RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/11/video_amazing_israeli_women_saved_a_community.html

When you suddenly get innumerable emails from people wanting you to see the same story, you know it’s an important one. In this case, it’s the story of the young women who, with three tanks, fought a 17-hour-long furious battle against Hamas terrorists, saving an entire community through their actions. Their triumph is an important counterpoint to the women who were ignored in the lead-up to the October 7 attack. Some are blaming sexism, but I have another theory.

The tank battle took place at Yated, a community that sits near the Egyptian and Gaza borders at the southernmost end of the Gaza Strip. This video shows the women explaining how they responded to the attack and what they did. They are matter of fact, saying that they were completely focused on the task at hand, which was to fight the terrorists swarming into Israel:

It’s worth noting that, even as the women are getting the respect they deserve for their impressive military feat, there is a story emerging that part of the reason Israel was caught unprepared was that commanders ignored warnings from female “spotters,” many of whom died on October 7, saying that they saw unusual Hamas activity along the border.

The current narrative is that this failure resulted from command sexism. That’s possible. Israel is the most enlightened country in the Middle East, with full women’s rights and innumerable strong women. Still, many people in Israel are the descendants of the approximately 900,000 Jews expelled from Arab lands after Israel’s creation. Unlike the Zionist Europeans who moved to Israel before and after the modern state’s creation, all of whom were very modern in their attitudes towards women, these emigrants came from conservative countries and might have reflected those values and passed them to their children.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-holds-everyone-hostage-war-gaza-israel-biden-truce-694318db?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The civilized world is rejoicing at the release of hostages by Hamas, especially the sight of young children reunited with parents after seven weeks of hell. But that relief shouldn’t blind us to the way the jihadists are manipulating human sentiment to achieve their terrorist aims.

The killers are releasing a dozen or so hostages each day in return for three times the number of Palestinians released by Israel. Hamas snatched innocent Israelis and others in a deliberate act of terror. The released Palestinians were arrested or convicted of crimes under the law.

Now Hamas is using the hostages to play on Western respect for human life. Hamas knows its strategy is dividing Israeli opinion between those who prioritize the release of the hostages and those who want Hamas defeated so it can never again slaughter 1,200 people.

Hamas is also manipulating the world, including the Biden Administration. President Biden said Sunday he hopes the initial four-day military truce can be extended so more hostages will be released. That includes the unknown number of Americans held in who-knows-what condition underground. Hamas released the first U.S. hostage on Sunday, a 4-year-old American-Israeli girl, Abigail Edan, whose parents were murdered in front of her.

But every day the truce lasts the more time the jihadists have to regroup, slip out of Gaza, rearm, or plan more ambushes against Israelis. And the longer it lasts the more odds increase of an extended cease-fire, which is what Hamas really wants. The onus will fall on Israel to end the truce, though Hamas is unlikely ever to release all hostages, who are its only source of leverage.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-give-gaza-to-the-palestinian-authority-terrorism-anti-semitism-israel-fatah-68aa2ba8?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Biden administration wants Israel to bring in Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party to rule Gaza when the war is over. Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which governs much of the West Bank. Uniting Gaza and the West Bank under a common government is a necessary step in the Biden administration’s seemingly unshakable goal of creating a Palestinian state sandwiching Israel.

The idea behind the strategy has a long history. Fatah is a secular, Arab nationalist party that occasionally claims to want peace with Israel, albeit on terms that would make Israel’s existence as a Jewish state untenable. Yet for many diplomats this makes it an attractive alternative to the terrorists who perpetrated the Oct. 7 attacks. But Fatah is a junior-varsity version of Hamas. Both have lethal policies when it comes to Israel. The Palestinian Authority sponsors the “pay to slay” salary program that provides financial rewards to terrorists, who get more lavish payouts for crimes that result in longer imprisonment. As recently as Oct. 2, an official Palestinian Authority TV broadcast showed Mr. Abbas saying: “Our martyrs, prisoners and wounded are the most sanctified that we have. . . . Our martyrs have a right to this money.”

Fatah has celebrated and glorified the Oct. 7 orgy of torture and murder. The party has boasted that its members directly participated in the invasion, crossing into Israel and brutalizing civilians. A video shown on a West Bank-based Telegram channel that has been repeatedly cited by official Fatah sources shows terrorists with the yellow headbands of Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade firing Kalashnikovs while assaulting an Israeli kibbutz. One terrorist proclaims, “Today we broke in the military post Nahal Oz [a civilian kibbutz] and we hit what we hit.” The terrorists brag that they “stepped on their heads,” and shows footage of them stomping a dead Israeli.

