ISRAEL Comments turned off

Countering the False Apartheid Narrative -Israeli Arabs have made dramatic advances.By Robert Cherry

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/02/countering-the-false-apartheid-narrative/

W hen the Abraham Accords were announced three years ago, left-wing organizations ridiculed them as a fantasy that would be repudiated everywhere. Instead, the accords have been very successful in transforming Israel’s relationships with a number of Arab-dominated countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa, dramatically increasing trade and tourism.

Rather than focusing on the accords’ impact on Israel’s growing regional acceptance, 29 left-wing organizations signed a joint statement demanding that the U.S. reject the Abraham Accords and “end support for Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights and apartheid rule.” Notable signatories were the Progressive Democrats of America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and a number of Jewish leftist organizations, including Jewish Voices for Peace and IfNotNow. This statement followed an unprecedented Amnesty International report demanding that “Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians.”

This extreme rhetoric is quite distant from reality. It ignores the dramatic advances made by Israeli Arabs in the past decade, the numerous initiatives taken by the new government to temper conflicts in the occupied territories, and the substantial abuses perpetrated by Palestinian misleaders in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli Arabs make up 20 percent of the country’s population and have moved into the Israeli mainstream, particularly in high-tech and medical fields. They are a growing number in high-tech, driven by their being 20 percent of the graduates from the Technion — Israel’s MIT. Aided by government funding, Nazareth has become a center of high-tech firms, many having Arab ownership. In the medical area, 17 percent of doctors, 24 percent of nurses, and 47 percent of pharmacists are Arab. More generally, Arab share of undergraduate enrollment has increased from 10 percent in 2008 to 17 percent a decade later.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Durham makes allegations that make Watergate look like small potatoes By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/durham_makes_allegations_that_make_watergate_look_like_small_potatoes.html

On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed with the D.C. Federal District Court a what should have been a boring conflict of interest motion, but it hid a surprise: The Clinton campaign, through Perkins Coie, spied on Trump both before and after he was president. The following is a plain English-language summary of relevant parts of the motion:

Michael Sussman was a partner at Law Firm-1 (i.e., Perkins Coie). He met with the FBI General Counsel (i.e., James Baker), and offered data and “white papers” purporting to show that Trump was communicating covertly with a Russia-based bank (i.e., Alfa-Bank). Mueller, incidentally, had to admit this was untrue.

Durham indicted Sussman because he allegedly told Baker that he was not divulging this information for a client. In fact, he was acting for at least two clients: the Clinton campaign and “Tech Executive-1” (i.e., Rodney Joffe), who worked at a “U.S.-based internet company” (i.e., Neustar Inc., a federal contractor).

As part of his work on the Clinton campaign, Sussman repeatedly met and communicated both with Joffe and with “another law partner” who was “Campaign Lawyer-1.” (I guess we can await that indictment soon….)

Beginning in July 2016, Joffe began to work with (1) Sussman, (2) an investigation firm that Perkins Coie hired for the Clinton campaign, (3) cyber researchers, and (4) “employees at multiple Internet companies” to assemble the data handed to James Baker. To do so, Joffe exploited access to private and/or proprietary internet data. He even coopted researchers at a U.S. university who were receiving lots of internet data as part of a cybersecurity research contract that was pending with the feds. (The Conservative Treehouse says the university is Georgia Tech and it was a DARPA contract.)

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

BARI WEISS: LET’S TALK ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY BRETT STEPHENS AND MATT TAIBBI

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/lets-talk-about-american-foreign/comments?token=

Ever since the end of World War II, America has been the dominant world superpower. But there has always been a tension in this country about how we should use that power. Between those among us who think we should maintain an active role in world affairs—and those who want to pull back and focus on our myriad problems here at home.

This week on Honestly, we invited Matt Taibbi and Bret Stephens to revisit this long standing debate in light of escalating tensions at the Russian-Ukrainian border. Since recording, Biden has urged Americans to evacuate Ukraine immediately, warning of an imminent invasion, and the Pentagon has ordered 3,000 more troops to Poland.

In the episode, Matt contends that “we’ve gotten ourselves into quagmires all over the world that have been enormously expensive, both in terms of money and in lives. And the decision not to get involved would have been the right one almost exclusively in the last 20 years.” On the other hand, Bret encourages us to appreciate the benefits of the American-led world order: “A lot of our lives as Americans is intrinsically connected to a broader view of the world in which a militarily strong and morally confident American power pushes the world imperfectly, stupidly, sometimes incompetently and sometimes even criminally, but by fits and starts pushes the world in the direction of a little more freedom, a little more prosperity, a little more liberality in the way in which we conduct life.”

