RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5114/a_thank_you_letter_from_hamas_to_the_media

You in the mainstream media have been amazing in your support for Hamas, and we’re so grateful to you. This really helps us in spreading anti-Semitism, and starting new rounds of terror at will. Blessings be upon you, love from Hamas

Dear Members of the Mainstream Media,

You’ve been awesome! Everyone knows that we start unwinnable wars with Israel because the real victory happens when you predictably side with us each time. And you’ve been so supportive of our strategy that we really want to acknowledge your helpfulness. In particular, we thank you for:

–Focusing so much more on our suffering than anyone else’s. Nigerians must die in far greater numbers before you take notice, so we’re glad that you value our lives so much more.

-Minimizing your coverage, if any, of our attacks that led up to Israel’s military response and generally providing so little context that outsiders think that Israelis kill Palestinians just for fun. We’re especially grateful to the French media for this.

Their distortions of the conflict are so one-sided that they incite Muslims across France to attack Jews and synagogues, and that is welcomed by our anti-Semitic worldview (although, unfortunately, such attacks remind everyone why Jews need a state).

-Emphasizing our civilian death toll without explaining that (1) our casualty reports are hasty and inflated, and (2) we maximize that total by using Palestinians to shield our weapons and by urging them to stay in the very areas that the IDF — in its annoying effort to minimize our civilian deaths — warns Gazans to evacuate.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

B.D.S.? Indeed! Israel is “Beneficent. Diverse. Special.” Can you name another small country besieged by geography and enemies, libels and bias. and barbaric attacks, that contributes technology, science and medicine that brings humanitarian relief from epidemics, famine and natural disasters to the entire globe? Every week Michael Ordman proves the foregoing. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Cowboys to the rescue. (TY UWI & ILTV News) Ruthie’s horse farm in Binyamin, home to many troubled teens, faced closure when its male workers were called up. Then the Christian cowboys of Montana came to walk the horses, clean and maintain the farm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0HRRrTdkow
 
If it could only talk. IDF troops in Gaza have rescued many abandoned pet dogs and cats, at least one parrot and three horses. One dog was a purebred Malinois, a.k.a. Belgian sheepdog. It responded to commands in Hebrew, which probably meant it (like many of the rescued animals) was looted on Oct 7.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-troops-rescue-of-animals-in-gaza-fuels-pro-palestinian-looting-charges/
 
Fauda star released from hospital. (TY Yanky) Actor and singer Idan Amedi, star of Israel’s Fauda TV series, was released from hospital after 8 weeks. Although badly burned in Gaza, he now hopes to be in Fauda season 5. He said, “The Israeli people are the strongest in the world. When we are united, we are invincible.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-one-recognized-me-says-fauda-actor-idan-amedi-of-injury-from-gaza-blast/
 
20% of IDF reserves are hi-tech workers. Although hi-tech workers constitute only 10% of Israel’s employees, they make up 20% of the IDF’s reserve forces.  Interesting, but not sure what to make of that!
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hku9ilrq6
 
No place like home. (TY Yanky) After 10 weeks in limbo in an Eilat hotel, over 400 Kibbutz Re’im members have moved into two towers in Tel Aviv. A Tel Aviv Municipality banner welcomed relocated Kibbutz Re’im residents with this message: “There is no place like home, but in the meantime, feel at home.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-oct-7-entire-kibbutz-temporarily-resettles-in-two-newly-built-tel-aviv-towers/
 
His prayers were answered. IDF Sgt. Major Malchiel ben Yosef saved his comrades from a Hamas terrorist who emerged from a Gaza tunnel behind them with an RPG launcher. Malchiel turned towards Jerusalem to pray the afternoon service and spotted the terrorist. He then alerted his comrades who dealt with the threat.
https://www.jns.org/prayer-of-idf-soldier-saves-fellow-fighters/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Adapting animal antibodies for humans. (TY UWI & JNS) Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have developed an algorithm to help identify which antibodies, that work on animals, can be adapted for human use. Their CUMAb, algorithm generates 20,000 variants of a mouse antibody and predicts which are most stable.
https://tps.co.il/articles/breaking-barriers-israeli-algorithm-offers-swift-and-cost-effective-antibody-humanization/ 
 