Other videos on Fatah channels boast of their participation, proclaiming that Fatah is “fighting with the rest of the resistance groups in ‘the Al Aqsa Flood’ battle,” using Hamas’s operational name for the massacre. On Oct. 7, death notices appeared on Telegram announcing the funerals (or “weddings,” as they put it) of Fatah members who died that morning in the attack on Israel.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/nov/25/im-grateful-for-israels-christian-allies/

A series of ads from the 1960s featured the slogan, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye.” They were illustrated with pictures of a choir boy, an Asian child, an Italian mother, an Irish cop, and other obvious non-Jews happily munching on the kosher product.

Given the outpouring of Christian support for what Muslim radicals call the Zionist entity, today, we could say, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Israel.”

America’s 100 million Evangelical Christians are a bulwark of support in a raging sea – antisemitic mobs roaming our college campuses, much of the Democratic party going over to the Palestinians and crass celebrities, like Susan Sarandon, essentially telling Jews they have it coming.

Some 700 members of Passages joined the Nov. 14 March for Israel in Washington, D.C. The organization brings Christian students to Israel to explore the roots of their faith. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, its members visited synagogues throughout the United States in a show of support.

With an estimated 10 million members, Christians United for Israel raised $2.65 million for Israeli charities in the days following the Hamas massacre. As part of its Don’t Look Away Campaign, CUFI projected pictures of the hostages high above New York’s Times Square, along with images of rope-bound hands, a bloody pacifier and an empty wheelchair.

The Rev. Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, promises, “Every time an antisemite spews hate, then we shall express our solidarity with the Jewish community.”

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

As some of Israel’s hostages, kidnapped by Hamas, are returning to freedom, thousands of Israelis have been returning from overseas to help fight terrorism or to give support to those adversely impacted by the war.  Many hundreds are making Aliyah and returning to the land of their ancestors. There are also some amazing stories of Israeli farmers returning time and again on Oct 7 to rescue survivors while under fire from terrorists. 

Meanwhile, startups are returning to full operation, despite having many employees in military service. And Israel has allocated over one billion shekels to return devastated communities back to their previous physical condition.  Finally, a Torah scroll made a triumphant return to Gaza after an 18-year absence.

Michael Ordman

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Farmer saves 120 from Hamas. Incredible dashcam footage shows farmer Oz Davidian dodging bullets as he saved 120 lives from the Supernova music festival on Oct 7. He drove his truck on 20 separate journeys from the Re’im site of the open-air party to bring survivors to safety.  https://www.timesofisrael.com/truck-dashcam-footage-shows-farmer-dodging-bullets-as-he-saved-120-from-music-festival/
 
Ofek the heroine. Six-year-old Ofek nearly died from blood loss on Oct 7 after Hamas terrorists shot her in the leg. MDA paramedic Yarin and EMT Gali treated Ofek and were amazed at how calm she was. A month later they brought Ofek a unicorn doll inscribed “To Ofek the heroine, with great love, Gali and Yarin from MDA”.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380453
 
Iron defenses. Israel made the first operational use its “Iron Beam” laser defense system. It successfully intercepted an incoming rocket fired by terrorists in the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory. Israel also used its high-accuracy “Iron Sting” GPS/laser-guided mortar for the first time in combat.
https://www.jns.org/iron-beam-laser-intercepts-hamas-rocket-from-gaza/
 
Fast track for volunteer doctors. The Jewish Agency, Nefesh b’Nefesh and Israel’s Aliyah Ministry are setting up a database to help global physicians (Jewish and non-Jewish) volunteer in hospitals and medical facilities around the country as quickly and efficiently as possible. 70+ have already arrived and begun work.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380610
 
More volunteering opportunities. This Israel21c article lists dozens of organizations who can provide exciting and rewarding experiences while helping the disadvantaged and the whole of Israel at this time.
https://www.israel21c.org/how-you-can-volunteer-in-israel-during-the-war/
 
100 make Aliyah to join the IDF. Some 100 young Jewish men and women from around the world have made Aliyah and are completing a Defense Ministry course to prepare them physically and mentally for IDF service.
https://www.jns.org/100-jewish-youngsters-make-aliyah-to-enlist-in-idf/
 
Grants for student reservists. Israel’s Technion Institute is awarding NIS 6,000 to all its 2,500 students who were mobilized by an emergency call-up order for ‘Operation Swords of Iron.’ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has also announced an aid package for its roughly 4,000 students who are serving in the IDF.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/11/the-technion-supports-reserve-soldiers/
https://www.bfhu.org/2023/11/21/boosted-support-for-hu-students/
 
Innovation helps treat traumatized kids. Israeli NGO Machshava Tova is providing innovation workshops to Israel’s evacuated children of the south. It helps them get over the traumatic events of Oct 7 as well as develop new skills.  https://video.i24news.tv/en/9e44d596-82e6-4c4c-8a1c-96f84ae49bd5/content/6341511194112
 
