RUTHFULLY YOURS

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

An Israeli-developed molecule destroys Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
The UN’s most empowered female entrepreneur in Western Europe is an Israeli.
An Israeli company is protecting both UK and Australian armies.
Intel Israel has developed even faster computer processors.
An Israeli rescue robot is virtually unstoppable.
Israel’s SodaStream is bought by PepsiCo for $3.2 billion.
An Israeli gymnast won two World gold medals and broke a world record.
Readers can help launch a film that aims to give a huge PR boost to Israel.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Another leukemia success. I reported previously (see here) on new Israeli treatments for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Now the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and US biotech BioTheryX are developing a single molecule that attacks multiple leukemia proteins simultaneously. Lab tests show a 50% success rate.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-drug-brings-hope-in-acute-leukemia-battle-hebrew-u-researchers-say/
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/hebrew-u-drug-trials-show-50-cure-rate-in-lab-mice-acute-leukemia/2018/08/27/

Breathalyzer for Parkinson’s and much more. I reported previously on the breath analyzers to detect cancer developed by Ben Gurion University (see here) and Na-Nose from Technion’s Dr Hossam Haick (see here). Now Dr Haick’s team has a handheld device to detect early Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and 16 other diseases.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/researchers-say-breathalyzer-can-be-used-to-flag-early-onset-parkinsons/
https://cdn-pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00245
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VtDzt8H8H3E?rel=0

US approves Teva’s generic EpiPen. The US FDA has approved Israeli biotech Teva’s generic version of the EpiPen auto-injector for emergency treatment for those suffering with “anaphylactic” allergic reactions. Frantic parents in the US have been reporting a nationwide shortage of the original Mylan NV “brand” EpiPen.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/teva-shares-skyrocket-after-fda-approves-us-subsidiarys-generic-epipen/2018/08/20/

Another Israeli treatment for head lice. I reported previously (see here) on two innovative Israeli treatments for removing head lice. Now there’s a third – Israel’s Sphinx Smarthead Technologies is developing a device that destroys lice and their eggs in a 5-minute procedure that can be performed by children aged 7 and over.
https://www.oktopuscloud.com/terralab-sphinx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwnpVctnboM?rel=0

Soil bacteria cures fungal infections. Researchers at Israel’s Technion have cured fungal infections using bacteria commonly found in the upper layers of soil. They used a gel and an innovative “factory” formula to produce Bacillus subtilis bacterium, more commonly found on plant roots, to rapidly heal infected skin.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/technion-researchers-use-soil-bacteria-to-tame-fungal-infections/

An app to help you sleep. Israeli startup Dayzz is launching an app for self-insured employers to offer their employees. The app uses big data and an algorithm to diagnose each user’s specific sleep problem and devise a personalized sleep-training plan. The employer enhances the sleep quality of its staff and reduces healthcare costs. https://www.israel21c.org/app-helps-fulfill-dreams-of-a-good-nights-sleep/ https://dayzz.com/

New medical school inaugurated. I reported previously (10th Sep) when the building of Ariel University’s new medical school began. It has now been officially opened in a ceremony attended by the Israeli President and several ministers. 70 students enrolled in its first class which is open to all citizens and Palestinian Arabs.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/overcoming-opposition-to-west-bank-location-ariel-u-inaugurates-medical-school/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZIWi2MJJrg

Glucose meters for Vietnam. (TY Rachel) I reported previously (7th Jan) that Israel’s GlucoMe was shipping its glucose monitors to 200,000 Indian diabetics. Now Germany’s Merck KGaA is trialing GlucoMe’s monitors to help many of the 3.5 million Vietnamese suffering from diabetes – some 5.5% of the entire population.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-glucome-joins-merck-in-venture-to-battle-diabetes-in-vietnam/
https://www.idf.org/our-network/regions-members/western-pacific/members/119-vietnam.html

UK PM honors fundraiser of 11 MDA ambulances. Retired UK surgeon Norman Rosenbaum received the Points of Light Award from UK Prime Minister Theresa May for helping to buy 11 ambulances for Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA). I was lucky to be present at the dedication of the 10th one.
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/pensioner-who-raised-funds-for-11-mda-ambulances-honoured-by-prime-minister/ https://www.pointsoflight.gov.uk/magen-david-adom/
https://netanyareflections.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-gift-of-life.html

http://standpointmag.co.uk/features-september-2018-jonathan-neumann-jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism

Benjamin Netanyahu and Jeremy Corbyn don’t have a great deal in common. But one thing they do share is recognition that the essential character of the State of Israel is its Jewishness. They offer, however, opposing responses to this fundamental. For Netanyahu and the Zionist movement, Israel’s Jewishness is something to affirm and celebrate; for Corbyn and his allies, it represents Israel’s intrinsic evil and it is the reason they are fixated on this tiny plot of land.

