abandon its comfortable narrative – of a peace-loving Palestinian people in Gaza, driven to violence by an iron-fisted Israel.
Such is life as the world’s only Jewish state – with Hamas and other terrorist groups across its border in Gaza; with the more dangerous Hezbollah across its northern border in Lebanon; with terrorists roaming the Sinai; and with Hezbollah and Shi’a militias implanted amid the chaos of Syria.
However carefully it responds to violent efforts to breach its borders and attack its people, Israel finds itself falsely portrayed, second-guessed, and ultimately condemned. Thus, the current turmoil along Israel’s border with Gaza is playing out along predictable lines in the court of public opinion.
This conference was really nuts.
http://newenglishreview.com/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=67285
“What stops Israel from launching a similar final solution to the Palestinian people,” asked an audience member while recalling Islamic State genocide at Washington, DC’s recent “Israel Lobby and American Policy” conference (videos and transcripts). Meanwhile, a 9/11 Truther asked about the “possibilities of a 9/11 Mossad op-type strike to propel us into Iran like it did in Iraq.” These conspiratorial questions—fielded by conference organizer Delinda Hanley, editor of the anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs—exemplified the fanatical bigotry that drew about 180 people to the National Press Club’s main hall.
Accordingly, anti-Israel conspiracy theorist and William & Mary University Professor Lawrence Wilkerson regurgitated the oft refuted calumny that Israeli aircraft deliberately attacked the U.S.S. Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War, and that President Lyndon Johnson “knew the gory details.” Wilkerson described Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman as “a latent version of Joseph Stalin” or an “agent of Vladimir Putin.” Elsewhere, he claimed that Iran’s Jewish population “lives in Iran in reasonable peace.”
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Professor Virginia Tilley delivered an equally vitriolic presentation denouncing Israeli “apartheid.” She asserted that a supposed Israeli opposition to sexual relations between Arabs and Jews, or “racial mixing,” precluded any future Palestinian state. “When you have people mixing, they make babies,” she proclaimed, a situation that creates the “death-knell for any racial state.”
Note: 1) There are 22 Muslim countries and only ONE Jewish state. 2) Arab Muslims started all FIVE wars against Israel and lost every one of them. 3) Both the Fatah and Hamas Constitutions call for the destruction of Israel. 4) Israel ceded most of the West Bank and all of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.
Janet Levy,Los Angeles
U.N. Ignores Chemical Attack on Syrian Civilians
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Defense-minister-Israel-will-likely-have-to-go-it-alone-on-Syria-549149
Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Liberman said, “Over the weekend, 48 innocent people were killed in Syria, including 8 children and 6 women.”
“I have not heard the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres speak [of the chemical attack]. We have not seen the UN Security Council and the Arab League convene,” Liberman said.
“Over this weekend hundreds were also killed in Yemen, but that doesn’t interest anyone,” he said, adding that when Israel kills Palestinians in self-defense there is an immediate outcry.
On Friday, Israeli soldiers repelled an assault on its border fence with Gaza, killing nine Palestinians who had participated in the “Great March of Return,” a massive protest along the barrier’s route. Participants in the six-week event that began on March 30 hope to enter Israel by breaking down the fence.
Since the beginning of the march, the IDF has killed 31 Palestinians on the Gaza border, most of which the IDF says were Hamas operatives, while the Palestinians argue that they were peaceful protesters.
Russian officials claim the Israeli Air Force is responsible for a missile strike on a Syrian airbase carried out early Monday, just two days after the Assad regime killed 42 civilians in a chemical gas attack that sparked international outrage.
The Russian Defense Ministry told state media that two Israeli F-15 fighter jets fired eight guided missiles at the Tiyas base from Lebanese airspace, while pro-Assad Syrian media reported 20 missiles were fired. Israeli officials refused to comment the strike, which killed 14 military personnel, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Israel previously attacked Tiyas, known as the T-4 base, in February on grounds that an Iranian drone that encroached on Israeli airspace originated there.
he strike on the Tiyas airbase comes in the wake of an alleged chemical gas attack perpetrated by the Assad-regime against civilians in a Rebel-held Damscus suburb late Saturday.
President Donald Trump said the Assad regime would pay “a big price” for the violation of international law and condemned Iran and Russia for facilitating the atrocity through their continued support for government forces.
Jean Vercors left France and now lives in Israel….rsk
Writes Jean Vercors:
I have used Facebook for years as a platform to share my thoughts, comments and articles. I value that platform because of its global reach. It connected me to some of my friends in France, the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and many other countries. It is a window to the world to differing opinions by allowing me to see what my friends think and share on their walls.It gives me an outlet to speak my mind and to share my thoughts on topics ranging from domestic politics to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
However, I have observed that your social media has reached a point of violent antisemitism, at least for me, and I guess many other people too. I am appalled by Facebook’s insistence to allow this on social media. I cannot believe that a group that calls for the death of the Jews, your own people for that matter, does not violate Facebook’s “Community Standards.” Do you realize how dangerous your media has become allowing the antisemites of the world to vomit their hate on Israel with lies?
I am disgusted that Facebook not only calls this group socially acceptable, but it endangers the lives of our brothers, our families, our children, and more importantly, our people as a whole.
Free Speech should not be Hate Speech.
We all know too well that allowing such a negative behavior only encourages the killing of Jews as we have seen it lately when Facebook users that were anti-Zionists and posting anti-Jewish posts assassinated innocent people in France, Israel or elsewhere.
As a Jew, I was taught to stand up for Justice and truth against anyone not matter his faith or ethnicity. We Jews have been standing in front line for thousands of years, defending, protecting and teaching human rights.
As we celebrate Pesach, we all retell the story of our journey from bondage to freedom when we were slaves in Egypt reading the Haggada. Not only to ourselves but to our children and the future generations. It has been this way for 3000 years.
You were quoted coming to the defence of Muslims after the November 2015 Paris attacks “As a Jew, my parents taught me that we must stand up against attacks on all communities. Even if an attack isn’t against you today, in time attacks on freedom for anyone will hurt everyone. So I wonder Mr.Zuckerberg have you forgotten or ignored your statement that all of us should “stand up against attacks on all communities?” Maybe you do not even know about the double standards applied to Jews and Palestinians on Facebook?
