RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/no-internecine-strife-is-not-israels-greatest-threat/

 At the annual World Summit on Counter-Terrorism—held on Sunday and Monday at Reichman University in Herzliya—the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) gave a speech that raised a few eyebrows. And rightly so.
Listing the threats that the Shin Bet has had to confront, such as those emanating from Hamas in Gaza and the weakening of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Ronen Bar highlighted an issue that’s outside his purview, to put it mildly.

“From the investigations that we’re conducting, we can say today that [Israel’s] political instability and growing [societal] schism constitute an injection of encouragement to the axis-of-evil countries, terrorist organizations and lone wolves,” he said. “Our historical comparative advantage—the one that was to our credit for thousands of years—is fading away. This insight should be the most disturbing of all. The Shin Bet can warn about but not treat it. [The latter] is in the hands of each and every one of us,” he said.

Some are defending his remarks, which seemed to indicate that terrorists apprehended by the Shin Bet have been telling their interrogators that internecine strife in the Jewish state has bolstered their confidence and resolve. If this is the kind of intel that Israeli security agents are extracting from Palestinian and Arab-Israeli killers, anyone concerned about the violent methods employed during interrogations might as well calm right down.
In other words, it’s a bit of a stretch to imagine that too many conversations about the effects of societal rifts take place during encounters between terrorists and the operatives who manage to locate and detain them. It’s safer to assume that Bar was reaching a conclusion, based on his interpretation of the situation in the areas that he is charged with safeguarding.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Here in Israel, the approaching Jewish New Year also heralds in a new era. More Israeli medical innovations to end the misery of Cancer and Coronavirus; and others that regenerate cells and sharpen the mind. An Israeli advisor to the new UN President and more major advances in Israel’s relations with Muslim countries. Israeli tech navigated the first autonomous ship and a new Israeli super-food could feed the world. Israeli business successes in space, at sea, and on the road. Israeli firsts in badminton and wrestling. The first orthodox Jew to lead the modern Israeli army; and new discoveries of Biblical-era treasures in excavations under Jerusalem.  Michael Ordman

And to those who herald the anti-Semitic diatribes of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Movement, here is the real B.D.S from Israel:

BOLD,DECISIVE, SCIENCE to bring hope and succor to the entire world…..rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Starving brain tumors. (TY UWI & TPS) Tel Aviv University scientists have discovered that brain cells called astrocytes, which normally support brain function, are highjacked by tumors to block the immune system and feed the tumors. The scientists eliminated the astrocytes in the lab, and within days the brain tumors died.
https://en-lifesci.tau.ac.il/news/2022/braint_breakrheough  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPqUfA4pccU
 
Proteins in the lungs can fight cancer. Scientists from Israel’s Technion Institute and Sheba Medical Center have discovered that proteins in lung fluid, known as HLA peptides, store information that can detect types of lung cancer. The HLA molecules contain antigens that can stimulate the immune system to destroy tumors.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lung-fluid-may-provide-basis-for-cancer-treating-vaccines-israeli-research/
https://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/5/e003733
 
Two antibodies kill nearly all coronavirus strains. Tel Aviv University researchers have identified two antibodies, TAU-1109 and TAU-2310, from recovered coronavirus patients that are 95% effective in neutralizing Covid-19 variants. When concentrated, they can be the basis for a one-time booster for all.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/coronavirus/1662546747-new-israeli-research-could-make-covid-vaccines-unnecessary   https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03739-5
 
“My Cholesterol”. Israel’s Hello Heart (see here previously) has launched a new cholesterol management feature. ‘My Cholesterol’ allows users to easily track and understand their cholesterol levels, and provides personalized recommendations, to encourage positive lifestyle changes to improve health.
https://www.helloheart.com/press/hello-heart-announces-a-groundbreaking-feature-for-managing-cholesterol
 
Regenerating gums. Israel’s BioChange has developed CellFoam™ technology – a bio-adhesive 3D foam structure that forms a scaffold to stimulate repair of damaged cells. BioChange’s first product is ReGum™ – a regenerative implant, for the treatment of periodontitis in animals. A human version is also in development.
https://biochange.life/regum-a-regenerative-implant-for-gum-tissue-repair/
 