Why some children stop breathing. Researchers at Ben Gurion University and Tel Aviv University have discovered the impact of a genetic defect that causes Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) in children. They hope that their findings will lead to a cure to a dangerous form of sleep apnea.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-785213  https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/s44318-023-00018-9
 
Ultrasound surgery just got more focused. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s Insightec has announced Exablate Prime – the next generation of MR-guided focused ultrasound with many new features for incisionless neurosurgery. It comes as the US military and the Dutch government have approved Insightec for essential tremor therapy.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/insightec-announces-exablate-prime-the-next-generation-of-mr-guided-focused-ultrasound-855754708.html
 
Netanya hospital opens pediatric playroom. Netanya’s Laniado Hospital has opened a brand-new playroom, courtesy of Toys for Simcha, based in Brooklyn. Happy Kids Heal Faster,” said Rabbi J.J. Hecht II, president of Toys for Simcha. Hundreds of the 8,000 evacuees living in Netanya have been treated at Laniado.
https://www.jns.org/netanya-hospital-opens-pediatric-playroom-in-wake-of-oct-7/
 
Overcoming trauma. As a boy, Yechial witnessed a bus explode, which motivated him to become a volunteer United Hatzalah EMT. He has helped at many tragedies: Miron, Ukraine, Hurricane Ian, Turkey, Morocco, and Oct 7. One of the last lives he saved was a dog. He now trains therapy dogs, to help others overcome trauma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qve42g2F0v4
https://www.instagram.com/unitedhatzalahofisrael/reel/C2K78jxtVLt/
 
The medical specialists who answered the call. Israel’s Health Ministry and Nefesh B’Nefesh arranged for hundreds of physicians to fly to Israel to help those in need following Oct. 7. Many world-renowned specialists left their lucrative jobs, families, and children behind to come to Israel and boost the medical system.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/12/21/meet-the-specialists-who-left-everything-behind-to-volunteer-in-israel/
 
Restoring sight to wounded IDF soldiers. Eye specialist Dr Sid Shechet of Baltimore’s Elman Retina Group is volunteering for two weeks at the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva.  He has been operating non-stop for more than twelve hours daily, helping to restore vision to severely wounded soldiers and anyone else in need.
https://baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=1&ARTICLE_ID=169946
https://www.elmanretina.com/about-us/meet-the-doctor/
 
Partnering for mental health therapy. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has partnered with Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) to expand the mental health support provided to trauma-suffering war victims. FIDF Funds will help train new Shaba therapists to work in IDF veterans’ rehabilitation centers across the country.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/technology-science/1706964944-israel-sheba-announces-partnership-with-fidf-for-mental-health-of-war-victims
 
 
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
 
Jewish Disabilities Month. JNF-USA is planning a series of events to mark Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAAIM) and to celebrate their longstanding efforts to improve Israel for residents and visitors with disabilities. Feb donations to support this cause will be matched up to $1.25 million.
https://www.jnf.org/menu-3/press-releases/press-release-stories/february-3–2024
 
A campus for ultra-orthodox students. A consortium led by Ben-Gurion University and several academic colleges is to create a separate ultra-Orthodox campus in the South. A growing number of haredim want to pursue a higher education, but not compromise their beliefs and religious observance.
https://americansforbgu.org/bgu-open-orthodox-campus/  https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-760508
 
Empowering Ethiopian Israelis at Rambam. Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and Boston-Haifa Connection have launched a 5-month course to educate 20 of its Ethiopian Israeli employees in Hebrew literacy and computer skills. The employees predominantly work in the Housekeeping and Custodian Department.
https://israfan.com/2024/02/08/bridging-cultures-a-leap-forward-for-ethiopian-israelis-at-rambam/
 
