RUTHFULLY YOURS

Translated from Hebrew by SallyZahav with permission from the author.
Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.

This week, on the tenth of the month of Muharram, the first month of the Hijri calendar, is Ashura, which at first was akin to the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, occurring on a similar date. However, over the years, this day has become a memorial day for Hussein bin Ali, leader of the Shi’ite sect, who was executed by the army of the Sunni regime in southern Iraq in the year 680 CE, 1333 years ago. He was decapitated and his head was ceremoniously brought to Damascus as proof that the deed had been carried out. Caliph Yazid bin Muawiyah placed Hussein’s head on his table and left it there for a month, so that all could see the fate that befalls a rebel and would be deterred from behaving as he did. The fact that Hussein was the grandson of Mohammad the prophet of Islam did not prevent the caliph from treating Hussein’s head in this manner.

What is the cause of the Shi’ite-Sunni conflict? Why the terrible cruelty that has been characteristic of this conflict even until today?

The story begins in the year 632, the moment that Muhammad died. Immediately upon his death the struggle began over who would succeed to the most powerful position in Islam – the office of Caliph, Muhammad’s replacement and the leader of Islam. Ali bin Abi Talib was Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, since he was married to Fatima, daughter of Allah’s messenger and his first wife, Hadija. Fatima bore to Ali two sons, Hasan and Hussein, and two daughters – Zainab and Umm Kulthum.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4056/human-rights-public-safety Britain is unable to extradite people to their country of origin if they might face harm there. This means that the British police had to find some mechanism to keep a constant vigil on a small number of young men believed to be a potential threat to the British public. In recent years, the […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/lessons-from-the-virginia-gubernatorial-election?f=puball#ixzz2kwS5hGvM With the 2013 Virginia Gubernatorial Election in the books, three things become apparent. First, the citizenry’s aversion to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is alive and well. Second, when Conservatives run inferior campaigns or get duped into the Progressive trap of debating “social issues,” it doesn’t matter how rooted the message is in common […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-regulators-cucumber-syndrome?f=puball Gatestone Institute’s Soren Kern on November 14th had an article, “EU Regulations: ‘Dictatorship of the Bureaucrats’?” about the bewildering plethora of European Union regulatory laws. In preliminary note-taking for this column, I tried to learn how many federal product regulations exist in the U.S.  The truth is that no one knows, not Congress, not […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/hhs-dithers-as-avian-flu-looms-larger In 2009, Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the prestigious Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wrote a sobering book, “Seven Deadly Scenarios.” A chapter titled, “Pandemic,” describes the horrific impact of an influenza pandemic on an unprepared United States, and reminds us that the misnamed “Spanish Flu” of 1918 actually began in China before […]

CYNDY LAUPER, JULIO IGLESIAS, TOM JONES, NANA MOUSKURI, CHARLES AZNAVOUR, IRISH RIVERDANCE, ENGELBERT HUMPERDINK, ALICIA KEYS. LADY GAGA, MADONNA, PAUL MCcARTNEY, CELINE DION, SIR ELTON JOHN, MORGAN FREEMAN…JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE , BEYONCE (SCHEDULED FOR 2014 BUT NOT YET CONFIRMED)PAULA ABDUL
MANDY PATINKIN VISITS ISRAEL BUT ASKS ACTORS TO BOYCOTT “THE SETTLEMENTS.” I GUESS HE DOES NOT KNOW THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH “HOMELAND.”

They all perform in Israel in defiance of boycotts and threats….Bravo and encore!!!

And damn the organization “Boycott from Within”, an Israeli group that urges celebrities to boycott Israel. A pox on those quislings. RSK

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

A protein that kills bacteria. Tel Aviv University researchers have succeeded in isolating a protein known as Gene 0.4 that kills bacteria. In what is a first step toward developing a substitute for antibiotics, the protein prevents bacteria from dividing, thus destroying them and combating infections. A positive story from Haaretz!

