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December 2023

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Dark Money Nightmare’: How Qatar Bought the Ivy League by Robert Williams

By on December 31st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20265/qatar-bought-ivy-league

“At least 100 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undocumented contributions from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian…. Speech intolerance—manifesting as campaigns to investigate, censor, demote, suspend, or terminate speakers and scholars—was higher at institutions that received undocumented money from foreign regimes.” — ISGAP report, “The Corruption of the American Mind,” November 2023.

Qatar makes it possible for Ivy League universities to claim that they receive no funds from the Qatari state, because the donations are funneled through the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a not-for-profit organization established in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar. This ensures that the foundation can identify itself as a private organization, which enables Qatar to conceal its state funding as private donations.

“At the time of writing, the State of Qatar contributes more funds to universities in the United States than any other country in the world, and raw donation totals omit critical, concerning details about the nature of Qatar’s academic funding.” — ISGAP report, “Networks of Hate,” December 2023.

“We would pay them [journalists]… Some of them have become MPs now. Others have become patriots…. We would pay [journalists] in many countries. We would pay them every year. Some of them received salaries. All the Arab countries were doing this. If not all, then most of them.” — Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim, February 2022.

The hapless testimony by three Ivy League university presidents from Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce can be traced to Qatar and its insidious campaign to buy itself influence in US academia.

Qatar, oil-rich and with an estimated population of only 2.5 million, is the largest foreign donor — that we know about — to American universities, with at least $4.7 billion donated between 2001 and 2021. Many of those billions went unreported to the Department of Education, according to research done by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). Under federal law, colleges and universities that receive donations from foreign sources that total at least $250,000 must disclose such transactions to the Department of Education.

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: DISPROPORTIONATE? INDEED!

By on December 31st, 2023

The criticism tossed at Israel in the mainstream media and among the pro-Hamas protesters  that Israel’s response to the barbarism of October 7, 2023 is “disproportionate” is actually risible.

However, something in Israel is truly disproportionate. It is the outsize 24/7 research and development of technology, medicine, agriculture and water systems, that alleviate illness, famine, epidemics, and prolonged drought for billions of citizens throughout the world.

Got that? A nation about the size of New Jersey with a population of 9.73 million brings relief and hope to billions as Michael Ordman catalogs every week.

That is really disproportionate. rsk

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on December 31st, 2023

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

As 2023 comes to an end, I unashamedly write this introduction with much emotion. There are now definite signs that Israel is winning the war against Hamas in Gaza. It cannot fail, thanks to a winning team of supporters in Israel and across the globe who, like the many thousands of readers of this newsletter, have been donating time, money, skills, accommodation, essential supplies, and more, to help the IDF fight against those wishing to destroy the Jewish State and civilization as a whole. Michael Ordman

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
2.6 million items of warm clothing. Friends of the IDF in the United States completed “Winter Clothing Operation,” a 5-week initiative to send 150 tons (over 2.5 million items) of essential winter clothing and gear to Israeli soldiers fighting on the front line in Gaza.
https://www.jns.org/friends-of-the-idf-ships-150-tons-of-winter-clothing-gear-to-troops/  
 
Nvidia donates $15 million. Thousands of employees of IT giant Nvidia donated $5 million to support Israelis affected by the war. This was tripled by Nvidia itself, with an additional $10 million donation.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bjjbd8hwp
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nvidia-raises-15-million-to-help-israeli-civilians-affected-by-hamas-war/
 
You’re never too old. Ezra Yachin at 95 years young is the oldest active IDF reservist. Despite losing an eye in 1948, he was called up to active duty in the current war. The New York Post, Al Jazeera, etc., wrote about the elderly IDF soldier who put on a uniform again to defend Israel. And he says the enemy hasn’t changed tactics.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/382468
https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/95-year-old-reservist-joins-israels-fight-against-hamas-terrorists/ (skip video)
 
Citizen’s Kitchen. (TY UWI) US immigrant to Israel, Aliya Fastman, launched Citizen’s Kitchen on Oct 9, converting her Citrus & Salt studio for cooking lessons into a community kitchen for meal distribution. It has since provided 20,000+ meals to soldiers, bereaved or displaced families, and synagogues hosting meals.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/12/20/how-olim-are-helping-israels-war-effort-part-3-providing-meals-displaced-families-soldiers/  https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-769799
https://www.citrusandsaltcooking.com/
 
