RUTHFULLY YOURS

After damning the United States for recognizing reality by stating that since Jerusalem is the capital of Israel the US will move its Embassy there in May to celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary, the PLO president-for-life, Mahmoud (a variation of the name Mohammed) Abbas took his traveling hate show to a receptive audience, the UN, where he repeated the message but in more moderate — relatively — terms.

And then? Well, since he condemns the US and all that it symbolizes whenever the opportunity arises — and even when it doesn’t…

“Damn your money!” to the United States following President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. “We will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they have done to us — a believer shall not be stung twice in the same place.”

…he quickly returned to the well…”s&#*hole” territory he presides over. where US aid money, which he still eagerly accepts, European aid money, oil aid money from Muslim countries, and UNRWA aid money is used for weapons and destruction, not schools and hospitals. Except that he didn’t return there, according to the Jewish Insider, almost the only outlet on the story:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was sighted on Wednesday in Baltimore, Maryland. According to a source, Abbas is receiving medical treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

An impressive motorcade of Secret Service vehicles were seen parked outside the Four Seasons Hotel in the Harbor East neighborhood of Baltimore.

Abbas’ Boeing 737 [A Boeing Business Jet, the most expensive private jet in the world, far better than aircraft used by most heads of legitimate states — such as The Netherlands, Chile, or Norway – ed.] landed at Baltimore–Washington International Airport at 3:00 PM EST after a short flight from White Plains, New York, according to the Flight Radar24 site. (snip)

Abbas’ medical treatment in Baltimore may explain the timing of his speech this week at the UN.

This past December, Haaretz reported that Abbas received an invitation to visit the White House for the second time in a year after the Trump administration was made aware that the Palestinian president was slated to be in the city for a medical procedure.

Let us be clear about this: When Palestinians — and some of their supporters in the international community, including Europe — say that they want an end to the “occupation,” they mean they want to see an end to Israel’s existence, full stop. They do not want to throw the Jews out of their homes in the settlements; rather, they want Jews to be expelled from the whole country.

The conflict, as far as the Palestinians are concerned, did not begin in 1967, when east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli control. In the eyes of the Palestinians, all Jews are “settlers” and “colonialists.” All the land, they argue, stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is Muslim-owned land, and no Muslim is entitled to give up any part of it to a non-Muslim. For the Palestinians, accepting Israel’s “right to exist” with Jews is seen as an act of treason.

What is really bothering the Palestinians is that Israel, with Jews, exists, period. The Palestinians want all of Jerusalem. They want all of “Palestine.” They want Israel removed from the planet. It is time to listen carefully to what the Palestinians are saying — in Arabic — to understand that the conflict is not about Jerusalem and not about settlements.

No doubt Ismail Radwan is a terrorist, but, unlike other Palestinian leaders and spokesmen, he is at least an honest one.

At a time when most Palestinian leaders are telling the world that settlements are the real “obstacle” to peace, Radwan, a senior Hamas official, last week made it clear that the conflict with Israel is not about Jews living in a settlement in the West Bank. The truth is that the Palestinians see Israel as one big settlement that needs to be uprooted from the Middle East.

The Palestinians do not differentiate between a Jew living in a settlement on the outskirts of Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and a Jew living in the cities of Haifa, and Tel Aviv and Eilat. All the Jews, they say, are “occupiers” and “settlers” who need to “go back to where they came from.”

For the Palestinians, the real “occupation” began with the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The US decision to comply with the law of the land – the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act – recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the US Embassy there, enhances the US posture of deterrence, in defiance of threats and pressure, while walking against the grain.

This reasserts the independence of US unilateral diplomatic action, rather than subordinate US interests to multilateral diplomacy, which tends to undermine US interests. Moreover, it challenges the political correctness of the UN, the Department of State and the “elite” media, which have been serial blunderers on Middle East issues.

While President Trump recognizes Israel as a unique ally, strategically and morally – in an explosive region and during an unpredictably violent era – his determination to remedy this 70-year-old faulty policy aims at advancing US interests, rather than demonstrate pro-Israel sentiments.

The relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem reflects the realization that retreat in the face of threats and pressure intensifies anti-US policies, aggression and terrorism, while defiance of pressure is a prerequisite for the rehabilitation of deterrence, a precondition to peace and security.

US procrastination on the implementation of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act did not advance the cause of peace. Rather, intensified Palestinian expectations forced them to outflank the US from the radical side and therefore, added another obstacle on the road to peace.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas signed his own suicide note after another blistering attack on
America in the United Nations Security Council on 20 February.
Abbas told the Security Council:

“The United States has contradicted itself and contradicted its own commitments and has violated international law and the relevant resolutions with its decision regarding Jerusalem. So, it has become impossible today for one country or State alone to solve a regional or international conflict without the participation of other international partners. Therefore, to solve the Palestine question, it is essential to establish a multi-lateral international mechanism emanating from an international conference and in line with international law and the relevant resolutions.”