Give help, get help. In the very first week of the war, Israel’s Technion Institute set up a “Give Help / Get Help” center to help evacuees, and IDF soldiers. Initiatives include daycare for kids, free secondhand shop, free haircuts, donated goods, computers for kids, toys, books, and crafts, music & dance events, and much more.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/11/the-techion-at-its-best/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Using AI to spot lung disease. Israel’s Medial EarlySign (see here previously) has partnered US-based Geisinger to identify patients at high risk for respiratory or pulmonary diseases such as lung cancer. Their LungFlag AlgoMarker analyzes data from a patient’s electronic health record to enable early screening.
https://nocamels.com/2023/11/israeli-us-firms-create-ai-program-to-spot-lung-disease-risks/
 
Fast DNA sequencing. (TY OurCrowd) Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine is to using the AML(acute myeloid leukemia) detection kits from Israel’s Sequentify (see here previously) in its leukemia research. Sequentify’s Infiniseq technology cuts DNA sequencing time to only 3.5 hours.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/stanford-to-use-sequentify-kits-for-hematological-malignancies-ngs-sequencing-301981511.html
 
Milk extract may help IBD sufferers. Israel’s Exosomm extracts tiny capsules of microRNA called exosommes from cows’ milk. They then add them as a powder to food as a treatment for colitis and Crohn’s. Successful laboratory trials have led to recruitment for clinical trials at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.
https://www.israel21c.org/milk-extract-could-ease-symptoms-of-crohns-and-colitis/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNqGqVe-erg
 
Shapeshifting capsule is a loss leader. Israel’s Epitomee has completed clinical trials of its ingestible pill that opens up in the stomach to produce a feeling of satiety. In 24 weeks the 140 participants who swallowed the pill lost up to 15% of their body weight, with no side effects.  Epitomee intends to apply for FDA approval in 2024.
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-startups-weight-loss-pill-aces-clinical-trials/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Y8kYXzInI
 
More funds for medical treatments. An additional NIS 650 million will be added to Israel’s health basket as part of the war efforts.  https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-774070  
 
Medical students in IDF. Some 200 Israeli medical students were studying overseas but returned to join the IDF. Israel’s Ministry of Health has requested the deans of Israeli medicine faculties to help to integrate these students in Israeli hospitals and medical schools at the end of the war.
https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/17112023-02
 
IFCJ funds new fortified ER. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has funded a 100-patient Emergency Operations Center in a fortified sheltered area of Emek Medical Center in the Galilee. The IFCJ is also funding a 50-patient fortified space in the hospital’s oncology building.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380683

https://quillette.com/2023/11/23/holocaust-historians-the-genocide-charge-and-gaza/

Following the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7th, accusations of genocide can be heard from the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the United States. These accusations, however, are not being made against the massacre’s Palestinian perpetrators. They are intended to indict the prosecution of Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza and the consequent death toll there. From countries like Iran and Iraq, this kind of perversity was predictable. The virulent antisemitic reaction to the October 7th attacks in the West—which began before Israel attacked Hamas targets in Gaza—is more shocking. In the US alone, those who have taken the opportunity to accuse Israel of genocide include congressional staffers, a congressional representative, numerous university students, and a significant number of university professors.

This is not the first time that Israel has faced accusations of genocide. During the 1982 war in Lebanon, Israel acted to neutralize the bases from which Palestinian guerillas were attacking the country’s north. An Israeli-backed Christian militia was ordered to clear the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, from which Israeli soldiers had taken fire during the campaign. In response to the recent assassination of Lebanon’s Christian president Bashir Gemayel, the militiamen killed a number of fighters and a still-unsettled number of Palestinian civilians. To this day, there is no agreement on how many were killed. The Red Cross said 460. Palestinian scholar Maher Sharif insists that the figure might have been as high as 4,500. Such is the politicization of casualty figures.

These events provoked global outrage, but it is important to note that they also provoked outrage within Israel itself. The 1983 report of the Israeli government’s Kahan Commission held the IDF indirectly responsible for the massacre and led to the resignation of defence minister Ariel Sharon. The UN General Assembly, however, went further than this, voting in 1982 to condemn the killing at Sabra and Shatila as an act of genocide, even though the UN had not investigated the crime. As the Soviets put it during the UN debate, Israel’s purpose “is to destroy the Palestinians as a nation.”

But “genocide” isn’t simply a word for reprehensible conduct in war. The term is defined by the 1948 UN Genocide Convention as the demonstrable intent to destroy a national, racial, or religious group in whole or in part. Not only was the UNGA’s claim of genocidal intent and practice inconsistent with Israel’s own self-critical investigation of wrongdoing, but up to 300,000 Palestinian refugees still live in Lebanon today. The accusation of genocide, international-law expert William Schabas later wrote, was simply used by the UNGA “to embarrass Israel rather than out of any concern with legal precision.”