Netanyahu’s position was articulated by a law recently passed by his government — a law that Corbyn opposes — that defines Israel as a Jewish State, the expression of the self-determination of the Jewish People. This legislation has provoked a negative reaction both in Israel and around the world. But to appreciate the nuances and significance of that reaction and the position of the Labour leader, one must first understand the provenance and purpose of the law.

The nation-state law was originally introduced as a Knesset bill in 2011 by a member of the centrist Kadima Party, which at the time was led by Tzipi Livni (now the leader of the Opposition and, rather cynically, a critic of the law), and had support from parts of the Israeli Left. The draft legislation went through various iterations and was debated by successive governments, and indeed was watered down from earlier versions, before being passed as a Basic Law in July of this year.

What is a Basic Law? Israel has no constitution. The State’s founders expected one to be written, but it has yet to materialise, due to disagreement over the content and even desirability of such a document. Instead, the Knesset has over the years passed a series of Basic Laws, which are designed to function as clauses of the eventual constitution. Most of them legislate how the Knesset and other branches of the state are to operate. Some Basic Laws are more than functional, however: one, passed in 1980, annexed the eastern portion of Jerusalem; another, passed a few years ago, requires a large Knesset majority or a national referendum on the surrender of any annexed territory.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12915/jerusalem-arabs-election-boycott

Palestinian leaders do not want to see any improvement in the lives of the Arabs in Jerusalem so that they can continue to incite against Israel and accuse it of discriminating against its Arab population.

Palestinian leaders and their religious clerics do not want to see Arabs live a comfortable life under Israel. They are afraid that the world would see that Arabs can have a good life under Israeli sovereignty.

They are also afraid that Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will start envying the Arabs living in Israel — and then demand from their leaders similar conditions.

Ramadan Dabash wants to help the residents of his village of Sur Baher in particular, and east Jerusalem in general, improve their living conditions. He wants them to receive better services from the Jerusalem Municipality. The 52-year-old businessman and social activist, however, has been facing a campaign of threats by several Palestinian leaders and administrative bodies over his decision to run in the municipal election, slated for October 2018.

Recently, Dabash announced his decision to run in the upcoming election at the head of an Arab list called Jerusalem for Jerusalemites. He has repeatedly made it clear this summer that his decision is not politically motivated and that his only intention is to seek improved municipal services for the Arab residents of Jerusalem. Dabash has also called on Arab voters to end their boycott of the municipal election because they are the only ones who stand to lose from such a move.

Facing threats and pressure from various Palestinian factions and leaders, most of the Arab residents of Jerusalem have been boycotting the municipal election under the pretext that participation in the vote was tantamount to recognizing Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem, which was annexed to Israel in 1980. This boycott has hurt the Arab residents themselves, who were left without representatives in the municipal council, someone who would fight for their rights. The Jerusalem Municipality has, despite the absence of Arab representatives, continued to provide various and basic services to the Arab residents of the city.

TEL AVIV — In mid-July, by a vote of 62-55, with two abstentions, the Knesset passed the Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. The legislation — Basic Laws in Israel enjoy constitutional status although only a simple parliamentary majority is needed to pass or repeal them — reaffirmed principles set forth in the country’s May 1948 Declaration of Independence. Nevertheless, the nation-state law has occasioned bitter controversy here. With a nationalist-infused populism roiling the United States, Britain, and Europe, the Israeli debate over the aspiration, inscribed in the country’s founding, to combine nationalism and liberal democracy has implications that transcend the Jewish state.

On Aug. 13, Haaretz contributor Uzi Baram excoriated the new law and its architects. “The nation-state law is not only an unnecessary law, it is an abhorrent law,” he stated, speaking for many on the left. It “was the product of an ultranationalist government, led by the religious right,” and was intended “to divide the public, exclude minorities and undermine the Arabic language.”

