RUTHFULLY YOURS

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

First: The return of more hostages to their families is the most joyful scene one could imagine. Behind these headlines, and in spite of ongoing hostilities, Israel’s research and development of technology and medicine that cure or alleviate want and suffering throughout the globe continues apace. The economy is strong and grows. Foreign workers return to productive farms and a sense of a peaceful future in a thriving democracy is more of a reality. Read Michael Ordman’s dazzling catalogue of positive news. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Fast track for blocked blood vessel treatment.  (TY Atid-EDI) The US FDA has granted Fast Track Designation to Israel’s BioGenCell (see here previously) for the development of BGC101 – its lead candidate for treating severe Critical Limb Threatening Ischemia (CLTI).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biogencell-receives-fda-fast-track-140000739.html
 
European approval for stroke therapy. Israel’s Brain.Q (see here previously) has received the CE-Mark for its BQ 2.0 system, designed to reduce disability following ischemic stroke, the number one cause of disability worldwide. Brain.Q is also enrolling in the EMAGINE II pivotal study to seek US-FDA clearance.
https://www.ourcrowd.com/startup-news/brain-q-achieves-ce-mark-for-its-breakthrough-therapy-for-reducing-disability-following-stroke-and-welcomes-stacey-pugh-as-chairman-of-the-board
 
Positive proof of concept for arthritis treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Raphael announced positive proof-of-concept clinical study results of its HPC1 non-psychoactive cannabinoid-based formula developed for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. 12 adult participants reported lower pain levels and better sleep quality.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/raphael-pharmaceutical-announces-positive-proof-130000207.html
https://www.raphaelpharmaceutical.com/
 
Innovation in Cardiovascular Interventions. Israel recently held the 2024 conference on innovation in interventional cardiology (ICI) for the 29th year in Tel Aviv. Levron Medical won the $200,000 Jon de Haan Innovation award for its Cardio-Respiratory Physiological Assist  (CRPA) Treatment..
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-829448  https://icimed.org/
https://www.levron-medical.com/
 
Revolutionizing healthcare in the South. The new Mor Institute’s Be’er Sheva branch allows residents to get cancer screening, low-radiation CT scans, virtual colonoscopies, eye care services such as retina consultations and OCT exams, cardiac tests like Holter monitoring and vascular ultrasounds, bone density tests, and more.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-836357
 
Training for the best doctors. With medicine being so complicated, all major medical centers are establishing programs to help junior doctors improve the quality of treatment and research. Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center has established its “Elite Residency and Training Center” for 100+ doctors learning a specialty annually.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-834346
 
 

https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe/250123

Palestinian Arab terrorist manipulation of the media will persist as long as people continue to prefer myths rather than facts.

This phenomenon is not new, but it seems that even eight years after a documentary, which officially exposed it was launched, many people have still not even heard of Pallywood.

So what is Pallywood? It is a combination of “Palestinian propaganda” and “Hollywood fantasy.” It is an exposure of “media manipulation, distortion and outright fraud by the Palestinians and other Arabs, jihadists and Islamists, assigned to win the public relations war against embattled Israel.”

In 2005, Professor Richard Landes of Boston University produced an 18-minute online documentary video called Pallywood. In this documentary, he exposed an entire film industry, in which the stars are Palestinian terrorists and their supporters, the crew is mostly independent video journalists, and the fools are we.

Pallywood presented a “behind the scenes” glance of the carefully staged scenes of Palestinian Arabs allegedly attacked by Israeli forces, which are then presented on the news as “raw footage of the reality in the Gaza conflict.”

The phenomenon of Pallywood is widely and carefully planned. News broadcasts are eager to air raw footage of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, and as a result they are being far too uncritical when examining the authenticity of the footage, and the airing of complete lies that give the audience the narrative the Hamas terrorists want you to see.

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/01/palestinian-authority-says-hamas-disguised-as-civilians-caused-civilian-deaths-and-destruction-of-gaza?utm_source=rss&utm_

No one will pay any attention. They’re far too invested in demonizing Israel.

“Palestinian Authority: Hamas disguised as civilians caused civilian deaths and destruction of Gaza,” by Ephraim D. Tepler and Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch, January 23, 2025:

The Palestinian Authority’s official daily admitted that Hamas terrorists disguised themselves as civilians and used civilian homes to launch attacks, thus deliberately increasing casualties in Gaza. Moreover, the PA called Hamas insolent for only putting on uniforms during the ceasefire in order to take credit.

Headline: “Shame branches out from faith”

“When three female Israeli hostages were released, Hamas members recently appeared armed and masked in their army uniforms, and in a completely flashy manner! Over the last 15 months of the war, we have not seen any of these activists in these uniforms. They were dressed in civilian shirts and pants, wore sandals (!!) [parentheses in source], and some were in pajamas. From among people’s homes – as Al-Jazeera TV presented them – they fired their [RPG] rockets at the occupation army’s vehicles, and retreated behind these homes. This matter, in addition to the racist and violent Israeli response to these rockets, is what contributed to increasing the losses among civilian residents of the slaughtered Gaza Strip…

When shame ends, only insolence remains. For 15 months of harsh war, Hamas did not dare to show even one of its operatives in military uniforms (!!) [parentheses in source], but when the ceasefire agreement stipulated that the cannons be silenced, Hamas brought out its operatives in military uniforms – not only for display purposes, but also to fabricate a victory narrative!”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 22, 2025]…

https://www.jns.org/hezbollah-no-longer-strategic-threat-but-israeli-determination-key/

 Badly battered by Israel’s military operation in Lebanon, Hezbollah has been beaten, but not eliminated, analysts tell JNS. They paint an optimistic picture, saying that Hezbollah’s days as a strategic threat to Israel are over.

