RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19218/israel-apartheid

Recently… however, with the UNHRC’s persistent allegations that Israel is an apartheid state, that label is being pushed even further in an apparent effort to make it stick. The complicity of recent reports from NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch appear to be trying to ensure that their libel will be complete.

The campaign emboldens the radicals among the Palestinians, including the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), whose declared goal is to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.

Terrorist groups such as Hamas and PIJ are undoubtedly happy to see non-Arabs and non-Muslims — and even ostensible human rights organizations — join their effort to falsely depict Israel as an apartheid state.

Former UNHRC chief Navi Pillay, despite extensive evidence of massive anti-Israel bias, was recently appointed to chair the UNHRC’s first and only open-ended Commission of Inquiry.

Basically, [the New York Times] is saying that although the two countries cannot be equated, the comparison is being forced and twisted into place for the sake of furthering an alternate agenda which has little to do with the facts on the ground.

Israel’s founding charter pledges to safeguard the equal rights of all residents: “… It will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Among many of South Africa’s Apartheid laws, the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act effectively stripped all Blacks of their South African citizenship and of the right to vote.

Israeli Arabs, however, have full citizenship, including the right to vote and to public demonstration. They are represented in all levels of government, including positions as members of Knesset (parliament), in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as Supreme Court justices. Israeli Arabs hold positions as high-ranking officers in the Israel Defense Forces, including that of major-general in the Central Command.

Israeli Arabs are deans, department heads, scientists, and professors at prestigious universities and hospitals. They are news anchors, journalists, actors, athletes, and are represented in every aspect of Israeli society.

The false allegations also come from incorrectly confusing the nearly two million Israeli Arabs — who make up about 21% of Israel’s population and are full citizens of Israel — with thousands of Arabs whose families left Israel when five Arab counties attacked Israel in 1948. After the Arab armies lost the war they had started, they were surprised to find that they were not welcomed back. They have since settled in other countries – such as Lebanon, Jordan, and the West — as “Palestinians,” but are not citizens of Israel and therefore, of course, not subject to Israeli laws… If all the Arabs in the area are called “Palestinians,” however, it makes it easier to claim grievances, merited or not.

Both [the West Bank and Gaza] are now disputed territories where the Arabs totally run their own affairs, and have officially committed to direct, bilateral negotiations with Israel about “final status” issues, including where the borders should be. Lately, the Palestinians have refused to negotiate, apparently in the hope that the international community will hand them a better deal. They have been offered their own Palestinian state three times, and each time have said no, without so much as a counteroffer.

As Navi Pillay herself conceded (in reference to the US, certainly not Israel), “There isn’t a country in the world which has a perfect human rights record…”. Israel is certainly no exception.

If you are looking for real apartheid against Arabs, try Lebanon or Jordan.

The “limitations” referred to above are actually the limitations of the facts. What is missing is that Israel does not fit the legal definition of apartheid; therefore, some are forcibly attempting to recreate the legal definition with an “alternative definition” to fit Israel, to ram a square peg into a round hole. The “alternative definition” is, sadly, just a political maneuver to gather unwarranted international cover for still another attempt to replace Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Israel was ranked the 5th safest country in the world for tourists in a recent study using U.N. and W.H.O. statistics of rates per capita of homicides, vehicle accidents, disease, and other causes of death and injury. The USA was 20th. The study exposes the false perception due to the mainstream media’s emphasis on bad news, and is one of reasons for countering it with this positive newsletter. Michael Ordman

Skip the skewed and biased reporting of the mainstream media. Israel’s safety benefits all its citizens of every faith and ethnicity. Furthermore, the nation’s state of the art research and development in science and medicine make the future brighter and safer for millions of citizens throughout the word. Read it all in this remarkable newsletter. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Nano-magnets to repair damaged brain cells. Scientists at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University have developed breakthrough technology that could repair damaged neuron (brain cell) functionality. Using iron oxide, magnetic fields, and collagen, they created cells that developed into functional, multi-layered neural networks.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/363619
 
Micro robots to navigate the body. Almost like the 1966 sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage, Israel’s Bionaut Labs develops microscale robots for the treatment of brain diseases and disorders. Bionaut uses magnetic propulsion to navigate the human body and deliver medicine locally to avoid side effects and toxicity.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/h1qqutgpi   https://bionautlabs.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAAp7xeWO-0
 