Prize-winning, women-led startups. The competition for female-led Israeli startups at an event organized by Yazamiyot (see below) was won by anydish (AI nutrition – see here previously). In 2nd place was Aisap (AI ultrasound heart monitoring – see here previously) and in 3rd was Kinoko (funghi – see here previously).
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/kmvn5pprn
 
It’s all in the Family. In a world that seems to devalue the family unit, Family Day (Yom HaMishpacha) in Israel on Feb 9 is a day to honor the family unit and its centrality to our lives. Israel has 2.25 million families with about half having two parents and at least one child under the age of 17.
https://www.jns.org/2-25-million-families-in-israel-average-of-3-69-members-each/
 
See Israel through the eyes of the IDF. If you, your children, or grandchildren live in the USA, are aged 21-39 and want to gain a deep understanding of IDF soldiers’ mission in the current war, register for the Friends of the IDF’s National Young Leadership Mission to Israel from May 24 to May 30, 2024.
https://www.fidf.org/national-young-leadership-mission-to-israel/
 
Visitors. (TY Nevet) Friendly visitors to Israel in Jan included Chechia President Petr Pavel, former US Vice President Mike Pence, 9 UN envoys, 22 EU lawmakers, 40 US JCC leaders, 50 Hadassah leaders, Palantir directors, US student leaders, Christian Zionists, Indian influencers, Iran’s opposition leader, and many more.
https://www.broaderview.org/visitors/
 
50,000 volunteers mobilized. Last week’s article about Lev Echad (One Heart – see here) supporting wounded IDF soldiers didn’t give the US charity enough credit. Since Oct 7, some 50,000 volunteers have run Israeli mental health hotlines; supported displaced Israeli families and reservists; distributed food, and much more.
https://www.israel21c.org/50000-volunteers-give-from-their-hearts-through-one-heart/

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20386/red-cross-hates-jews

Even now, after an agreement was brokered between Israel and Hamas by Qatar to deliver medication to the hostages in Gaza, via France to Qatar and then through Egypt, the ICRC refuses to touch the medicines and has said that it wants nothing to do with them.

“We know that the medications effectively entered into Gaza. The modalities of their transfer to the hostages were dealt with under Qatar’s mediation. We now expect to receive verifiable proof that the medications have reached their beneficiaries.” — Unnamed French official, Times of Israel, February 6, 2024.

On social media, the ICRC has made no secret of its anti-Israel bias and its complete lack of care for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. “77% [of the tweets] were focused on criticizing Israel, expressly or by implication. Only 7% of the tweets criticized Hamas… No statement was made speaking directly about the massacre of October 7th… it is evident that the ICRC has dedicated large amounts of resources to interviewing doctors and victims in Gaza…. Comparatively little to no attention was paid to Israeli victims.” — UN Watch, December 11, 2023.

As if to confirm the ICRC’s coverup for Hamas, the newly appointed head of the ICRC is Pierre Krähenbühl, who was the head of UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees from 2014 until 2019, when he was forced to resign after a damning internal ethics probe. UNRWA is effectively embedded with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

This is not the first time the ICRC ignored the plight of Jewish victims. During the Holocaust, the ICRC did nothing to help any of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and instead wrote a “favorable report of the good treatment of Jews in German camps.”

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/can-israel-win-the-war-against-terroris

The problem is that many Israeli leaders not only believe that Israel cannot win its war against terrorism, but that Israel should not win – that Palestinians deserve a state, regardless of who will be in charge – because this would relieve Israel of moral and legal dilemmas, e.g. “the occupation.”

Most (if not all) countries go to war to win; Israel, however, is different. First, neither Israel nor the PLO conceives of the conflict as a war, since they have mutual ongoing political, security, and economic interests; terrorism, therefore, is seen as part of an ongoing relationship. Until Oct 7, Israeli leaders assumed that this was also true for Hamas.