JNF-USA volunteers in action. (TY UWI) Volunteers from JNF-USA have heeded the cry of Israel in its time of need and offered whatever services they could help with.  From cooking meals for soldiers on bases, crop picking and storing, to watching children; these volunteers are taking a huge burden off the shoulders of Israel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2x5QojlPhI   https://www.jnf.org/ways-to-help/support-israel
https://www.jnf.org/travel/tours/index/volunteer-in-israel-missions
 
Volunteers from UK & Germany. Lovely to hear the accents of British volunteers and their reasons for coming to help on farms on farms in southern Israel.  Meanwhile (TY Hazel) staff from the German Embassy volunteered for a day in the orange harvest to help short-staffed Israeli farmers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6axF7JOJ7eQ
https://www.instagram.com/germanyinisrael/reel/C1Epm9hsHIV/
 
Ways that Israelis are volunteering. Israelis are finding unusual ways to pitch in to aid those affected by the events of October 7 and the ongoing battle in Gaza. They include tailoring, matchmaking, folding laundry, giving haircuts, cleaning hospital rooms, rescuing vehicles, and a mobile restroom.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-most-unusual-ways-israelis-are-volunteering-during-the-war/
 
Thanks for the donation. IDF forces have uncovered millions of shekels in Gaza and PA cities that were intended to fund terrorism.  Israel will make better use of the money.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hy5gf99pa  https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rkmz00spia
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-775178
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Hospital launches innovation hub. Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center has partnered with international investment firm Arieli Capital to create SHAAR – a joint healthcare innovation hub, designed to be a center for medical research. Healthcare companies will be invited to the first global scale-up cohort by the end of 2023.
https://nocamels.com/2023/12/top-jerusalem-hospital-unveils-healthcare-innovation-hub/
 
Thousands of overseas volunteer doctors. Israel’s Health Ministry has received 7,500 requests from foreign physicians to volunteer in Israel. Nearly 5,000 are from North America and 1,000 from Europe. Many are not Jewish – they just want to help. 450 have Israeli licenses and the rest are being fast-tracked.
https://www.jns.org/the-medical-specialists-who-left-all-behind-to-volunteer-in-israel/
 
Physical therapy on the front lines. Many of Israel’s IDF reservists are in the thirties and forties and not as fit and subtle as they used to be. So UK-born Tasha Cohen launched Chayal’s Angels of volunteer yoga therapists, massage therapists, acupuncturists, physiotherapists and chiropractors who treat 50 to 200 soldiers every day.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-army-of-volunteer-physical-therapists-treats-aching-idf-soldiers-on-the-front-lines/  
 
Miracle survival from deadly wounds. Despite many tragic losses, two IDF soldiers survived gunshot wounds that are usually fatal. Major Itai was hit by a bullet that is still lodged in his brain and cannot be removed. Another bullet passed through Sgt Oren Dovid’s heart.  Following surgery, both want to return to their units.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/idf-heroes-remarkably-survive-gunshots-to-the-heart-and-brain/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvsHSseXTE  (Hebrew video of Major Itai, but easy to appreciate.)
 
Hyperbaric oxygen to treat PTSD.  Traumatized survivors of the Hamas Oct 7 terror attacks and IDF soldiers with PTSD are receiving HBOT therapy (see here) breathing pure oxygen in high pressure cabins. It is one of the treatments available to patients of the national clinic for PTSD, created by Tel Aviv University.
https://bnnbreaking.com/breaking-news/health/israeli-ptsd-victims-find-hope-in-hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-post-hamas-attacks/ .  https://english.tau.ac.il/news/national-ptsd-clinic
 
HBOT for Mikey. (TY Avi Abelow) Mikey, a key member of the IDF Oketz search and rescue special forces unit, was severely wounded by a grenade thrown by a Hamas terrorist. She recovered most of her faculties in just a few weeks thanks to Hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) at Israel’s Shamir hospital. Mikey is a dog!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30kPEOwv5hc
 