Stimulating the brain to treat tremors. For the first time, Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center treated a 70-year-old Israeli patient suffering for 20 years from essential tremor, using Deep Brain Stimulation devices from US company Abbott and Israel’s Alpha Omega (see here previously). It made a significant improvement.
https://www.hospitalwithaheart.ca/innovative-procedure-helps-cure-woman-suffering-from-two-decades-of-tremors/  https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-723611
 
Super ultrasound for early diagnosis. Among this summary of promising Israeli IBD breakthroughs is the work of Weizmann Institute scientists to enhance the resolution of ultrasound. They can now identify tiny tumors and lesions, enabling cancer and Crohn’s patients to begin early treatment.
https://www.israel21c.org/7-promising-breakthroughs-in-inflammatory-bowel-disease/
https://www.weizmann.ac.il/math/yonina/super-resolution-ultrasound-and-microscopy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6sSg_7lTVk
 
Medical Smartwatch. (TY Hazel) Israel’s ChroniSense Medical has developed the Polso FDA-approved medical sensor smartwatch. It accurately monitors vital signs, such as blood oxygen saturation, pulse rate, and respiration rate. It comes with a mobile app for patients, and a cloud-based platform for clinicians.
https://nocamels.com/2022/12/smartwatch-monitors-patients-vital-signs/  https://polsowatch.com/
 
UK manages caregivers with Israeli app. UK-based national homecare franchise provider Caremark is using Israel’s Connecteam (see here previously) to manage and engage more than 7,000 remote caregivers across some 115 UK franchise offices. Connecteam is used by 20,000 companies in 80 countries and many industries.
https://www.israel21c.org/one-app-manages-7000-remote-caregivers-at-115-franchises/
 
Therapy app for parents of autistic children. Israel’s SocialMind Autism has released an AI-powered app program based on Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT). Its 22 lessons helps parents increase an autistic child’s motivation to learn, initiate communication, and improve their social skills.
https://nocamels.com/2022/12/finding-a-voice-how-ai-is-helping-children-with-autism/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVZr1aW2pow  https://socialmindautism.com/
 
Airlifting Ukrainian children with cancer. (TY I24 News) Israel’s MASHAV (International development cooperation program) has been working to bring ten Ukrainian children and their families to Israel for cancer treatment. The video highlights some of the huge challenges involved.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-israel-airlifts-ukrainian-kids-for-cancer-treatment/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8ZxOg2Zf2o
 
And from South Sudan for heart repair. (TY Sandra) Israeli non-profit IsraAID is bringing four children from Juba in South Sudan to Israel for surgery from surgeons at Save a Child’s Heart (SACH). Due to Covid, the children have been waiting for nearly 3 years in internally displaced people (IDP) camps.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-4-children-from-south-sudan-to-get-life-saving-heart-surgery-in-israel/
https://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/first-four-children-south-sudan-receive-life-saving-heart-surgery-israel
https://israelbetweenthelines.com/2022/12/06/first-heart-surgery-for-four-children-from-sudan/

https://unitedwithisrael.org/un-votes-149-6-to-denuclearize-israel-who-are-israels-5-friends/

Only five countries voted with Israel against a resolution this week calling on Jerusalem to give up its supposed nuclear arsenal.

The United Nations took yet another swipe at the Jewish state on Wednesday when it voted 149-6 that Israel should accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and dispose of its nuclear weapons cache – assuming that it has one.

The resolution called on Israel to sign the NPT immediately and “not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce their possession and to place all its unsafeguarded nuclear facilities under full-scope IAEA safeguards.”

While foreign estimates have put Israel’s stockpile at 80-400 nuclear warheads, Jerusalem has remained ambiguous on the issue, neither denying nor confirming claims that it has nuclear weapons. Throughout the years, however, Israel has maintained that it would never be the first in the region to introduce weapons of mass destruction.

Indeed, it is Iran that should be the main concern of the international community.

Earlier this year, David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector, said Iran already possesses enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Albright, who worked for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the 1990s, said Iran’s so-called breakout time is zero.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19214/israel-democracy-support

Israeli governments come and go based on the results of elections; Israel has had five of them in the last four years. But one’s support for Israel should not vary with whether one agrees or disagrees with the outcome of a particular election, any more than one’s support for the United States depends on whether Democrats or Republican are in control at a given time. One can be a patriotic American who stands and salutes the star-spangled banner even when one disagrees with policies of the government. One can work hard to change such policies. Sometimes they change. Sometimes they do not. That is democracy at work.