This leads to the second reason: Israel was not fighting to destroy terrorism, but to prevent attacks, neutralize or arrest terrorists, and then, temporarily, return to a “status quo.” That’s why warnings about what Hamas was doing were ignored by Israel’s political, military, and security leaders; they duped themselves.

Hope-doped, drugged by self-assurance, and seeking to appease the Obama/Biden administrations, the EU, the UN, and the international community, they accepted “the two-state solution” (2SS). They failed to understand that the conflict is not over territory, but is – as Hamas proclaims – a religious war to eliminate Israel. That explains why Palestinian leaders consistently reject offers of statehood in return for recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and why they continue to launch terrorist attacks against Jews. They are engaged in a “holy war” against Jews and Zionists as “invaders” and “occupiers of Palestine” – all of it. That is a call for genocide.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-785904?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=293469766&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9zLrcE4y-

An Israeli women’s basketball team beat Ireland 87 to 57 in the first game of the 2025 Women’s EuroBasket qualifier in Riga on Thursday evening, a game in which sport was overshadowed by politics when the Irish team refused to shake hands with their Israeli counterparts.

The Israeli Basketball Association (IBBA) said on social media that the victory came “despite the lack of sportsmanship of the visiting team.”

“Basketball Ireland fully supports our players in their decision,” the national governing body for basketball in Ireland said in a statement.

Ireland’s team refuses to associate with Israel’s team

The statement by Basketball Ireland detailed that it informed the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) on Wednesday that its players would not be exchanging gifts or formal handshakes before or after the game, and that players would line up by the bench rather than at center court for the playing of their anthem.

The move came in response to comments made by Israeli players and published by IBBA that included “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate accusations of antisemitism.”

IBBA published an interview with Israeli basketball player Dor Saar on Tuesday in which she touched on the behavior and statements of the Irish team.

“It’s known that they are quite antisemitic and it’s no secret, and maybe that’s why a strong game is expected,” said Saar. “We have to show that we’re better than them and win. We talk about it among ourselves, we know they don’t like us and we will always leave everything on the field and in this game especially.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/the-empty-sloganeering-of-a-two-state-solution/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_

The Palestinian people are pawns, props in a local, regional, and global game that puts their real interests last.

It is beyond ironic that the vile attacks of October 7 have revived the notion of a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians — an idea that was, until that moment, politically moribund. Of course, such a “solution” was far from Hamas’s aim, but it remains the only idea available to the lazy diplomatic and peace-processing class. The two-state idea serves the aims of political leaders in the United States and Europe flailing for a response to the far Left’s anti-Israel-driven outrage over the war in Gaza. It answers the mail to the demand to “do something.”

But the one question no one has bothered to ask is, Is it good for the Palestinians? And the short answer to that question is no.

“Two-state solution” is part of the lexicon of sloganeering-cum-politics that includes “black lives matter,” “defund the police,” and “cease-fire now.” And like all of those reductionist bumper stickers, it crumbles under scrutiny. The evolution of each of these ideas is predicated on a grain of truth: Of course black lives matter. There is indeed police brutality. A cease-fire now would indeed end the fighting in Gaza, albeit briefly. And a two-state solution would certainly satisfy the symbolic demands for a Palestinian state.

Also true of these parallel political constructions is that the slogan has precious little to do with the actual lives it purports to value. The Black Lives Matter movement, while soothing to upper-class suburban whites focused intently on their virtue and their Land Rovers, has enriched a few grifters at its heart and delivered shockingly little to the actual blacks who live in America’s cities and are disproportionately victims of crime, beset by poor schooling, drugs, broken families, and more.