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.557677

Download MDA’s medical app. Hebrew speakers can get medical guidance direct from Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom via their cell phone. After downloading the app, they don’t need Internet access. Call MDA (even from overseas) to receive detailed animations, safety advice, training videos and tips.

http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Health-Scan-MDA-app-brings-help-through-your-smartphone-330451

Have you heard about the EarDoc? The EarDoc from Israel’s Kencap Medical solutions is a non-invasive, non-surgical device that can improve the quality of life for sufferers of earache. It was one of the three previously unreported Israeli innovations featured in the new medical video I distributed last week.

http://www.eardoc.info/products/ent-news/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdqrGaUF5EQ

Israeli innovations in Life Sciences – Part 2. As promised, the second video showing Israeli products previously unreported in this Newsletter. HemaClear for bloodless surgery; RIMED non-invasively measures blood-flow in the brain; FirstCare bone injection gun. More on these in future newsletters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO7EMKUy-28

Intravenous injection in action. (Thanks to NoCamels.com) A video showing the design of the remarkable SAGIV device invented by Hebrew University students that provides 100% accurate insertion of intravenous tubes into a person’s veins. (You still may not want to watch this, however, if you have a fear of needles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ9dJpCdYKs#t=11

Pediatric research with Philadelphia. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has signed a research agreement with Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital and Drexel University to advance pediatric medicine. The event took place during Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s trade mission to Israel.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/280261#.UoHV3yf65pE

Slowing down the immune response. Tel Aviv University researchers have found a way to control overactive eosinophil white blood cells – a disorder that can lead to allergies and autoimmune diseases. In lab tests they have located and regulated the two cell receptors PIR-B and PIR-A that protect or shut down the oesinophils.

http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/TAU-researchers-find-way-to-slow-down-white-blood-cells-331407

Sleep soundly with a SomnuSeal mask. (Thanks to Israel21c) For those suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) Israel’s Discover Medical has developed a less-intrusive CPAP mask to help them breathe at night. It is fitted like a boxer’s mouth guard and also requires less air pressure from the CPAP machine.

http://israel21c.org/health/new-device-for-sleep-apnea-is-easier-on-the-heart/

THIS MAY BE “BALLSY”, BUT THINK OF THE “REFUSENIKS” WHO STARTED A WHOLE MOVEMENT….IDA NUDEL WHO WAS HARRASSED CONTINUALLY BY THE KGB STOOD HER GROUND AND CONTINUED TO DISPLAY A SIGN READING “KGB GIVE ME MY VISA” FROM HER WINDOW. FOR THAT ACT SHE WAS SENT TO A SIBERIAN GULAG FOR FOUR YEARS. SHE WAS KNOWN AS THE “GUARDIAN ANGEL” OF SOVIET JEWRY. AND THERE ARE SO MANY OTHERS….THEIR SACRIFICE AND COURAGE LED TO THEIR RELEASE AND VOYAGE TO ISRAEL AND THE WEST…..RSK
After man nails scrotum to cobbles in Red Square, why don’t Russian protestors just get real?It was a pointed protest. But instead of nailing his scrotum to Red Square why didn’t he join a Facebook group, or start a new movement? This won’t help democracy in Russia one bit.

There’s got to be a better way. Pyotr Pavlensky’s decision to nail his scrotum to the cobbles in Red Square last week in protest against Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism will no more help the cause of democracy in Russia than have the lewd antics of the now jailed young women from Pussy Riot.

Pavlensky has just been charged with “hooliganism” — a catch all part of the criminal code that was widely used to jail dissidents in the Soviet era.

Except that the dissidents in the Soviet era didn’t nail their private parts to public squares, defile churches or have sex in public to make their point, which is why Pavlensky and Pussy Riot enjoy very little respect among ordinary Russians. Their actions harm the democracy movement in modern Russia by making it easy for the authorities to portray all its opponents as cranks and weirdos.