Exiting the meeting immediately after this verbal barrage – Abbas did not hear US Ambassador to
the UN – Nikki Haley – giving him this serve:

“I will decline the advice I was recently given by your top negotiator, Saeb Erekat. I will not shut up. Rather, I will respectfully speak some hard truths. The Palestinian leadership has a choice to make between two different paths. There is the path of absolutist demands, hateful rhetoric, and incitement to violence. That path has led, and will continue to lead, to nothing but hardship for the Palestinian people. Or, there is the path of negotiation and compromise. History has shown that path to be successful for Egypt and Jordan, including the transfer of territory. That path remains open to the Palestinian leadership, if only it is courageous enough to take it.”

Haley was still smarting from Erekat’s intemperate “shut up” outburst on 31 January when he
also described Haley as “impudent” – whilst Abbas’s two hour anti-American diatribe on 14
January and Abbas’s refusal to meet American Vice-President Mike Pence also contributed to
Abbas’s public dressing down.

Abbas is perfectly entitled to choose the United Nations path to pursue his agenda seeking to
create a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan which comprises 78% of
former Palestine. However he cannot possibly achieve that result facing a certain US veto in the Security Council.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Compound to target enzyme that powers cancer cells. (TY Nevet) I reported previously (21st Jan) on the discovery by Professor Uri Nir, at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University of the FerT enzyme key to the energy source of cancer cells. Professor Nir has now developed a compound E260 which targets FerT and kills the tumors.
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/attacking-the-spread-of-cancer-cells/

A treatment for inflammatory diseases and more. Israeli scientists have developed half-a-dozen proteins to treat either inflammatory diseases (see hereand here) or neuro-degenerative diseases (here and here) But the 5-mer peptide, developed by Professor David Naor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, treats them all.
https://www.israel21c.org/one-drug-could-treat-alzheimers-ms-crohns-and-more/

Treatment can re-grow any bone in the body. I’ve reported previously (seven times) on Israel’s Bonus Bio’s innovative treatment that re-grows damaged bone external to the patient using the patient’s own fat cells. Bonus Bio has just begun its second trial of 60 operations. It says that the technology can replace any bone in the body.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-biotech-company-successfully-grows-bones-in-lab/

Bio-markers indicate pregnancy complications. Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered molecular biomarkers in the blood for preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that can lead to underweight or premature babies and even death. A new blood test, when available can initiate the early application of simple treatment.
http://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/TAU-scientists-find-molecular-biomarkers-of-pregnancy-related-complication-543271

No-blade dental surgery. (TY Hazel) Researchers at Israel’s Technion have developed nanotechnology that replaces the dentist’s scalpel with the target release of the enzyme collagenase to break down collagen fibers in the gums. It spares the pain associated with orthodontic surgeries and significantly reduces tissue recovery time.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2018/02/orthodontic-surgery-with-an-enzymatic-blade-no-incision-necessary/
http://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-technology-replaces-surgeons-knife-with-no-cut-alternative-542769 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.7b07983

“The Israeli intelligence services thwarted the downing of an Australian plane, an unimaginable slaughter. This would have caused a major disruption in global air transport and this is only one of dozens of terrorist attacks we have foiled around the world. I think that Israeli intelligence must be thanked for protecting not only Israelis but many civilians around the world.”

That’s what Binyamin Netanyahu has revealed today.

To quote the Sydney Morning Herald (one of the Fairfax stable of Aussie newspapers, not known for their love of Israel):

‘His comments, during a speech in Jerusalem to US Jewish leaders, followed a statement from the Israeli army that a branch of military intelligence known as “Unit 8200” had foiled an “aerial attack abroad by Islamic State”.

Israeli media said the army statement referred to an attempted bombing in July of an Etihad Airways flight due to leave Sydney for Abu Dhabi, which was foiled by Australian security forces before the plane took off.

An Australian man had sent his brother to Sydney Airport to catch the flight carrying a home-made bomb disguised as a meat-mincer, built at the direction of a senior Islamic State commander, Australian police said.

He caught the flight without his checked baggage after it was rejected at a Sydney Airport check-in counter because it was too heavy.

He then travelled to Lebanon, the Lebanese interior minister said.

Days after the alleged plot was revealed, Lebanon’s interior minister said Beirut had monitored the brothers for more than a year and had worked with Australian authorities to disrupt the attack.

A number of men were arrested in raids across Sydney last July relating to the alleged plot.

Two have been charged with acting in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act.’

Israel’s system of democracy has been under assault for more than two decades. Since the early 1990s, elected officials have fought a losing battle to maintain their power. The legal fraternity and the police, acting with the enthusiastic support and often at the urging of the politically biased media, have seized politicians’ governing prerogatives and powers one by one. These actions have all been justified in the name of the rule of law.

Today, Israel’s democracy – that is, the ability of the nation to determine its course through the election of representatives that share their convictions – is threatened as never before.

Almost exactly 21 years ago, elected officials lost their most important battle to date. On January 10, 1997, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first government approved the appointment of Ronnie Bar-On to serve as attorney-general. Bar-On was a private attorney in Jerusalem. He chaired the Beitar soccer organization in the capital and his was a close friend and former mentor of then-justice minister Tzachi Hanegbi who did his legal clerkship in Bar-On’s office.

The government’s announcement that Bar-On would serve as attorney-general was viciously criticized by the media and Israel’s legal elite. Much of the criticism was rank snobbery. Bar-On was not a member of the club. He had not served as a prosecutor. He was not a law professor. He was just a good lawyer with friendly ties to Hanegbi. How dare the government appoint him?