Stay sharp. A solution that delays cognitive decline and reduces the risk for dementia can have a huge benefit to society. Israel’s CogniShape sends users three scientifically based 5-minute brain-exercises each day to strengthen the mind and sharpen memory. Thousands of US users are signed up (for free) including this editor.
https://www.cognishape.com/  https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/r1q0dzayo
 
Ukrainian refugees become EMTs. Israeli NGO United Hatzalah in Jerusalem has trained 10 members of the Breslev community from Uman Ukraine, to be Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). The new graduates hope to return to Uman and use their acquired skills in the region.
https://www.jns.org/10-ukrainian-refugees-train-with-united-hatzalah-to-become-emts/
 
18-year-old saves sister’s life. 18-year-old Moriah had just completed a first-aid course with emergency NGO United Hatzalah, when she saw her 6-year-old sister Miriam choking on a candy. Moriah remembered the Heimlich maneuver. Within a few seconds the candy came out and Miriam started breathing once again.
https://israelrescue.org/blog/i-saved-my-sisters-life-thanks-to-a-first-aid-course-i-took-with-the-ten-kavod-project/
 
 

https://www.israelunwired.com/jordan-is-palestine-a-legal-analysis/?utm_source=Jeeng

Originally published on Israpundit.org

San Remo Conference 1920

Yes, Jordan is Palestine.

The Arab propaganda machine aided and abetted by the UN, EU, US and the main stream media, which is just about everybody, would have you believe otherwise.

They demand that the Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria and Gaza be granted statehood on all lands not controlled by Israel when the cease fire lines were agreed upon in 1949. This is referred to as the Two-State Solution. This solution is at the heart of the Arab Peace Initiative which was agreed to in 2002 at the Beirut Summit which provided

“(a) Complete withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the 4 June 1967 line and the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon; (b) Attain a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No 194. (c) Accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Like most peace plans since, it was based on a deliberate misreading of 1967.UN Security Council Resolution 242.  This resolution did not require Israel to withdraw from all lands “occupied in the ’67 War and it allowed Israel to remain in possession of said lands until she had “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”.

This resolution also included this preamble,  “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security..“..

None of those principles were mentioned in 1949 when Jordan acquired Judea and Samaria by war and Egypt acquired Gaza by war. No one asked them to give it back and the boundary established was not intended to be permanent. It was merely the agreed upon ceasefire lines. The ’67 War was a continuation of Israel’s War of Independence. But this too was ignored by the Security Council.

Obviously, not requiring Israel to withdraw from all territories and requiring secure and recognized boundaries flies in the face of this preamble.

Not only that, while the UN Charter provides for the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by war”, international law allowed for the retention of land acquired in a defensive war, which the ’67 War undoubtedly was.

Nowhere is this resolution is a Palestinian state mentioned.

But that is not the whole story.

The lands in question were not somebody else’s land but Israel’s own land. This fact was totally ignored by the Security Council in passing it.

As Michael Ordman writes, “Israel is the country that is constantly striving to create a better future for us all”- from Albania to Zambia and in every continent and nation in between lives are ameliorated by Israel’s contributions to science and medicine and technology. That does not deter the turpitude in the United Nations, in academia, the media and among the vicious boycott and divest movements.

However, Israel thrives and succeeds as a democracy and locus of an unbroken chain of Jewish faith, survival and future.

B.D.S. really defines Israel’s religious legacy: Bible, Devotion, Survival. Rsk

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-latest-yad-vashem-fiasco/

 When Effi Eitam was tapped in 2020 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the new chairman of Yad Vashem—to replace Avner Shalev, who had held the position for nearly three decades—all hell broke loose on the left. The religious-Zionist retired brigadier general and former Knesset member and Cabinet minister was falsely accused by most of the media and academia, both in Israel and among Jews across the ocean, of being a right-wing fanatical racist.

The controversy was filled with the customary falsehoods, though mud-slinging would be a more apt depiction of the vilification of one of Israel’s best and brightest. The politicians, Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivors who opposed the appointment pointed to Eitam’s comments on Palestinians and Arab Israelis, on the grounds that such criticism is not fitting for an institution commemorating the mass slaughter of innocents.