From death’s door to discharge. Menashe Eisner, 63, suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support. A complex bypass operation failed. Then surgeons at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus implanted a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). Miraculously, 40 days later, Eisner was able to go home.
https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/LVAD_medical_miracle.aspx
 
Preventing severe lung diseases in diabetics. 35% of patients that died of Covid-19 were diabetics. This led scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute to discover that high blood sugar levels disrupted the immune system response to infection. They then developed experimental medication to reverse the sugar-induced dysfunction.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/why-people-diabetes-are-more-prone-respiratory-risk
 
No big shakes. Lynette Hoffman-Elharar remembers a time when Essential tremor meant she could not hold a glass of water or draw a straight line. Now, after undergoing noninvasive MRI-guided focused ultrasound (MRIgFUS) at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus, she is knitting woolen hats for IDF soldiers.
https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/Knitting_again_after_bilateral_MRIgFUS.aspx
 
Helping the helpers. Jerusalem’s Herzog Medical Center is supported by organizations in the USA, Canada, and the UK. The British Friends of the hospital have just launched a national campaign “Helping the Helpers”’ providing support for mental health professionals treating an increasing number of trauma patients.
http://www.herzoghospital.org/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVmFbpfHMLk
https://www.afherzoghospital.org/  https://www.herzoghospital.ca/
 
96% of nurses at Rambam are graduates. Thanks to two international scholarship programs, 23 nurses at Israel’s Rambam Health Care Campus recently advanced their studies to specialize in various medical disciplines. 96% of Rambam nurses currently hold academic degrees. The target is 100%.
https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/2023_nursing_scholarships.aspx
 
Record year for liver transplants. In 2023 at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva, a record 24 life-saving liver transplants were conducted in infants, children, and adolescents. Liver transplants in children are among the most medically complex. Two donations were from soldiers killed in the war in Gaza.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/382698
 
Israeli doctor saves passenger on El Al flight. Dr. Nathan Ungar, a long-time United Hatzalah volunteer, saved a 70-year-old diabetic passenger who lost consciousness twice on an El Al flight from Bulgaria to Israel. Dr Ungar closely monitored the patient’s condition until the plane made an emergency landing at Rhodes.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/382703

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Biden Dept of Energy Continues War on Consumers – New Fridge/Freezer and Fans Regulations Enacted

By on December 31st, 2023

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/12/29/biden-dept-of-energy-continues-war-on-consumers-new-fridge-freezer-and-fans-regulations-enacted/

We all know the routine. Water-saving toilets that don’t flush (flush twice), water/energy-saving dishwashers and clothes washers that don’t clean (run two cycles), lightbulbs that don’t light, dryers that don’t dry (run twice), and all the ancillary nonsense that comes from the intervention of the regulatory state.

What Biden and the progressive movement call the “green new deal” effort toward “sustainability,” including the ban on gas stoves and internal combustion engines, simply results in a diminished quality of life, a loss in lifestyle productivity, and the exact opposite outcome from their expressed/intended purpose.  It’s an abject mess of stupidity, pushed under the guise of environmentalism.

Today the Biden Dept of Energy (DOE) takes it one step further with rules and regulations on fridges, freezers and fans. {DOE LINK}

Residential Refrigerators and Freezers – The efficiency standards being adopted today for residential refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers, which have not been updated in over a decade, align with recommendations from a diverse set of stakeholders, including manufacturers, the manufacturing trade association, energy, environmental, and consumer advocacy groups, states, and utilities. Compliance will be required either January 31, 2029, or January 31, 2030, depending on the configuration of the refrigerator or freezer. The energy savings over 30 years of shipments is 5.6 quadrillion British thermal units, which represents a savings of 11% relative to the energy use of products currently on the market. DOE estimates that the standards would save consumers $36.4 billion over 30 years of shipments and result in cumulative emission reductions of nearly 101 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—an amount roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions of 12.7 million homes. 

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Migrant Encounters at the Border Smashes Record in December as Crisis Continues to Worsen By Debra Heine

By on December 31st, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/29/migrant-encounters-at-the-border-smashes-record-in-december-as-crisis-continues-to-worsen/

The crisis at the border is getting worse by the day and previous records of migrant encounters are being shattered, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources.

A record number of illegal aliens entered the United States in December, the CBP sources told Fox News’ Bill Melugin Friday.