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-infernal-choice-behind-the-hostage?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

As if Israelis weren’t traumatised enough by the depraved Hamas pogrom on October 7, the hostage deal concluded this week cruelly deepened their agony.

On Wednesday morning, the terms of the deal between Israel and Hamas were announced. Of the hostages, 30 children, eight of their mothers and 12 other women were to be released in exchange for a four-day “pause” in Israel’s ground and air military operations, more aid deliveries to Gaza and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. In addition, for every further 10 hostages released by Hamas, Israel would continue the ceasefire for another day.

Late on Wednesday night, Israel’s National Security Council director, Tzachi Hanegbi, announced a delay. The hostages wouldn’t be released until Friday at the earliest.

Late on Thursday, Qatar said the deal would go into effect at 7 a.m. on Friday. Various reports said that, at the last minute, Hamas had imposed further conditions on the handover or ramped up its demands that Israel further curtail its military activities.

Who can be surprised by any of that? For Israel is no longer in control of events. At a stroke, it has yielded control of the war to Gaza’s Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar.

The pressure from the hostages’ families for a deal has been enormous. No-one in Israel can fail to share their anguish.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/israel/2023/11/the-irrelevance-of-proportionality/

Voted into power by the Palestinian people of Gaza during 2006, and with extensive support in the West Bank (Samaria and Judea), but designated a terror group by Western nations, Hamas is a jihadist Islamist mob of fanatics determined to create a Sharia law-based Caliphate free of non-believers. Specific animosity is directed at followers of the monotheist faiths of Judaism and Christianity which compete with radical Islamist ideology over critical ideals of identity, land, religion, and divine promise.

The actualization of Hamas’ intended utopia depends upon fulfilment of an apocalyptic event which would lead to a grand finale at the end of time. This would be the period of redemption and blessing of all faithful devotees of Allah and his prophet, Mohammed. Together with certain passages in the Quran which mention violence against non-Muslims, jihadists embrace authoritative scriptures known as the Hadith. This collection of Islamic writings in Arabic, attributed to Mohammed, contain an overriding prescription pertinent to apocalyptic destiny:

The time will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, until the        Jew hides behind the stones and the trees and the stones or the trees say, ‘O Muslim, O Servant         of God, this is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.’

The excerpt describes genocidal intent against which Israel and its people are forced to defend their right to exist. To justify this agenda, Islamism propounds a dichotomous ethical construction for humankind: a glorious destiny for Muslim faithful but with death and destruction for all non-believers. Religious convictions enable radical actors to ignore Western laws regarding ethical war behaviour. Yet, Israel as a democratic nation is bound by the just-war theory and is carefully monitored by Western powers, which compromises their ability to respond as necessary in a permanently hostile environment. In the world’s eyes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Israel to hold the high moral ground due to unintended civilian casualties in Gaza however much the Israeli military machine, the IDF, complies with traditional rules of war and humanitarian concerns. To the contrary, Hamas eschews any limiting rules of war or considerations of human decency. 

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/society/2023/11/how-do-i-hate-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/

“Abhorrence of Israel is now near universal and few apart from politicians with Jews in their electorates make any pretence at distinguishing between the race and the nation. But why the concentrated hate? Why the coordinated mobs worldwide, why is there not even a vestige of sympathy for butchered victims whose only offence was to have been Israelis? Why is it the Israelis whose “war crimes” are condemned in our federal parliament, with the sinister Adam Bandt, showing all the compassion of a judge in a Moscow show trial, parroting Hamas about “illegal occupation of  Palestinian territories”? Doesn’t he know Israel no longer “occupies” Gaza? Doesn’t he know that the “ceasefire” he and the rest of the Left harp on about would leave Hamas unopposed in its crusade to destroy a state and its population? Leftists are always going about the evils of genocide. Ah, but this would be an acceptable genocide, the triumph of justice, evil “occupiers” and “colonialists” getting their just deserts – you wouldn’t put it past some on the Left to want to try the same thing here.”

Councillors in what was known until recently as the Victorian city of Moreland in Melbourne’s inner north feel that their municipal talents should not be limited to such tiresome tasks as collecting rubbish and filling in potholes. They ought to have a voice, they think – even as they reel from the blow of the ignominious collapse of their other cherished “Voice”– a voice this time that ‘racists’ and rednecks can’t torpedo, that will carry beyond their dreary municipality of jerry-built apartment blocks and unenticing cafés, one that will be heard in the counsels of the world. So they sign up to the idiocy that currently reigns supreme in the West (they’ve long been on board with the earlier idiocies of race and sex) and pass a resolution that goes beyond the usual wishy-washy requests for a ceasefire in Israel’s war of self-defence against Hamas but actually condemns Israeli military action in Gaza full stop. They mutter about “war crimes”, though not those committed by the terrorists of Hamas, and they wouldn’t mind a boycott too.