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January 2025

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POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN *****

By on January 12th, 2025

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR

800 French teenagers volunteer. A delegation of some 800 French teenagers traveled to Israel, thanks to the Jewish Agency’s Israel Experience program and Mosaic United’s Shalom Corps. They have been packing food packages for the poor, helping MDA and Yad Sarah, volunteering at IDF bases and working in agriculture.

https://www.jns.org/800-french-teens-in-israel-to-volunteer-bolster-ties-with-europe/

NFL Legends love Israel. (TY UWI) NFL legends Nick Lowery (ex-Chiefs & Jets) and Tony Richardson (Cowboys, Chiefs, Vikings & Jets) touched down in Israel last week on a solidarity visit. After meeting hostage families, Lowery told President Herzog, “We’re here to say we love and support you – no matter what.”

https://www.jns.org/we-love-and-support-you-nfl-legends-pay-solidarity-visit-to-israel/

600 international students at BGU. Despite the war, 600 students from 64 countries have come to Israel to study at Ben-Gurion University. BGU’s International Academic Affairs Office offers personalized support for students worldwide, from visa assistance to organizing social activities.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-836625

Surge in Haredi recruits. (TY UWI) The IDF reported that 338 Haredim enlisted in the past week – 211 as combat soldiers, and 127 as combat supporters. The IDF also successfully inducted the inaugural cohort of the “Hashmonayim” (Hasmonean) Brigade, plus a second Haredi cohort for the Border Guard.

https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-army-reports-surge-in-haredi-soldiers-338-recruited-in-past-week/

$100 million recovery. Itamar Ben Hemo, co-founder of Israel’s Rivery (see here previously) was serving in the reserves in Gaza when he was shot in the chest by Hamas terrorists. He was rushed to hospital in 45 minutes where despite almost dying, he recovered and eventually sold his company to Boomi (US) for $100 million.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-israeli-tech-founders-journey-from-a-near-fatal-injury-in-gaza-to-a-100m-exit/

THAAD intercepts Houthi missile. U.S.-supplied THAAD air defense system successfully intercepted its first ballistic missile, launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen. “18 years waiting for this” says one of the American soldiers operating the system.  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401411

Semiconductor giant bets on Israel. Great article detailing how computer giant Applied Materials has been investing in its Israeli R&D center, despite the war. Having 15% (300) of its workforce in the IDF, it brought back retirees, rented a hotel for displaced families and gave financial and psychological help to employees.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/y4hfl2v34 

$150 million for PR. In the new budget, Israel’s Foreign Ministry will receive an extra $150 million for public diplomacy – more than 20 times that typically allotted in past years. One focus will be US college campuses, in cooperation with US Jewish groups and the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/foreign-ministry-to-receive-massive-budget-for-public-diplomacy-abroad/

Gaza desalination plant restarts. (TY Yanky) I don’t know why this has not been widely reported (oh yes I do!). The Deir el-Balah desalination plant in central Gaza has resumed operations. Since being reconnected to Israel’s electricity grid last month, the plant has produced thousands of cubic meters of drinkable water per day.

https://www.voanews.com/a/desalination-plant-quietly-resumes-operations-in-gaza/7914345.html

https://www.timesofisrael.com/rights-group-claims-gaza-water-scarcity-is-act-of-genocide-israel-blood-libel/

Galilee forests will regenerate. 20,000+ dunams of Galilee forest have been consumed by fires ignited by Hezbollah rocket strikes and interceptor fragments. But KKL-JNF’s chief forester Gilad Ostrovsky is sure that once burnt trees have been removed, the forest will regenerate naturally. Just as Israelis will return to the North.

https://www.jns.org/restoring-the-galilee-forest-a-five-year-journey-of-renewal-and-hope/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Treating cerebral aneurysms. Israel’s EndoStream Medical, which has just been acquired by Japan’s Kaneka, specializes in developing an innovative implant for the treatment of cerebral aneurysms. EndoStream’s “Nautilus” has been used in hundreds of patients globally to block blood flow to the aneurysm.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bkdyeeaikg  https://endostream.com/

https://vimeo.com/727320916  https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16800-brain-aneurysm

Microsensors for the heart. (TY TPS & WIN) Israel’s Microtech (part of Medinol – see here previously) has begun human clinical trials of their microsensor platform, to measure atrial pressures, vital for the treatment of heart failure. The tiny device is implanted and uses ultrasound to communicate, reducing hospitalizations.

https://medinol.com/news/microtech-announces-first-human-case-of-implantable-microsensor-for-heart-failure-2/    https://medinol.com/microtech-2/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QxgazSF_U