I wonder where you all stand in this debate. When should we use our military might on the world stage? Has recent history proven that we do more harm than good? Would we be better off pulling back and focusing on our many domestic problems? And should America try to wrestle back the superpower status that it feels is waning…or should we just let it go?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The deadly consequences of Defund the Police How a woke slogan caused mayhem in America’s working-class communities. Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/12/the-deadly-consequences-of-defund-the-police/

Remember ‘Defund the Police’? It was the slogan du jour of the Black Lives Matter movement. It was being hollered on every street during the protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota cop Derek Chauvin. In those riotous days in the summer of 2020, everyone seemed to be waving a placard or wearing a t-shirt demanding defunding. The entire in-crowd posted those three words on their social-media accounts. Even here in the UK, where cops aren’t armed and where the police-funding model is very different to America’s, the right-on lined up behind the vague, strange call for police forces to be starved of funds. A headline in the impeccably middle-class Guardian declared: ‘The answer to police violence is not “reform”. It’s defunding.’

Yet now, ‘Defund the Police’ seems to be a fast fading idea. You don’t hear it very much anymore. It might linger among the white antifa oafs who stomp around in cities like Portland and among well-to-do radical students on quiet, handsome campuses in the UK where there’s very rarely any need to call the cops. But on the streets, in politics, in the press, ‘Defund’ seems to have fizzled out. The old woke roar is barely a whimper now. And it isn’t hard to see why. This slogan has proven lethal. It has been an unmitigated disaster in numerous US cities. The cutting of cops’ budgets did not give rise to the new dawn of flowery peace and racial justice that the virtue-signalling defunders fantasised it would. On the contrary, it helped to stoke violent crime, further destabilise city life, and make life even harder for poor black and brown communities in particular. The lesson here is clear: wokeness kills.

The idea of ‘Defund the Police’ has been around for a couple of decades. But it exploded into public view following the killing of Floyd in May 2020. It’s a simple-sounding proposition: you take public money away from police departments that are too often heavy-handed and racially prejudiced and plough it instead into fairer non-policing forms of ‘public safety’, like mental healthcare, youth services, improvements to housing, and so on. And hey presto, there’ll be fewer trigger-happy cops on the streets and more happy citizens no longer tussling with mental problems and crappy living conditions. The reality, of course, as could have been predicted by anyone who doesn’t live in a gated community and get all their news from the New York Times, has been rather different.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Free speech becomes roadkill in the crackdown on Canadian truckers By Jonathan Turley,

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/593983-free-speech-becomes-roadkill-in-the-crackdown-on-canadian-truckers

Canada appears to be facing its greatest threat since Benedict Arnold came close to seizing Ottawa in 1775. The source of this “insurrection” and “attack on democracy,” however, is not a foreign government but Canadians who have descended on their own capital to protest continuing COVID-19 mandates.

The protest has been peaceful — and highly successful in cutting off key highways. But the most alarming development has not come from the convoy but from the commentary about it, including calls for mass arrests and even vigilantism. The Ottawa Police Services Board chairman has called it a “nationwide insurrection,” adding, “Our city is under siege.”

CNN analyst and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem was apoplectic at the thought of truckers shutting down roads and interfering with trade. She tweeted out a call to “slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks.” CNN correspondent Paula Newton said this act of civil disobedience was nothing less than a “threat to democracy. An insurrection, sedition.”

Blocking streets, occupying buildings and shutting down bridges have long been tactics of protesters. Yet what constitutes a protest or an insurrection often seems to depend on the cause involved. When rioters caused billions of dollars in damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy. But CNN’s Kayyem once called conservative protesters occupying a state capital to be “domestic terrorists.” GoFundMe, which previously helped fund arrested Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters, froze more than $10 million raised for Canadian truckers to prevent it from being used to support them.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Media Blackout of Durham’s Bombshell Report Alleging Clinton Campaign ‘Infiltrated’ Trump Tower By Rick Moran

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/02/13/the-media-blackout-of-durhams-bombshell-report-alleging-clinton-campaign-infiltrated-trump-tower-n1558817

A filing by special counsel John Durham — alleging Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign paid a technology company to establish an “inference” that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia so she could win an election — has not generated much excitement in the mainstream media.

Perhaps because the story is somewhat complex, the media has decided not to report on it? Indeed, naming all the players and their actions is a chore, if you read the few media outlets on the right that are covering it.

It’s sort of boring — until you realize the staggering implications of what’s being alleged.

Durham is saying that the Democratic candidate for president in 2016 engaged in a criminal conspiracy to infiltrate the opposition’s most sensitive, compartmentalized information and tried to manipulate data and information to politically damage her opponent.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

CNN is full of stories about Donald Trump’s clogged toilet, but nothing about the Durham probe. The Washington Post is equally silent. As are The New York Times and the Associated Press.