“…our fixation on our defeats and losses is nailing us to the Kremlin’s cobbles,” Pavlensky said in a statement. No Pyotr. It’s you.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4364/a_civilisationally_exhausted_west_in_mortal_danger_over_iran
The eager pursuit of Iran by Kerry and others is all too reminiscent of events concerning Nazi Germany, especially the infamous 1938 Munich agreement, now the symbol of inherent appeasement

It is a truth that should be acknowledged by the United States and all democratic countries that a nuclear Iran will mean the destruction of the State of Israel and a threat to the rest of the world. No doubt it is a desirable principle to attempt to reconcile national differences by negotiation. But not all agreements are worth the price paid.

It comes as no small surprise that in the negotiations with Iran in Geneva the United States together with five other countries, the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany, should have persisted in a formula that would have ended in an undesirable compromise unlikely to limit the threat of Iranian aggression.

The formula appeared simple: Iran would freeze its nuclear program in return for the international loosening of sanctions against it. However, this reverses the reality that it is the present sanctions, and possibly future tougher ones, that have made Iran seem more agreeable to halt or dismantle its nuclear facilities and pursuit of a weapons program.

Is it naïve to doubt the intentions of Iran? In spite of the charm offensive in New York of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, the nature of the Iranian regime, with its continuing support of the brutal President Assad in Syria and the terrorist Hezbollah with supplies and advisers do not make it a candidate for the next Nobel Peace Prize.

The draft negotiations were not likely to improve relations between the U.S. and Iran. Nor did they take account of the Iran’s Parchin military base southeast of Tehran at which weapons research continues.

Fortunately, a hasty, undesirable agreement in Geneva was blocked partly by French arguments which insisted as a minimum on restrictions on Iran’s heavy water plant in Arak that can produce plutonium, and partly, perhaps largely, because of Iranian intransigence.

The contemplated deal would have entailed the promise by Iran that it would not enrich its nuclear enrichment capabilities to more than 3.5 per cent as part of an interim agreement. In return, the international economic sanctions against Iran, on its oil operation and its currency, that have had considerable success, would be eased.

Because of the sanctions the Iranian economy was reduced by some 5 per cent last year. Iran’s daily crude oil sales have been reduced by 60 per cent in the last two years.

Who could have imagined it? Secretary of State John Kerry is making his predecessor James Baker seem like Israel’s best friend. Back in 1990, Baker complained that Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was thwarting Bush administration efforts to launch Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations (sound familiar?). He flamboyantly revealed the White House telephone number, instructing the Israeli government: “When you’re serious about peace call us.” The frustrated secretary, advised to consider how his blatant hostility might play out to American Jewry, memorably responded: “Fuck the Jews, they didn’t vote for us anyway.”

During the past several weeks, Kerry has repeatedly berated Israel while blithely undermining his own credibility. First, he blamed the Jewish state for stymied negotiations with the Palestinians, now in their fourth month of going nowhere (exactly where they have always gone). Then he dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated warnings that the United States was abandoning its Middle East allies, Arab states and Israel alike, by caving in to Iranian pressure to lift biting financial sanctions that have inhibited its nuclear development. Finally, with the announcement by Israel’s Housing minister that settlement construction would soon resume, quickly rescinded by Netanyahu, Kerry went ballistic.

Kerry’s fundamentally flawed analytical framework is grounded, as criticism of Israel inevitably is, in the distorted perception that Jewish settlements in the biblical homeland of the Jewish people pose the fundamental obstacle to Middle Eastern peace. “We do not believe the settlements are legitimate,” Kerry declared on Israeli television during his recent visit. “We think they are illegitimate. And we believe that the entire peace process would in fact be easier if these settlements were not taking place.” They send the message, to Kerry at least, that “perhaps you’re not really serious.” About any Palestinian obstacles to peace, including their resistance to partition that dates back to 1937, Kerry remained silent.