HBOT for PTSD. At the Shamir Medical Center, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – breathing pure oxygen in pressurized chambers – is proving to be a game-changer for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sufferers, with 70% reporting lasting relief. See here previously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZYhLJfeCWU

How bacteria resistance can be neutralized. A study by Tel Aviv University reveals how plasmids – small circular DNA fragments – neutralize bacterial defense mechanisms. It opens a door to combating antibiotic resistance. Plasmids could also break down pollutants, fix carbon dioxide, and improve gut bacteria.

https://en-lifesci.tau.ac.il/news/foreign_dna/news/sbcr  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07994-w

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07994-w

Milk fat is good for you. Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Israel’s Agriculture Research Organization have discovered that the fat globules in milk deliver beneficial pro-biotic bacteria and prevent the formation of harmful bacteria. The finding can lead to better infant milk and healthy milk products.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-research-reveals-new-possibilities-for-custom-dairy-products-to-boost-gut-health/  https://en.huji.ac.il/news/small-milk-fat-globules-promote-good-bacteria-study-reveals

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996924007506

Miracles at Schneider. In 2024, Israel’s Schneider Children’s Medical Center treated 55,000 children in its Emergency Rooms; 1,500 in intensive care; 874 babies in neonatal intensive care; six children received a new heart; 39 had organ transplants; 60 had cochlear implants; plus 3,000+ dialysis and 270,000+ outpatient visits.

https://www.fos.org.il/en/donate (Israelis)  https://chaischneider.org/donate/ (USA)

https://system.smartgiving.org.uk/charities/8530/make-donation (UK) 

Distinguished investigator. Ben Gurion University Prof Assaf Zaritsky has been honored with a 2024 Allen Distinguished Investigator Award. It includes $1.5 million for a project exploring how cellular structures called organelles form dynamic networks during the process of stem cell differentiation into neurons.

https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/news-and-articles/zaritsky-allen-distinguished-investigators-award/

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California Inferno Was ‘Preventable.’ Blame Malfeasance of Newsom, Bass for Catastrophe Victor Davis Hanson

By on January 12th, 2025

https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/01/09/california-inferno-was-preventable-blame-malfeasance-of-newsom-bass-for-catastrophe/
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” He is a lifelong resident of Southern California.

I’m here in California. I’ve been a lifelong resident of the state, fifth generation to live in the same house. I had a house in the Sierra, and it would almost burn down three years ago during the Aspen Fire, and I’m speaking on the evening when you’ve all heard about the disastrous fire in Los Angeles.

As I’m speaking on a Wednesday night, there have been 15,000 acres, 1,000 structures destroyed. Nobody knows how many people are killed or missing. And how do we characterize this? Everybody’s talking about the Santa Ana winds, climate change—I mean everybody, the people in power.”

But it was preventable. And once it started, this fire, it could have been assuaged. You could have had it lessened, that the severity didn’t have to be as catastrophic. So, I would characterize it as a DEI–Green New Deal hydrogen bomb. It’s something out of “Dante’s Inferno.”

And what I mean by that is, it’s a systems breakdown, a civilizational collapse. When you look at the people in charge, [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom flew in, to sort of do these performance-art stunts, but he has systematically ensured that water out of the Sacramento River and the watershed of Northern California would go out to the sea, rather than into the aqueduct, so Los Angeles didn’t have sufficient amounts of water.
 
He bragged not very long ago that he blew up four dams on the Klamath River. They provided 80,000 homes with clean hydroelectric power. They offered recreation, flood control, irrigation. He blew them up.

California’s fire management, whether we look at the Paradise Fire or the Aspen Fire near where I’m speaking, it destroyed 60 million trees. We have no timber industry in California. [Newsom’s] dismantled it.

We don’t clean the forest. We don’t let loggers come in and have a viable livelihood by harvesting trees. It’s sort of considered natural to let these things burn or to at least create the conditions in which they will inevitably be burned.

It’s almost as if we don’t like humans. We worry about grubs and worms and birds and the ecosystem.

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Merchan’s Verdict: A Conviction Without Consequence The New York legal system’s crusade against Trump ended in farce, with a biased judge delivering a hollow conviction and wishing Godspeed to the president-elect. By Roger Kimball

By on January 12th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/12/merchans-verdict-a-conviction-without-consequence/

I was at a dinner event on Thursday night when the news came that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett decided to throw a sop to the left.  At issue was whether the Democrat activist New York judge and Joe Biden contributor Juan Merchan should be allowed to sentence Donald Trump in the magic bookkeeping-error-non-disclosure-agreement case in which a possible misdemeanor underwent a legal transubstantiation and suddenly became a polished thirty-four-count felony. Amazing.

