RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quillette.com/2025/05/14/israel-up-close/

Amid the many victim vs. oppressor narratives popular among the Left, there’s no shortage of finger-pointing. Each dimension of oppression has its own designated villain: white people, males, the one percent, straight people, and cisgender individuals. And yet, the biggest culprit in this demonology isn’t a person at all—it’s Western civilisation itself. Western industrialisation is accused of wrecking the planet, Western capitalism of exploiting poorer countries, and Western colonialism of centuries of plundering and conquering. In this blame game, the West is cast as the ultimate bad guy. 

Now, Western civilisation isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and indeed, many of its harshest critics are enjoying its fruits, living in Western cities and teaching at Western universities. But there is one easy way for progressives to atone for their guilt at the heinous misdeeds of their civilisation, without sacrificing any personal comforts: to demonise Israel. Unlike most of the world’s liberal democracies, Israel faces existential threats from multiple quarters and must often resort to lethal violence in self-defence.

For the more radical wing of the Left, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are noble freedom fighters waging a righteous battle against settler-colonialism. While the disappearance of the ultimate settler-colonialist empire, the United States, seems like a far-fetched fantasy, the disappearance of the world’s only Jewish state appears to be just about within reach. The moderate Left isn’t prepared to go that far, of course. They simply argue that the atrocities committed by Hamas, while worthy of condemnation, are nevertheless understandable responses to decades of Israeli occupation. For both groups, Israel is the last vestige of the European colonialist project and should shoulder most of the blame for the ongoing conflict. It is an apartheid state steeped in notions of white and Jewish supremacy.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21613/what-most-palestinians-really-want

Palestinians who are saying that they are unaware of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities against Israelis are either engaged in self-deception or influenced by Hamas’s venomous propaganda machine, including the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera TV network, which has long been serving as the terror group’s unofficial mouthpiece. Notably, according to several polls, Al-Jazeera is the most watched TV station in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

If, according to the polls, most Palestinians are saying that they want Hamas to keep its weapons and remain in power in the Gaza Strip, it means they want the terror group to carry out more atrocities against Israel and Jews. If the Palestinians are saying that they prefer Hamas over any other Palestinian party, it means that they do not support any peaceful settlement with Israel. It means that the Palestinians want to see Israel obliterated and replaced by an Islamist state, armed and funded by Iran and its other terror proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

One can only hope that the Trump administration and other international parties will read the results of the Palestinian polls to get a better understanding of what many Palestinians really want: to murder as many Jews as possible and displace Israel.

An overwhelming majority of the Palestinians (87%) believe that the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas did not commit atrocities against Israeli civilians, including women and children, on October 7, 2023, according to a public opinion poll conducted in early May by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

When asked if Hamas had committed the atrocities seen in the videos shown by international media displaying the acts committed by Hamas members against Israelis in their homes on that day, these Palestinians said the group did not commit such atrocities, while only 9% said it did.

The poll, conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, shows that many Palestinians are living in denial, and trying to protect themselves from a truth that is apparently too painful for them to accept: that many Palestinians support terrorism and that most of the victims of the October 7 massacre were innocent civilians.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/05/12/dont-let-anti-israel-bigots-pose-as-free-speech-champions/

It is more important than ever to remember that the right to free speech does not depend on what is being said. People have the right to make pronouncements, even if they are wrong, obnoxious or downright offensive. It should be up to the public to decide what to believe, rather than authorities outlawing ideas they deem illegitimate.

This reminder is particularly necessary given the Trump administration’s ongoing clampdown on free expression at American universities – ostensibly, in the name of tackling anti-Semitism. Most notoriously, it has arrested and plans to deport activist Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of Columbia University’s Gaza encampments. One of the predictable but unintended consequences of this is that it has helped anti-Israel campus activists to portray themselves as free-speech heroes.

In reality, they are anything but. Their right to make outrageous statements should be defended, but not because what they say has any intrinsic merit. And when they engage in physical violence, as they sometimes do, a hard line must be taken against them.

A central element of the anti-Israel movement, the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, is aimed at denying freedom of expression to anyone with a connection to Israel. Yet genuine supporters of free speech must uphold the right for those they disagree with.