Within 24 hours of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel’s south, the Shi’ite militia launched a rocket strike on the Jewish state. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group’s goal was to stretch Israel’s resources and force it to fight on two fronts.

Seeking to avoid that scenario, Israel played defense for nearly a year as Hezbollah fired more than 10,000 missiles from Lebanon, forcing 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes in the north for temporary shelter elsewhere. (Residents are expected to return in early March.)

Israel finally struck back in a series of remarkable operations starting on Sept. 17 and 18, 2024, detonating explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Iranian-backed terror group. On Sept. 27, Israeli airstrikes killed Nasrallah. On Oct. 1, Israel invaded Lebanon, laying waste to much of Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure.

“Hezbollah has been hit dramatically. Its leadership has been toppled, its command structure decimated. Seventy percent of its strategic capabilities have been destroyed,” IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi told JNS.

Hezbollah had been a serious threat, but in two weeks Israel brought it to its knees, he said. Hezbollah was further weakened when Sunni Islamists took over Syria, depriving Hezbollah of a major resupply route from Iran.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/does-the-world-care-about-gazas-future-under-hamas/

The Palestinians of Gaza were the overwhelming focus of international concern during Israel’s 15-month-old war with Hamas, and their plight was the driving force behind global pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

But lest anyone believe that Israel’s detractors in the region and across the world really care about innocent Gazans, events on the ground since the ceasefire took effect show that’s truly a farcical notion.

Remember all that talk in Washington and elsewhere – as then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the other day – of ensuring that the genocidal terrorists of Hamas who ignited the war by slaughtering 1,200 Israelis, and who have ruled Gaza with an iron fist for nearly two decades, never regain a governing role? Remember all the talk of turning Gaza over to a reformed Palestinian Authority that, with international aid, would rebuild the Strip to better serve the Palestinians?

Well, look around, as Hamas and its terrorist allies declare victory, retake control of Gaza’s streets, welcome home blood-stained prisoners from Israel, and promise to resume their terror against Israel – all of which ensures more war and hardship for innocent Palestinians caught in the crosshairs.

Where’s the global outrage over what’s sure to come? Where are the denunciations from UN and Western leaders? Where are the human rights activists who know how Palestinians suffer under Hamas rule? Where are the editorialists and campus protesters who pledge allegiance to the Palestinian cause?

The ceasefire deal, which is supposed to be implemented in three phases but still requires further negotiations for the second and third phases, provides “for the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian Prisoners and the return to a sustainable calm which would achieve a permanent ceasefire between the two sides.”

Sounds nice. But just days into the first phase, as the world chooses to look away, what’s happening in Gaza?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/23/7-october-was-a-war-against-civilisation/

The first three Israeli hostages were freed at the weekend under the terms of the new ceasefire deal struck between Israel and Hamas. Their return is a chilling reminder of the depravity of 7 October 2023, the day those hostages were first taken captive, and when more than a thousand Israelis were massacred and brutalised. In the weeks and months since, not only has this barbarism been largely forgotten in the West – many self-styled progressives have ended up siding with the barbarians.

As broadcaster and Times columnist Melanie Phillips puts it in her new book, The Builder’s Stone, the West failed the moral test of 7 October. Melanie was the latest guest on The Brendan O’Neill Show. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. Listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: What impact did 7 October have on you?

Melanie Phillips: It was a shattering event, because what happened on 7 October was something that very few of us thought would ever happen again. We knew about the hostility in the Arab and Muslim world. As Jews, we live with it all the time, both inside and outside Israel. But we never thought we would see again what can only be described as Nazi-style behaviour.

This was not just murdering Jews or murdering Israelis. This was the seeking out of Jews and Israelis. It was almost like a kind of ritual mutilation. Hamas militants beheaded some of them. They burned some of them alive. They tortured them. They raped them, both men and women. This was bestial and depraved behaviour and a level of sadism that Jews collectively remember from the Holocaust. And while we should not compare anything to the Holocaust, because it was sui generis in both scale and nature, this had very clear parallels and resonances.

The second terrible shock was simply the awfulness of what happened – the murders, the rapes, the beheadings, the burnings alive, the slaughter of children in front of their parents. Then, of course, there was the abduction of the hostages into Gaza. There was the sight of both militants and ordinary – if I can call them that – people exulting over all this and abusing the hostages, whether they were dead or alive.

The next terrible thing that happened was the aftermath. One would have expected, in a civilised world, that the West would have stood with Israel. But it turned on Israel. It represented everything Israel did to defend itself as aggressive, and completely ignored the fact that Israel was going to unprecedented lengths to preserve the lives of civilians. As if that wasn’t bad enough, an absolute tsunami of anti-Jewish hatred swept across Britain and the West.

This had a tremendous effect on me. It brought to a head something that I had long been considering – namely, the decline of the West. When the West turns on itself, what is it turning against? It’s turning against its core, foundational values. Those values were largely embedded by Christianity, but Christianity didn’t come out of nothing. Christianity came from Judaism. If the West wants to stop itself from going off the edge of the cliff, then what it has to do is reconnect itself with those foundational Jewish values.

The West didn’t understand that 7 October wasn’t just a war against Israel. It was a war against civilisation.