Along the way, Merchan issued gag orders against Trump,  interfered with his campaigning, and generally made it plain that he was singling Trump out for unfair treatment.  Still, Roberts and Barrett joined the Court’s left flank to render a 5-4 decision against Trump. Merchan could proceed with the sentencing of the past and now future president of the United States.

Merchan found Trump guilty, guilty, guilty last May. Thirty-four times did he pronounce “guilty.”  The world was amazed. The entire case was unprecedented. Not only was Merchan himself a Democrat activist, his daughter Loren has made millions from consulting for progressive candidates from Kamala Harris on down. What a long time ago it seems. Joe Biden was still running for president in May. Donald Trump had yet to be shot by a would-be assassin.  And Kamala Harris was still cackling in the wings.

We’ve had a lot of legal decisions since then, most of which have gone decidedly against the anti-Trump, lawfare establishment.  We also had an election, which Trump won handily, and a vast and sudden change in the emotional weather of the country.

When Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, there was a surge of optimism and people said that it was “morning in America” again. The bad Carter years gave way to a period of enthusiasm and confidence. Gone was Carter’s gas rationing, his skyrocketing inflation, unemployment,  and interest rates (what Reagan called “the misery index”).  Gone too was the hostage crisis in Iran. Reagan jump-started a period of economic growth through which the developed world saw the greatest accumulation of wealth in history. Reagan’s philosophy of “we win, they lose” put the Soviet Union on the fast track to disintegration, which happened in 1991, just a couple of years after Reagan left office.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Lessons in antisemitism from the NEU The powerful teachers’ union is obsessed with Palestine Nicole Lampert

By on January 12th, 2025

https://unherd.com/2025/01/lessons-in-antisemitism-from-the-neu/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_yFAhbURchNuZp4BR0L9vfyjgbV0AxKPiW

Perhaps the clues were always there. When the “national education union” was formed in 2017, it dispensed with the rules of grammar for its new image. Capital letters, typically used for proper nouns, were dispensed with in its logo. This new union said it planned to “shape the future of education”.

Today, with nearly half a million of the nation’s teachers in its ranks, the NEU (capitals allowed) is the biggest education union in Europe. It is also the most powerful. During the pandemic, it was sufficiently influential to close Britain’s schools. For such services, Mary Bousted, its leader at the time, was made a Dame in this year’s New Year honours.

Under her replacement as general secretary, Daniel Kebede, the NEU has remained a campaigning organisation, lobbying on gender equality, racism and LGBT rights. But in recent years, it has dedicated itself to one cause in particular: Palestine.

One might wonder what a British teaching union has to do with a geopolitical conflict 3,000 miles away, but the question would be moot. Every year — excepting wars and pandemics — the NEU subsidises two propaganda trips to the Palestinian Territories, while its magazine Educate frequently denounces Israel. In one recent editorial, Kebede wrote: “As educators whose instincts are humanitarian, members are appalled by the willingness of political leaders to let this situation go on. Why do arms sales continue? Why has the verdict of the International Court of Justice not restrained their behaviour?”

To understand this obsession, one need only attend the NEU’s annual conference. Even before the conference, different branches were thinking up novel ways to attack Israel. Natasha Brandon, a Jewish secondary school teacher based in North London, was surprised to find it top of the agenda for the LBGT+ division when they got together ahead of conference.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Keeping BDS Out of Academia: A Canadian Case Study Recordings from a recent Brock University faculty union meeting illustrate the tactics that anti-Israel activists use to co-opt ostensibly neutral academic institutions. Jonathan Kay

By on January 12th, 2025

https://quillette.com/2025/01/07/keeping-bds-out-of-academia-a-canadian-case-study-2/

A Canadian professor once complained to me that academia is nowhere near as radically leftist as conservative culture critics tend to imagine. Yes, there’s plenty of “wokeness” on display. But almost all of these woke controversies, he argued, originate with a tiny minority of dedicated extremists. Most of his colleagues—well over 90 percent, by his estimation—would prefer to stay out of the public eye, avoid political fights, and focus on their areas of specialised research.

He may well be right. But as numerous examples reported by Quillette have shown, even small groups of highly motivated ideologues can exert an outsized influence on the intellectual climate at their schools—especially if they succeed in co-opting ostensibly neutral bodies such as hiring committees, DEI oversight teams, and academic unions.