There is obviously a rational case to be made for Palestinian rights and self-determination. But the anti-Israel movement focusses much more on presenting Israel as the epitome of evil in the world and calling for its destruction. There are too many examples of activists on elite American campuses, including academics, who simply believe that Israel should not exist. Some have even claimed that Israel deserved what happened on 7 October 2023. Perhaps most notoriously, on the day of Hamas’s pogrom, 34 student organisations at Harvard held Israel entirely responsible for the attack against it. The same day that about 1,200 people – mostly Israeli Jews – were slaughtered and about 250 kidnapped, these organisations effectively justified the atrocities in a statement. A spurious call to ‘contextualise’ the attack was used to justify the largest killing of Jews since the Second World War. Nor was this an isolated incident. There were many instances of academics and student groups, particularly at elite universities, making such pronouncements in the wake of 7 October.

It is also striking that Hamas and Hezbollah flags have often been flown at anti-Israel student encampments. These are organisations that time and again have openly stated that their goal is to slaughter Jews. Hamas has made clear several times since 7 October that it intends to repeat such atrocities. Meanwhile, Hezbollah had planned to join the original attack, but – fortunately for Israel – hesitated before doing so.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Today, in the Gatestone Institute Raymond Ibrahim asks: “380,000,000 Christians Persecuted for ‘Their Faith’: Where Is the Outrage?” https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21585/christians-persecuted

Well, the outrage is aroused only about Israel and its defense struggle against genocidal enemies. rsk

Another week where the media has again put tiny Israel “front & center” almost to the exclusion of any other major world events.  This newsletter highlights Israel’s positive achievements and activities in the past week, that far outweigh its size. Michael Ordman

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
IDF soldier’s Righteous great-grandparents. Noah’s great-grandparents hid a Jewish woman in their attic in the Netherlands during WWII. Her great-grandmother’s brother hid a Jewish couple and their three children, earning recognition as “Righteous of the Nations”. Today, Noah is proud to serve as a soldier in the IDF.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-how-an-idf-soldiers-great-grandparents-saved-jews-during-the-holocaust/
 
Saving the Syrian Druze. The Ziv Medical Center in Safed has admitted 32 injured Druze, victims of fighting in Syria during the past week. They include two pregnant women. The IDF has also has established a forward mobile medical triage facility near the Syrian village of Hader and is also protecting the Druze from massacres.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/levant-turkey/artc-32-syrian-druze-so-far-treated-in-israeli-hospital   https://www.jns.org/idf-sets-up-field-triage-facility-for-syrian-druze-civilians/
https://www.jns.org/idf-strikes-in-syria-amid-violence-against-druze-community/
 
A French exoskeleton in Israel. An IDF soldier, severely wounded in Gaza, took his first steps in recovery at Sheba Medical Center. Sheba is one of the few places in the world that offers the Atalante X robotic exoskeleton developed by the French-American company Wandercraft.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/severely-injured-idf-soldier-walks-again-thanks-to-robotic-exoskeleton/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_xnLd4yqDg
 
Chai. In celebration of Israel’s 77th Independence Day, internationally acclaimed singer Netta Barzilai has partnered with the Jewish Agency for Israel to release a new rendition of the iconic Israeli anthem “Chai.” The 1983 Eurovision Song has been reimagined to reflect Israel’s resilience in the face of current challenges.
https://www.jns.org/netta-barzilai-teams-up-with-jewish-agency-to-drop-independence-day-tune/
 
Look! How marvelous our people are.  (TY Ted Belman & Rhoda) Great article by Arlene Kushner highlighting Israeli resilience.  https://arlenefromisrael.info/look-how-marvelous-our-people-are/
 
Chance Gaza border encounter leads to new VC. “Only in Israel” story where a meeting between two IDF reservists resulted in the founding of Venture Capital organization TBC VC that has raised $35 million in three months for investment in Israeli startups. It will also donate money to non-profit Gav Lalohem to help others.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/35-million-vc-fund-launches-thanks-to-reservists-chance-encounter-on-the-gaza-border/   https://www.gavla.org.il/gav-lalohem-ngo-2024/
 
Help support therapy for Israeli soldiers. Beit Binyamin, near the spiritual town of Tzfat, is a therapeutic respite center for IDF soldiers and their families, displaced families and struggling spouses and parents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysXhDvC7PpA  https://causematch.com/beitbinyamin25/igno/
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEKpADkRdfV/?igsh=a3pucm90NW91dGd1 https://beitbinyamin.org/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Successful life-support treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Inspira Technologies (see here previously) used its INSPIRA ART100 system at Westchester Medical Center, New York to circulate and oxygenate a patient’s blood. It marked the first real-world implementation of Inspira’s innovative life-support technology.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inspira-technologies-announces-successful-treatment-123000786.html
 