In a post on X, Melugin reported that there were “over 276,00 migrant encounters at the southern border in December, the highest single month ever recorded, breaking the prior record set in September at 269,735, and there are still 3 days of December left,” according to the CBP sources.

“This new record number includes over 230,000 Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal immigrants in December, also the highest single month of apprehensions ever recorded for Border Patrol,” Melugin wrote.

We are now at over 760,000 migrant encounters since October 1st, making the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 also the highest ever recorded. That’s a population size bigger than Seattle in just three months. All records being blown out of the water under the Biden admin as the crisis gets worse—not better.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

How Hamas weaponises victimhood In 2023, we learned just how deadly identity politics can be. Frank Furedi

By on December 30th, 2023

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/30/how-hamas-weaponises-victimhood/

After Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on 7 October, the speed with which woke Westerners came out in support of the terrorists remains shocking to recall. Within a matter of hours, pundits, activists and academics flooded social media to claim that this anti-Semitic pogrom was a form of anti-colonial resistance. Within days, they were out on the streets of Western cities staging ‘pro-Palestine’ protests, letting off celebratory flares and chanting the genocidal chant, ‘From the river to the sea’. It showed that identitarian Westerners are willing to justify violence, no matter how brutal, so long as it is perpetrated by certain identity groups.

This embrace of Hamas by these Westerners is not an aberration, however. It follows from the logic of identity politics itself.

There are two main reasons why identity politics and support for Hamas go hand in hand. Firstly, identity politics has sacralised victimhood. That is, it attributes an enormous amount of moral authority to groups and individuals on the basis of their perceived victimisation. As Palestinians have been uniformly framed as victims over several decades, they have a tremendous amount of moral authority in identitarian eyes. Secondly, for the woke, victims are by definition blameless. They can neither be doubted nor held responsible for their actions. In the eyes of Western identitarians, Hamas, as the representative of a blameless victim group, is not to be held responsible for what it did on 7 October.

Strikingly, Hamas and other reactionary Islamist groups have themselves bought into the language of victimisation and identity politics. They increasingly frame their actions in therapeutic terms. They present themselves as the traumatised victims of assorted forms of oppression. As Ghazi Hamad, a leading figure in Hamas, put it last month: ‘We are the victims of the [Israeli] occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On 7 October, 10 October, 1,000,000 October – everything we do is justified.’

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

2023 has exposed the moral depravity of the radical left Jews, women, the working class – leftists have betrayed everyone they once claimed to speak for. Tom Slater

By on December 30th, 2023

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/30/2023-has-exposed-the-moral-depravity-of-the-radical-left/

What does it mean to be radical, left-wing, progressive? Well, in 2023, it meant making excuses for a genocidal anti-Semitism, refusing to believe evidence of mass rape and naysaying about the terroristic murder of infants. This was the year the ‘right side of history’ brigade exploded their phoney moral superiority for good.

When Hamas sent men on paragliders, motorbikes and in jeeps into southern Israel on 7 October – murdering, raping, mutilating and kidnapping as many Jews as they could find – I thought those on the anti-Israel left would be forced to reassess. Forced to rethink their years of Hamas apologism – their thinly veiled support for these Jew-hating maniacs, who they have long whitewashed as a ‘legitimate resistance movement’ in Palestine.

After all, that dark day these supposed leftists were – or rather should have been – confronted by the barbaric consequences of their own luxury beliefs. They were shown, beyond doubt, that Hamas’s genocidal founding charter was not just talk – that Hamas was not in fact ‘dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and long-term peace and social justice in the whole region’, as one Jeremy Corbyn once put it.

But they didn’t reassess. Many leftists openly celebrated the pogrom, hailing it as a ‘day of celebration’. The Socialist Worker called on its nine readers to ‘rejoice’. Many initially giddy tweets were deleted, as the more savvy left-wingers settled in to blaming Israel for being attacked and refusing to believe women were raped. It was victim-blaming on a geopolitical scale; atrocity denial for the Twitterring, TikToking age.