What they really meant is that Eitam would never go along with the effort to universalize the Shoah.

The carry-on was so intense that he didn’t stand a chance. In his stead, Dani Dayan was selected and approved for the job. Dayan, a member of the Yad Vashem Council, had just returned to Israel after completing a four-year stint as the country’s consul general in New York.

During his tenure in the Big Apple, he managed to shake his own “dubious right-wing” reputation—as a previous chairman of the “far-right-wing” umbrella organization of settlements, the Yesha Council—and become palatable to liberal circles at home and abroad.

Unfortunately, since taking the reins, he has demonstrated the ability to accomplish this by toeing a politically correct line.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18841/palestinians-arrests-torture

Abbas was obviously not thinking about these prisoners when he expressed concern over the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. He seems uncomfortable discussing the fact that his security forces are arresting and torturing Palestinians.

Instead, Abbas would like the world to focus only on the prisoners held by Israel and ignore the protests against the “political detentions” that take place every week not far from his office and residence in Ramallah.

Hours before Abbas’s remarks about the prisoners in Israel, the mother of Ahmad Hreash, a Palestinian man arrested by the Palestinian security forces more than 80 days ago, was rushed to hospital. She has been on hunger strike for 10 days to demand the release of her son from the Palestinians’ notorious Jericho Prison. The prison is infamously referred to by Palestinians as the “Jericho Slaughterhouse” because of brutal torture Palestinians say they have undergone while being held there by Abbas’s security forces.

“They keep extending his detention without us, or even the lawyer, knowing what the charges are.” — Mukaram Qurt, mother of Ahmad Hreash, Al Jazeera, August 25, 2022.

Palestinian Lawyers for Justice, a human rights group, said that it has documented 117 cases of “political detentions” by the Palestinian security forces since the beginning of June 2022.

The detainees include six Palestinians who had previously served time in Israeli prison for anti-Israeli activities and are currently being held in the “Jericho Slaughterhouse.” The group noted that the Palestinian security forces were continuing to imprison Palestinians because of their political affiliation of for criticizing and opposing the Palestinian Authority.

“They hit me with their legs and hands. They beat me with rubber hoses. They put me in a tiny cell with no mattresses or pillows. I had to use my shoe as a pillow while sleeping on the floor.” — Mujahed Tabanjah, Palestinian journalist, Facebook, August 16, 2022.

Alarmed by the ongoing crackdown on political opponents and other Palestinians, several Palestinian activists launched an online campaign titled “Political Detention is a Crime,” in protest of the arrests and torture in Palestinian prisons.

When Palestinians arrest or brutally torture other Palestinians, it does not appear to be “news that’s fit to print.” Palestinians who go on hunger strikes in Palestinian prisons are often ignored by the media, while those who protest against Israel receive wide coverage.

By ignoring the horrific human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority, the international community and media expose their hypocrisy in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are also doing an incalculable disservice to the Palestinian people, many of whom have been victimized by their own leaders.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on August 27 that he is concerned about the condition of Palestinians who are being held in Israeli prisons. He described the prisoners, many of whom have been convicted of carrying out or involvement in attacks against Israel and Israeli citizens, as “freedom fighters” and announced that the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people will continue to support them “until they gain their freedom.”

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/how-human-rights-believers-fund-evil?utm_source=email

This week’s Jewish Chronicle features a major story by David Rose, which reveals that Britain has been investing millions of pounds in training the Palestinian Authority in human rights even while the PA has been perpetrating torture and beating a prominent Palestinian democracy and human rights campaigner to death.

David’s story can be read here, here and here.

The opinion piece that I wrote for the JC to accompany the story follows below.

***

For many in the west, it has long been an article of faith that peace will only come to the Middle East when the Palestinians gain a state of their own.

Along with the EU and America, successive British governments have promoted a “two-state solution” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Central to this thinking is a key distinction. Hamas is considered beyond the pale as Islamist extremists who throw gay Palestinians off rooftops to their death and make no bones about their aim to destroy Israel. But the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas is deemed “moderate” and entitled to run a future state of Palestine that would be part of the community of nations.