Safer cardiac treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s CardioVia has just received U.S. FDA clearance for its ViaOne system. It provides safe (no needle) access to the pericardium – the thin sac protecting the heart where new minimally invasive treatments are having much success over conventional, risky, heart surgery.
https://www.cardiovia.com/
 
Breakthrough treatment for massive blood loss. (TY Ron M) Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the IDF’s Medical Corps have discovered a peptide to activate Protein Kinase C-epsilon (PKC-ε) and significantly improve survival rates of patients (including wounded soldiers) who suffer massive blood loss.
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/bkler7vgxg
 
Monitoring vital signs from a distance. During the Covid-19 epidemic, Professor Yonina Eldar of Israel’s Weizmann Institute led the development of radar technology to remotely check health. Her lab has unveiled BRAHMS, the Bio-Radar Health Monitoring System which uses AI to analyze subtle chest movements.
https://www.israel21c.org/noncontact-radar-unit-monitors-patients-vitals-remotely/
https://www.weizmann.ac.il/math/yonina/manya-igel-center-biomedical-engineering-and-signal-processing
 
Live long and prosper. Researchers from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University have analyzed the differences in protein sequences across mammals with varying lifespans. They discovered that long-lived whales and humans have specific post-translational modifications (PTMs) that may protect against age-related diseases (e.g. cancer).
https://www.newswise.com/articles/new-research-reveals-nature-s-secret-to-healthy-longevity
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58762-x.epdf
 
How bacteria take control of infected cell. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered that the protein CsrA in bacteria creates a “control center” inside a cell that manages the activation of disease-causing genes. Future treatments that disable the control center should stop infections before they take hold.
https://www.afhu.org/2025/04/29/a-hidden-control-center-how-bacteria-regulate-their-attack-strategies/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58829-9#Sec2
 
$125 million donation to Tel Aviv University. Blackstone Investment firm president Jonathan Gray and his wife Mindy are donating $125 million to Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Medicine – the largest donation in the university’s history – to increase the number of doctors in Israel. The faculty will now bear the couple’s name.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blackstone-president-to-donate-125-million-to-tel-aviv-universitys-medical-school-nyt/  https://israfan.com/p/blackstone-gray-donation-tel-aviv-university
 
Celebrating Life. US ambassador Mike Huckabee received a United Hatzalah Defender of Israel Award at a special celebration for the Israel’s emergency response organization at the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. He recounted the time when a UH responder saved the life of one of the delegates of a mission he was leading.
https://www.jns.org/huckabee-united-hatzalah-is-an-organization-worth-celebrating/
 

https://www.jns.org/no-trump-isnt-about-to-recognize-a-palestinian-state/

Non-Shabbat-observant Israelis awoke on Saturday to fake news that, in Winston Churchill’s witty words, “got halfway around the world before the truth had a chance to put its pants on.”  

The baloney began with coverage by i24News of an item that appeared in The Jerusalem Post. So much of the Hebrew channel’s morning broadcast was devoted to what it was touting as a huge deal that other outlets picked it up and ran with it.

Ditto for social media, of course.

The trouble is that everything about the bulletin was wrong, starting with an inaccurate attribution of its origin. Indeed, anybody who bothered to check could see that the piece in the JPost was a reprint of a write-up in The Media Line.

Perhaps one could chalk the mix-up to lazy journalism. But the depiction of the story’s content—about U.S. President Donald Trump’s imminent trip to the Middle East—doesn’t warrant even that much of an ill-deserved pass.

The chyron of the TV segment was: “Report: Trump to recognize a Palestinian state.”

Naturally, a flurry of panic or glee ensued, depending on the views of those highlighting the “scoop.” Yet all one had to do was peruse the article to realize that there’s “no there there.”

It isn’t until the fifth paragraph that the author, Ali Hussain, mentions the controversial topic. The passage, which opens with a question in bold letters (“Will Donald Trump recognize a Palestinian state?”), reads as follows:

“A Gulf diplomatic source, who declined to be named or disclose his position, told The Media Line, ‘President Donald Trump will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it, and that there will be the establishment of a Palestinian state without the presence of Hamas.’

“The source also added, ‘If an announcement of American recognition of the State of Palestine is made, it will be the most important declaration that will change the balance of power in the Middle East, and more countries will join the Abraham Accords.’”

An anonymous source from an unnamed country surmising about something that hasn’t happened isn’t news. Nor does Hussain claim that it is.

In fact, he goes on to cite others—on the record—refuting the above. One is U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who “denied the statements made by this source on X/Twitter Saturday afternoon, saying that Israel has no better friend than the U.S.”