Ditto the mindless effort to slash police budgets in the unreasoned hope that by destroying the instruments of law enforcement, somehow there would be fewer incidents of police brutality. Instead, as numerous failed experiments in a light police footprint have demonstrated, crime has skyrocketed, businesses have been forced to shut down, and cities like Portland, Ore., San Francisco, Oakland, and Washington, D.C., have spiraled into dystopia.

Back to the Palestinians. They are people before they are a nation or a movement. And like the hapless props for the various other slogans/movements, their fate is of little genuine interest to their putative champions. To be pro-“Palestine” has come to mean little more than to be anti-Israel, shortchanging the very people such a position is intended to support.

http://bit.ly/3uqh4aO

Prof. Bernard Lewis, who was a leading authority on Islam and the Middle East, shed light on a cardinal aspect of the frustrating, complicated and inconvenient reality of the Middle East: “If the fighters in the war for Islam are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting against God…. In the classical Islamic view, the world is divided into two: the House of Islam… and the House of Unbelief, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam…. The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some 14 centuries…. America has become the archenemy, the incarnation of evil, the diabolic opponent of all that is good… of Islam….”

*Western conventional wisdom has been based on the assumptions that Middle East violence is despair-driven; that radical Middle East dictators can be induced to subordinate their radical ideologies to dramatic financial benefits (“money talks”); and that significant gestures and concessions could motivate rogue Middle East leaders to embrace peaceful coexistence, compliance with agreements, adoption of human rights and democracy, to depart from fanatic ideologies, and to join the “multilateral/cosmopolitan club.”

*In order to advance its well-intentioned assumptions, Western conventional wisdom has consistently overlooked the 1,400-year-old shifty, unpredictable, violent, totalitarian, intolerant, anti-“infidel” (Islam vs. the West), anti-“apostate” (Shiite vs. Sunni), fragmented, volcanic and frustrating nature of Middle East (intra-Arab and intra-Moslem) reality. It has also overlooked the supremacy of fanatical ideologies over financial benefits in shaping the policy of Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Moslem Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, as reflected in their (K-12) school curriculum, mosque sermons and constitutions/charters.

*Western appeasement of Shiite, Sunni and Palestinian terrorism has ignored the well-documented fact, that terrorists bite the hands that feed them, as demonstrated by the Mujahideen (who were assisted by the US to drive the USSR out of Afghanistan and proceeded to carry out 9/11), Iran’s Ayatollahs (who were critically assisted by the US to topple the Shah of Iran and proceeded to become the lead  anti-US terrorist and drug trafficker) and the Palestinian leadership (which was hosted by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait and proceeded to subvert and terrorize them).

Here are some select portions of the rather lengthy article, translated:

Captain ‘B’s clothing closet at the Palmachim Air Base is where she hides the greatest secret of her life. Captain ‘B’, in her twenties, is the first female Arab flight mechanic in the history of the IDF, and in fact, the first female airborne service person from the Arab community. Except for a few close family members and the members of her squad, no one knows.

Captain ‘B’ lives in an Arab village, which includes a militant population, who, to put matters mildly, are not among the “lovers of Zion.” Thus, for the five years that she has served in a variety of positions in the Air Force, she’s never gone home wearing a uniform. “In my clothes closet at the base,” she says, “there are more civilian clothes than uniforms. And when I get to the base in civvies, I go straight to the room, change clothes, and then head out to the squadron. And vice-versa: before I go home, I change into civilian clothing. You wouldn’t believe how careful we have to be at home. In the winter and in the summer, we launder the uniforms and they go straight into the dryer—we would never hang them outside to dry.”

And that’s because why? What would happen if people in the village knew what you do?

Someone would get attacked. That’s for sure.

From your family?

Yes.

And they’d have to be taken out of the village [for their safety]?

I don’t think there’d be anyone to take out after that.

Really? To that extent?

I think so.