Will these brave, courageous purveyors of truth cover the fact that Trump special prosecutor Robert Mueller was hoodwinked by these shenanigans? That Mueller was kept in the dark about the surveillance from which some of his “evidence” was obtained?

Donald Trump was livid.

Fox News:

Former President Trump reacted to the filing on Saturday evening, saying Durham’s filing “provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia.”

“This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution,” Trump said. “In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death.”

Trump added: “In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Thanks to Michael Ordman, every week we get incredible news from Israel. From A: Agriculture to Z: Zoology, Israeli innovations and technology help to vanquish despair, disease, famine, and physical challenges for millions. Communications among formerly hostile nations forged in the Abraham Accords thrive, and Israel’s active music, theater, cinema and dance institutions break the invidious barriers of boycotts, and its national cuisine is now considered among the best in the world. In spite of disputatious politics, and the libels of international media, Israelis of every color and ethnicity and life preferences are free to enjoy democracy, freedom and good times. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Alzheimer’s breakthrough. Tel Aviv University scientists have identified pathological activity in the brain that precedes initial Alzheimer’s symptoms by many years. A systemic failure causes high activity in the hippocampus even during sleep. They also found that an existing MS treatment suppresses this activity.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-695244
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124721017800
 
The future of cancer therapy. Israel’s ImmPACT Bio is developing transformative logic-gate-based CAR-T cell therapies for cancer patients who have exhausted their treatment options. The technology is designed to distinguish cancerous cells from normal cells, thereby eliminating tumors without damaging normal tissues. https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-cancer-therapy-co-immpact-bio-raises-111m-1001399387
https://immpact-bio.com/
 
Vitamin D and Covid-19. Researchers from Israel’s Bar Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center have confirmed and now published their conclusions regarding their June study (see here previously) that showed increased vitamin D levels can help COVID-19 patients reduce the risk of serious illness or death.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-study-offers-strongest-proof-yet-of-vitamin-ds-power-to-fight-covid/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263069
 
A strategy for tackling Covid-19. Israel’s Pangea (see here previously) has launched a comprehensive portfolio of services and products aimed at helping government authorities over the globe tackle the COVID-19 crisis in their country. Pangea set up Test2Fly at Ben Gurion airport and Green Pass entry systems for offices.
https://www.new-techeurope.com/2022/01/18/israels-pangea-launches-strategic-venture-to-provide-covid-19-products-and-services-to-governments-worldwide/  
 
Passive detection of diseases. Israel’s Olive Diagnostics (see here previously) has completed a successful clinical trial of its KG hands-free, non-invasive, AI-based optical device for 100% passive and seamless urinalysis. In continuous testing, the device accurately detected biomarkers associated with kidney stones.
https://www.startuphub.ai/olive-diagnostics-100-passive-urine-analysis-device-accurately-detects-biomarkers-for-kidney-stones-uti-and-heart-failure/  https://www.olive.earth/
 
A high fat diet can repair brain damage. A Tel Aviv University study indicates that a ketogenic diet may reduce the effects of brain damage after traumatic injury. High-fat products such as meat, fish, eggs, avocado, butter etc., are eaten while restricting carbohydrates e.g., bread, sugar, grains, legumes, pastries and even fruits.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-fat-diet-may-restore-cognitive-function-lost-in-brain-injury-israeli-study/
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/320622   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34876621/
 
Is DNA talking to us? Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University applied linguistics to the study of how DNA protein letter groups repeat. They then generated an algorithm that revealed their functions and now believe this approach can help plan the development of innovative new treatments.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/dna_text.aspx  https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/49/20/11447/6414050
 
Spinal implant could help paralyzed to walk. (TY WIN) A first-of-its-kind 3D-printed spinal cord tissue implant developed in Prof. Tal Dvir’s regenerative biotechnology lab at Tel Aviv University, has enabled paralyzed lab mice to walk again. Startup Matricelf (see here previously) is now working on a human version.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-lab-made-spinal-cords-get-paralyzed-mice-walking-human-trial-in-3-years/ https://english.tau.ac.il/news/artificial-spine https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202105694
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZQ0-KoaFDE   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swAIomwbZvw
 
Pursue an MD degree in Israel. Do you know of someone interested in pursuing their M.D. or MBA degree in Israel? This video features Lynne M. Quittell, M.D., director of the North American office of BGU’s Medical School for International Health.  https://americansforbgu.org/video/md-or-mba-degree-in-english/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGkH7dTKy84
 
How an insensitive doctor spurred on an EU award-winner. Dr. Daphne Haim-Langford was just 16 when a doctor told her not to study as she was going blind with Uveitis. It pushed her to get a PhD at Israel’s Technion Institute, found medical startup Tarsier and win the EU 2021 prize for female innovators (see here previously).
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3928585,00.html

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Ignored Pandemic: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18226/christians-persecuted-worldwide

“When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, they tried to appear moderate—but there’s no sign that Christianity will be anything other than a death sentence.” — World Watch List-2022.