The JC has now exposed this faith in the PA as an excruciating misjudgment.

For while Britain has been investing millions in it in the arrogant belief that it can teach it western values, Palestinian officers have been murdering and torturing dissenters who campaign for their human rights.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/mahmoud-abbas-holocaust-inversion-richard-l-cravatts/

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke at a news conference in Berlin with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Aug. 17, he publicly revealed, perhaps inadvertently, that while he has a long-standing record of Holocaust denial, he still felt perfectly willing to draw a comparison between the lethal actions of the Third Reich toward Jews and Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians.

“From 1947 to the present day,” Abbas said, “Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities—in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim, and many others—50 massacres, 50 Holocausts. And until today, and every day, there are casualties killed by the Israeli military.” 

It was Abbas’ use of the word “Holocaust” that drew such a fierce blowback, not only because it was recklessly uttered in Germany, but that it suggested that the deaths of Palestinians by Israel exceeded the extermination of Jews by the Nazis—in fact, absurdly, fifty times as many deaths.

Abbas, of course, is well known for his crude Holocaust denial, having written his doctoral dissertation that cast doubt on the number of Jewish fatalities in the Final Solution. In 1984, that dissertation was published as a book, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, and laid out the fantasy that Zionists themselves were complicit in supporting the Nazi genocide, that they told the Nazis “to do as they wish to the Jews, as long as it guarantees individual immigration to Palestine . . . This was because it [the Zionist leaders] thought that raising the number of victims would increase its rights at the end of the war, when the bounty is divided.”

In Abbas’ hallucinatory worldview, Zionists were so inhumane, so rapacious and murderous in their zeal to create a Jewish homeland, that they willingly sacrificed millions of their brethren in order to achieve that statehood, not to mention reaping reparations as a result of inflated fatality numbers.

And even if Jews are to be believed when they recount the Holocaust, Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is inexcusable since they should understand suffering and death by a murderous regime “If they [Jews] say that they made sacrifices in World War II, and we respect what they say, they should not treat us the way they were treated,” Abbas told Polish journalists in 2015. “We must not be a victim of the victim.” 

https://bit.ly/3R5Uzh5

*Has Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria enhanced or injured US interests?

Will the proposed Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria boost or undermine US interests?

*During the October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, top Jordanian military officers warned their Israeli counterparts that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, transforming Jordan into a uncontrollable terrorist heaven, haunting the highly vulnerable pro-US regimes of the oil-producing Arab Gulf states, as well as the pro-US Egypt.

*In June 1967, Israel gained control over the topographically-dominant mountain ridges of the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria, in a preemptive war against Egypt-Syria-Jordan, which dramatically enhanced its posture of deterrence. 

Israel was transformed from a violence-inducing national security-consumer to a violence-deterring national security-producer, evolving into a unique force-multiplier for the US, constraining the maneuverability of anti-US rogue entities.

*The mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – 3,000 ft. above the Jordan Valley and 2,000 ft. above pre-1967 Israel – play a major role in determining the survival of Israel, the pro-US Hashemite regime in Jordan and Jordan’s neighbors in the Arabian Peninsula.

*Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria has eliminated much of the threat (to Jordan) of a Judea and Samaria-based Palestinian terrorism and has deterred domestic and regional anti-Hashemite elements.

*For example, in 2022, the Iranian-inspired tension along the Syria-Jordan border – from the Golan Heights to Iraq – is intensifying.  It features Iranian-made drones and cyberattacks on Jordan, as well as an increasing infiltration by Syria-based Iranian terrorists, arms smugglers and drug traffickers. Iran’s Ayatollahs aim at toppling the Hashemite regime, extending their reach toward the Mediterranean, undermining the US’ strategic posture in the Middle East, and intensifying the lethal threat to Israel and Saudi Arabia (Jordan’s southern neighbor).

*Jordan may not be able to face the escalated Iranian threat on its own. While it does not rely on an effective US or Arab military deployment, it perceives Israel as its only proven ally, which has systematically flexed its military muscle against Iran. Moreover, Israel’s posture of deterrence emboldens Jordan, in the face of the Iranian threat, as it did in prior threats posed to the Hashemite regime from the Syrian front.