And then, when we leave the office and head to the landing strip of the Black Hawks of Squadron 123, where she is now serves, she’s transformed. Captain ‘B’ stands tall, doesn’t stop smiling. Wearing her flight jumpsuit and her helmet and visor that cover her face, she hops quickly onto one of the helicopters to be photographed. It’s evident that here, among the flying machines that come in and out of Gaza, she’s more comfortable in her own skin than she is in the streets of the village where she was born and raised.

How long are you really going to be able to keep this secret from the people in your village?

There’s been an escalation in my village of late. Violent incidents, grenades, shootings. My own motto is “it’s good to die for our land” [DG – a famous quote commonly attributed to the early Zionist icon Yosef Trumpeldor], and I don’t care if they kill me, but the thought that they might do something to my family, and even worse, because of me? I couldn’t live with that. My priorities in life are first God, then my family, then the army.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384819

Israeli sovereignty, the basis for its national existence as a Jewish state, the homeland of the Jewish People, is defined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948. It incorporated much of UN Resolution 181, passed in1947, including the rights of its non-Jewish residents, and, following the war in 1948-9, Israel was accepted as a member state of the United Nations.

The result of the war, however, was inconclusive. Israel and the Arab countries that had attacked Israel agreed to a cease-fire and an Armistice was signed based on temporary – de facto, not de jure ‘borders.’ The areas that were conquered by Egypt, Jordan and Syria became known as “the West Bank.” Local Arab terrorists, and those from neighboring countries, however, continued to attack Jews.

Since the beginning of its existence as a state, therefore, Israel was faced with a problem: what to do with Arabs who lived under its jurisdiction and did not accept Israeli sovereignty; many, if not most still do not. For them, Israel’s survival and victory in the war of 1948-49 was a “Nakba” (catastrophe) – the essence of the Palestinian narrative, and its ideology, Palestinianism.

As a result of the war, many Arabs fled to other countries, especially to Jordan, nearly a million became “refugees,” most of whom were cared for by UNRWA, and about 156, 000 who remained in Israel and became Israeli citizens. In addition, as a result of the war, Israel acquired abandoned Arab villages and property, and areas which had not been assigned to Israel in 1948, especially in the Galilee, the Negev, and western Jerusalem – which Israel declared as its capital — with their Arab populations. Arabs still consider these areas as “disputed,” and they oppose any form of Israeli sovereignty.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384783

On October 7, Palestinian Arab terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, aided by Gazan “civilians” of all ages, invaded Israel, pillaged, plundered, raped, and marauded, murdered approximately 1200 Jews, wounded thousands, and kidnapped hundreds. Tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced, exiles in their own country.

The Palestinian Authority has yet to condemn the brutal assault and subsidized it in the form of its pay-for-slay program which continues, with a steadily increasing number of terrorist recipients. The attack was greeted with widespread celebrations among Palestinian Arabs and their supporters across the world.

And Joe Biden wants to reward these people with an independent state, recognized by the United States and the Western world.

This is not only morally repugnant; it is also diplomatic folly, which, if it ever succeeds, would pose a mortal danger to Israel’s existence. Biden has said some nice things and done some important things for Israel since the invasion, for which we should be thankful; he has also said some nasty things and done some incredibly harmful things to Israel, for which we should be wary of his continued support.

An independent Palestinian state Arab is a moral obscenity for several reasons. It literally rewards terror – past, present, and future. Biden and his minions, much like they are doing with Ukraine, are hoping that Israel can defend itself but not prevail in this conflict.

The obsession with Gazan refugees (while concurrently indifferent to the condition of Jewish refugees) has, with irrational Israeli acquiescence, resulted in the unremitting resupply of Hamas’ fuel, food, and other provisions, instead of the evacuation of Gazans from the war zone which is a right afforded all other refugees enmeshed in a conflict. It is designed to make Israel’s military effort much more difficult, essentially an endorsement of the Gazans’ employment as human shields and hampers any possibility of rescuing the hostages. Israel has foolishly consented to this.