On Aug. 16 in Haaretz, Haim Ramon, a man of the center-left, published a sharp reply that gave expression to a Zionist sensibility that extends beyond Israel’s center-right. A former vice prime minister and minister of justice, he emphasized that Israel’s 1992 Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty “granted equal rights to every person in the state of Israel in the spirit of Israel’s values as a Jewish and democratic state.” But it was incomplete: “whereas the law on human dignity and liberty elaborated the individual’s rights in a democratic state, it did not elaborate the practical significance of the state’s Jewish character.” The nation-state law remedies that deficiency. It “does not come to bury the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty but to complete it.”

Whatever the actual legislative intentions and legal implications, the new Basic Law aggravated a sense of second-class citizenship among Israel’s minorities. This month Arabs, who constitute a little over 20 percent of the citizenry and who rarely serve in the army, and Druze, who represent about 1.5 percent and generally serve, attracted tens of thousands of protesters to separate political rallies in downtown Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square — the country’s premier venue for demonstrations— to decry the law.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271162/trump-cuts-palestinian-funding-joseph-klein

The Trump administration will not continue subsidizing the so-called “moderate,” “non-violent” Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership clique in the vain hope that throwing more good money after bad will help bring about real peace or provide genuine help for the Palestinian people. This clique is made up of lying hypocrites, who fund and glorify terrorists while corruptly diverting aid money and donations to their own personal benefit.

Last Friday, a State Department official announced to reporters that it would redirect U.S. financial assistance of more than $200 million originally intended for the Palestinian Authority and projects in the West Bank and Gaza. This cut in bilateral aid is on top of the previously announced cut of nearly $300 million in U.S. financial support for the discredited UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) denounced the Trump administration’s latest funding cut decision. “The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale,” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement. “There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation” through what she characterized as “economic meanness.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/wave-the-national-flag-for-zion/

This column proudly displays Israel’s national flag. The same flag will appear in the same place on every edition of Israel Hayom from this day forward. That will be our way of saluting the nation-state law, which, among other things, confirms this flag’s central and important role in the State of Israel.

Since you, our readers, naturally do not have a problem reading a newspaper that is openly patriotic, you should wonder about the controversy and antagonism that this law has generated within the Israeli public and among its politicians.

The State of Israel gave itself a very nice gift for its 70th birthday: the nation-state law – a law that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Israel is proud of this important Zionist legislation, despite the many futile attempts to make it appear hurtful, racist or discriminatory. The law is a true source of pride for the state. I am still waiting for someone, anyone, to point to a single clause in this law that contradicts in any way the values of democracy and equality.

I would like to ask the opponents of this law: What about it upsets you? Is it the clause that talks about Israel being the historical homeland of the Jewish people, where the State of Israel was established? Or perhaps is it the clause that decisively concludes that unified Jerusalem is the capital of Israel? Could it be the one that burns into our psyche that Hebrew is the official language of this state, and the Hatikvah is its national anthem?

http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/a-deception-called-peace/

A deception called peace

Twenty-five years ago, PLO head Yasser Arafat’s triumphant return to areas under Israeli control was accompanied by live broadcasts, with cameras filming every angle of this “gala event.” Only one photo was missing – a photo of the arch-terrorists Arafat was hiding in his car.

The Shin Bet security agency knew about these individuals and strongly opposed letting these terrorists into the country. The Rabin government also knew about the smuggling but kept mum. The public was not notified. Why destroy a pretty fantasy? That is when the strategy of deception began.

Before his return, Arafat was politically and militarily irrelevant and had been banished to faraway Tunis. He was brought back to life by the Israeli messiahs of peace. The Israeli peace camp naively believed that, because of his weak standing, he would agree to become their partner.

Despite the promise that the initial stage of the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement was merely an experiment, the leaders of Israel’s government continued making concessions while deceiving the public. The peace camp’s Palestinian obsession did not let up, even when it became glaringly obvious that there was no partner.

Even when it was revealed, after Arafat’s speech in South Africa in 1994, that when addressing an Arabic-speaking audience Arafat confessed that the peace overtures were just a stage in a plan to destroy Israel, the Israeli peace camp still clung to the plan. Even when the Second Intifada erupted in September 2000 under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority and with the help of Palestinian police officers using weapons supplied by Israel, they still held on to the dream – even when the price became a national nightmare with more than 1,000 Jews murdered.