These supposed anti-racists happily provided cover for the world’s oldest bigotry. Many openly engaged in it themselves. Meanwhile, these supposed anti-fascists turned a blind eye as ‘pro-Palestine’ protests turned our streets into an open sewer of Jew hatred. Genocidal slogans were chanted. Swastikas were brandished. Hate crime soared. And they just didn’t care.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

A New Kind of Knothead: Ecosexual Woman Falls in Love With an Oak Tree Milt Harris

By on December 30th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/miltharris/2023/12/27/a-new-kind-of-knot-head-ecosexual-woman-falls-in-love-with-an-oak-tree-n4925056

May–December relationships can be tough. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s a term for a romantic relationship between two people with a considerable age difference. Many experts believe that these types of relationships can be especially difficult. Between societal pressures and different milestones, two individuals from differing decades might just have to try a little harder to make a relationship work for the long haul.

Sonja Semyonova, a 45-year-old woman from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, has found herself in one of these relationships, though hers is slightly more complicated. The one she is attracted to could be up to 55 years older than her. We can’t be sure, of course, because the only way to tell with any degree of accuracy would be to cut the one she loves in half and count the rings. You see, Semyonova identifies as ecosexual, and her beau is an oak tree. 

Isn’t it ironic that the same people who think folks who believe in two sexes are strange condone what people like Semyonova embrace? Rational thought eludes them.

Semyonova describes her relationship as erotic. While she has always felt lonely, the oak tree has filled that void. I should mention that Semyonova claims to be a self-intimacy guide, whatever that is. I shudder to think what she sets her clients up with, especially since she claims that what she feels for the tree is what she has always wanted in a person.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Markets and Miracles John Stossel

By on December 30th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/john-stossel/2023/12/27/markets-and-miracles-n4925036

In this season of giving, I’ll donate to the Doe Fund, a charity that helps drug abusers and ex-cons find purpose in life through work.

Doe’s approach doesn’t include many handouts. It’s mostly about encouraging people to work. “Work works!” they say. 

It does. Most Doe Fund workers don’t go back to jail. 

I’ll also donate to Student Sponsor Partners, a nonprofit that gives scholarships to kids from low-income families so they can escape bad public schools. SSP sends them to Catholic schools. 

I’m not Catholic, but I donate because government-run schools are often so bad that Catholic schools do better at half the cost. Thanks to SSP, thousands of kids escape poverty.

Yet some on the left say giving time and money to charity is a mistake. Their trust in government leads them to think that government programs are much better at lifting people out of poverty. 

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Panders to His Far-Left Base, Hangs Up On Netanyahu Robert Spencer

By on December 30th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2023/12/30/biden-panders-to-his-far-left-base-hangs-up-on-netanyahu-n4925110

As 2024 fast approaches, Old Joe Biden is facing some serious obstacles to keep on pretending to be president until he is older than nearly three-quarters of our presidents were when they died. One of the most serious of these is that his far-left base, having been thoroughly miseducated to hate America and all that it stands for, also hates one of its staunchest allies, Israel, and is outraged that the Biden regime appears to be standing by the Jewish state. But Rashida Tlaib and her pals need not be concerned: in a bid to keep these Marxists in line and pulling the Biden lever, Old Joe just made a big push to keep their support.

The Daily Caller reported Saturday that the addled and aging corruptocrat “reportedly hung up on Prime Minister Netanyahu after a heated phone call about the Palestinian tax revenue dispute.” News of this latest embarrassment comes from “two U.S. and Israeli officials and a source with knowledge of the issue.” No one seems to be saying that Old Joe, in the fog of his galloping dementia, mistook Netanyahu for an annoyingly persistent telemarketer, so apparently the hang-up was entirely intentional.

The dispute revolves around the fact that “amid the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli government has refused to release some tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority that it says would go to the terrorist group Hamas.”

It’s understandable that such hesitation would anger Old Joe. After all, the Biden regime has never hesitated to shovel money to the Palestinians, without any regard for the possibility that it could end up in the hands of Hamas. The alleged president demonstrated, for anyone who was paying attention, which side he is really on when he went over to Israel in late October and met with Netanyahu. He took the opportunity to announce that he was giving $100 million to Gaza, which meant, regardless of his warnings that Hamas better not grab the money, that it would end up in Hamas’ coffers. There was no entity in Gaza that was not controlled by Hamas and that could both receive this money and keep it out of the hands of the terror group.

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