One can also be a fervent Zionist, which simply means that one strongly believes in the concept of a secure and democratic nation-state for the Jewish people. That is all Zionism means. It does not entail support for particular Israeli policies….

As then-President Bill Clinton once complained: “Israel is a democracy, damn it!” His point was that he could simply call the leader of a non-democratic ally and tell him what do. He could not do that to Israel, where the citizens decide what their government should do.

Democracy does not assure good outcomes. It only assures a fair process.

Those who understandably disagree with the outcome of the recent Israeli election should recognize that it is the product of factors that generally affect democratic elections: changing demography, economic considerations, external threats and numerous other variables.

So please, as Israel approaches its 75th birthday, look at the big picture: no country has contributed more to the world in its first three quarters of a century than has Israel; no country faced with dangers comparable to those faced by Israel has had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law and concern for enemy civilians than Israel.

Governments and policies change. Support for the only democracy in the Middle East should remain constant.

Israel’s prime minister-designate is brilliant, hardworking and dedicated to the survival of the nation-state of the Jewish people. One may not like all the ministers in his likely new government. Neither do other longtime supporters of Israel. Some have questioned whether they can continue to support Israel in the face of certain policies proposed by some potential ministers. It is important to continue to support Israel even if one disagrees with some policies of a particular government.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-724393

The cat’s out of the bag. Israel’s outgoing caretaker prime minister, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid – like most members of his crumbled coalition – is no more of a so-called “centrist” than he is a healer of societal rifts.

On the contrary, his self-described “change” government, which was squarely defeated on November 1 by the Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu-headed opposition, has embarked on a campaign to foment civil war. The effort will fail as badly as his bid to remain at the helm and Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s attempt to replace him at it.

There’s a reason that their crew lost the election to the nationalist camp. Yet, instead of waking up to it, Lapid, Gantz and the rest of the “anybody but Bibi” politicians and pundits have been doubling down on the very behavior responsible for their poor showing at the ballot box.

Having flopped at vilifying Netanyahu, they went after Otzma Yehudit Party leader MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, now slated to become the national security minister. Their latest target is Noam party chair Avi Maoz, whose dim view of LGBTQ parades and gay marriage provides sufficient cause to delegitimize him. That his upcoming role will include having a say in the content of extracurricular school programs makes him fair game in their eyes for no-holds-barred demonization.

Never mind that his stated plan is for parents to be informed of and fully involved in vetting material, much of which is funded by foreign NGOs with a dubious political agenda, brought into their children’s classrooms. Several municipalities have already announced, at Lapid’s urging, that they won’t cooperate with the “racist homophobe.”

When Netanyahu condemned this conduct as sedition, Lapid had a typical reaction. First, he got huffy; then, he proved Bibi right.

https://www.jns.org/lapids-call-to-disobey-next-government-puts-civil-society-at-risk-legal-analysts-say/ 

Even before taking power, Benjamin Netanyahu has found himself on the defensive over his prospective coalition’s “fringe elements.” During an NBC interview on Sunday, Netanyahu felt obliged to declare, “I’m going to safeguard Israeli democracy.”

However, legal analysts told JNS the danger to democracy may come from another corner, namely the actions of outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who called on local authorities to flout the incoming government’s directives.

In a Dec. 1 open letter, Lapid urged Israeli municipalities not to cooperate with an educational department to be headed by far-right Knesset member Avi Maoz. Maoz is the sole representative in Israel’s parliament of the Noam Party, which focuses on social issues, on which it takes a traditional (its detractors would say archaic) religious stance. It’s criticized mainly for opposing LGBTQ rights.

The opposition coalition set to establish the next government has “abandoned the education of our children and handed them over to the most extreme and darkest elements in Israeli society,” Lapid wrote to the municipalities, labeling Noam “racist, homophobic and dangerous.

“I urge you not to cooperate with the unit for external programs and partnerships in the Ministry of Education as long as it is under the control of Maoz. The heavy responsibility for the educational content that our children will learn in the schools now passes to you,” he wrote.