“The persecution of Christians in India has intensified, as Hindu extremists aim to cleanse the country of their presence and influence. The extremists disregard Indian Christians and other religious minorities as true Indians, and think the country should be purified of non-Hindus…..” — World Watch List-2022.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a new weapon to persecutors. In some areas, Christians have been deliberately overlooked in the local distribution of government aid and have even been accused of spreading the virus.” — World Watch List-2022.

In Qatar, “Violence against Christians rose sharply ….” — World Watch List-2022.

In Bangladesh (#29), local authorities told Muslim converts to Christianity who, like their Muslim counterparts, sought governmental aid, “to return to Islam or receive nothing.”

In the Central African Republic, which was “hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic … Christians were denied government aid and told to convert to Islam if they wanted to eat.”

Another notable trend concerns the growing number of internally or externally displaced people — 84 million: “a significant number [of whom] are Christians fleeing religious persecution.”

[A]t least a quarter, though arguably much more, of all hate crimes registered in Europe in 2020 were anti-Christian — representing a 70% increase compared to 2019.

[I]t is telling that the European nations suffering the most also happen to have Europe’s largest Muslim populations — namely, Germany (where anti-Christian hate crimes have more than doubled since 2019) and France (where two churches are reportedly attacked every single day, some, as in the Muslim world, with human feces).

In short, the persecution of Christians, which was already horrific, has increased by nearly 70% over the last five years, with no signs of abating.

How long will it be before this seemingly irreversible trend metastasizes into those nations currently celebrated for their religious freedom?

HISTORY, MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The 1918 flu didn’t end in 1918. Here’s what its third year can teach us.By Jess McHugh

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/06/1918-flu-fourth-wave/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

In New York City in 1920 — nearly two years into a deadly influenza pandemic that would claim at least 50 million lives worldwide — the new year began on a bright note.

“Best Health Report for City in 53 Years,” boasted a headline in the New York Times on Jan. 4, 1920, after New York had survived three devastating waves of the flu virus. The nation as a whole, which would ultimately lose 675,000 people to the disease, believed that the end might finally be in sight.

Within a few weeks, however, those optimistic headlines began to change. Before the end of the month, New York City would experience a surge in influenza cases. Chicago and other urban centers reported the same.

‘The 1918 flu is still with us’: The deadliest pandemic ever is still causing problems today

Residents should prepare themselves for an “influenza return,” New York City health commissioner Royal S. Copeland warned. He predicted that the virus variant responsible for the surge would be milder and that those who had fallen ill the previous year would be immune. He was wrong, at least in part: While many places worldwide did not see a fourth wave of the great influenza pandemic, several metropolises — including New York City, Chicago and Detroit — had another deadly season in store.

As the coronavirus pandemic creeps into its third year, and the death toll in the United States reaches 900,000, the 1918 influenza pandemic can offer some insight into how this chapter of history might draw to a close. But an “ending,” when it comes to viruses such as these, is a misleading word. Eventually, experts say, the novel coronavirus is likely to transition from a deadly and disruptive pathogen to a milder, more seasonal nuisance.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Free Speech in the UK? by Judith Bergman

Posted By on February 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18208/free-speech-britain

“It isn’t hate to speak the truth.” — J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, Twitter, June 6, 2020.
“An entire generation are puzzled by the idea that anyone has the right to say things they don’t agree with…for most people, true free speech has ceased to exist…. On some issues, such as the transgender controversy, it is virtually impossible to say anything without attracting the attention of the Thought Police.” — Peter Hitchens, author and journalist, Daily Mail, December 11, 2021.
“Among millions, the idea that you can defend someone’s right to say something you disagree with is now puzzling. They have no idea why anyone would do that. For them, the debate is over, they have won, and those who oppose them are stupid and wrong.” — Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail, December 11, 2021.
“They also view my doubts about the theory of man-made global warming as ‘denial’ of a fact which they regard as proven. To them, this is little short of sabotage of efforts to combat this peril.” — Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail, December 11, 2021.
“All of them believed that they owned the truth, that they were profoundly good and that those who got in their way were therefore evil as well as wrong.” — Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail, December 11, 2021.

Freedom of speech is doing extremely poorly in the UK, according to a recent YouGov poll. When Britons were asked what should be the priority, 43% said protecting people from offensive or hateful speech should be the priority, while only 38% said the focus should be on protecting free speech. Generally, men and conservative voters were more concerned about protecting free speech, while women, younger people and Labour voters were more concerned about blocking offensive or hateful speech.