Intersectionality’s Cosmic Inquisitor
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein has made a name for herself as one of STEM’s most implacable activists. Now the targets of her online attacks are fighting back

A recent case study concerns the Brock University Faculty Association (BUFA), the labour union that represents about 600 full-time faculty members and professional librarians at Brock, a large public research university located about two hours west of Toronto. At BUFA’s general meetings, quorum requirements may be satisfied by just 5 percent of the membership—or about 30 people.

According to one Brock professor who monitors BUFA’s activities closely, most meetings attract just a few dozen people. Few workaday profs can even spare the time required to scrutinize the agendas, which are sent out five days before each meeting.

And so it apparently wasn’t difficult for an assistant professor of sociology named Gökbörü Sarp Tanyildiz to get his “Motion on Scholasticide in Palestine” onto the agenda of BUFA’s December 16, 2024 meet-up—where it was duly seconded by his old master’s-degree supervisor, Nancy Cook (an expert on, among other things, “critical mobilities studies, and feminist, postcolonial and poststructural theory”).

Consistent with other campaigns inspired by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, Tanyildiz accuses the Jewish state of not only “scholasticide,” but also apartheid, genocide, and war crimes. He calls for Brock’s administration (and its pension planners) to execute a “complete divestment” from any organization that’s even indirectly “complicit” in this regard—including multinational corporations and Israeli universities—and demands that Brock enact a long laundry list of pro-Palestinian policies.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Who Really Denied Statehood to the Palestinian People? by Alan M. Dershowitz *****

By on January 12th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21310/palestinian-statehood-denied

Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution….

The Jews accepted the [1937] Peel partition plan, while the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding that all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and that most of the Jewish population of Palestine be “transferred” — ethnically cleansed — out of the country…

The Jewish leadership [in 1948] declared statehood in the area allocated to it by the UN. The Arab leadership responded by declaring a genocidal war against the new state of the Jewish people. They did not want a Palestinian state. And they wanted there to be no Jewish state.

No one, therefore, should believe that it was Israel that has made the Palestinian people stateless. It was the Palestinians themselves… The current anti-Israel protesters in the West are not calling for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. They, like the failed Palestinian leadership, just wants to end Israel’s existence. It is not going to happen. Until the Palestinians recognize this reality, they will be denying themselves any possibility of statehood.

One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people. To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would have created a Palestinian state, alongside a state for Jewish inhabitants.

In 1937 – in the midst of the terrorist revolt inspired by Adolf Hitler’s ally, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – the British published the Palestine Royal Commission Report (also known as the Peel Commission Report).

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Do Not Fall for Iran’s Nuclear Negotiation Trap: A Strategy to Buy Time by Majid Rafizadeh

By on January 12th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21299/iran-nuclear-negotiation-trap

Lest anyone think that this is a genuine attempt at diplomacy, it is not. Rather, it is a maneuver aimed at deceptively buying time, avoiding sanctions and deflecting impending actions of the Trump administration.

Iran’s regime is playing a game of manipulation, apparently hoping to mislead the world and stave off serious consequences — namely losing their nuclear weapons program — which, mind-bogglingly, it denies even having, as well as, more importantly, losing their jobs…. It is a tactic known by every four-year old and absolutely should not be taken at face value.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who backed HTS, apparently now sees a neo-Ottoman Turkey finally replacing Iran as the aspiring hegemon in the region, with himself as sultan.

The regime’s goal is clear: buy time, reach a sweetheart deal similar to the one it was handed by the Obama administration, secure sanctions relief and opportunities to complete its nuclear weapons.

Unless Iran is stopped, it will continue covertly to advance its nuclear weapons program – regardless, of course, of any agreements made.

Will the incoming Trump administration let themselves be gamed and permit Iran to be capable of threatening the region again as soon as Trump’s term is up? Iran’s request for negotiations sadly seems part of a larger strategy to enable it to resume its reign of terror. The Trump administration must not allow it to succeed…. Make Persia Safe Again! — for the Iranian people and for enduring global peace.

The Iranian regime has made a sudden and calculated move to engage in talks about nuclear weapons. The UK, France, and Germany have announced that negotiations will begin on January 13.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Jack Cashill :What’s the Matter with California?: Cultural Rumbles from the Golden State and Why the Rest of Us Should Be Shaking

By on January 12th, 2025

Prophetic words from Jack Cashill in 2007

A whimsical response to the best-selling What’s the Matter with Kansas? casts a skeptical eye on the nation’s most liberal and populous state, in an anecdotal survey that likens California to an American Rome of over-indulgence and over-regulation that fails to meet its ideals.

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