RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Another week and Michael Ordman brings us another dazzling compendium of Israel’s achievements, contributions, and social programs which give the lie to the unrelenting turpitude of anti-Israel groupies. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Coronavirus booster progress. Some 1.2 million Israelis have now had a third coronavirus vaccination and wider rollout is imminent. Maccabi Healthcare Services reported 37 (all non-serious) infections in Israelis over 60 who have been triple-vaccinated, compared to 1,064 (many serious) for those who have had only two doses.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/08/18/israeli-hmo-initial-results-show-covid-19-booster-shot-86-effective/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/312034

Covid treatment is too cheap? Professor Eli Schwartz of Israel’s Sheba Medical Center was unable to publish the results of his successful double-blind trial of ivermectin on 89 coronavirus patients. Interesting reading.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-scientist-says-covid-19-could-be-treated-for-under-1day-675612

Trial approved for Alzheimer’s treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s SciSparc to commence a Phase 2a clinical trial of its SCI-110 (formerly THX-110) treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and agitation. The study will be conducted at the Israeli Medical Center for Alzheimer’s.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/scisparc-to-commence-phase-iia-clinical-trial-of-sci-110-for-the-treatment-of-alzheimers-disease-and-agitation-301326828.html

New therapies for mental illness. Israel’s Nextage Therapeutics is developing technology to deliver to the brain tiny quantities of controversial chemicals, to treat depression and other neurological disorders.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-team-aims-to-treat-neurological-disorders-with-psychedelics-676923

How the brain maps 3D space. Scientists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have unveiled how 3-dimensional space is represented in the brain’s “GPS” system. They mapped out how “grid cells” work in bats and the findings have turned the previous theory “on its head”.

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/when-brain%E2%80%99s-gps-goes-grid

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03783-x

First 3D printed active tumor. After Researchers at Tel Aviv University have printed an entire active and viable glioblastoma (brain cancer) tumor using a 3D printer. It includes simulated brain tissue and blood vessel-like tubes through which blood cells can flow and treatments can be (and have been) tested.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israel-prints-worlds-first-3d-living-malignant-brain-tumor-677079

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUjuFyLF5nM

Rejuvenating the immune system. (TY UWI) The reason the elderly are vulnerable to Covid, is their immune systems fail to recognize a new virus. Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute, Sourasky (“Ichilov) and Rambam hospitals have demonstrated that removing most of the memory B lymphocytes rejuvenates these immune cells.

https://www.israel21c.org/study-reveals-why-elderly-at-more-risk-from-covid-19/

https://doi.org/10.1182/blood.2021012428

Take your blood pressure with your smartphone. Israel’s Binah.ai (see here previously) is in the final stage of validating its iPhone blood pressure functionality at Israel’s Sheba medical center. The technology records video at up to 120 frames per second, to analyze skin color changes for monitoring vital signs.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-startup-lets-users-check-vital-signs-by-looking-at-their-smartphones/

Google health subsidiary sets up Israeli R&D center. Verily Life Sciences, an independent subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is establishing a Research and Development center in Israel.  The company focuses on digital health, applying AI to medical problems. In Israel it will target colorectal (colon) cancer.

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-googles-verily-life-sciences-to-set-up-israel-rd-center-1001380819

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-google-project-in-israel-aims-to-use-ai-to-help-detect-colon-cancer/

Online support. Israel’s Circles has developed a platform designed to help users overcome life’s challenges. It matches groups of 6-8 people who are facing similar difficulties such as divorce, grief, or medical diagnoses, and connects them together for one-hour video meetings. People don’t have to face their struggles alone.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3915387,00.html

ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL

ww.jihadwatch.org/2021/08/unrwas-jihad-against-israel-part-one

Congressional Republicans have recently introduced legislation to reenact President Donald Trump’s cutoff of American aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Closing UNRWA and ending a decades-long, multigenerational “refugee” status for over five million Arabs is long overdue, as documented in the 2014 book Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict—UNRWA Policies Reconsidered.

The book’s author, David Bedein, director of the Center for Near East Policy Research in Jerusalem, provided a detailed, damning indictment of UNRWA. Founded in the wake of Israel’s 1948-1949 War of Independence, UNRWA had the mission of providing for Arabs who lost their homes in the territory that became Israel. Various estimates of their number ran between 540,000 and 750,000.

“When UNRWA launched its operations on May 1, 1950, it was thought that, since the refugee situation would soon be resolved, UNRWA would have a limited life span,” Bedein wrote. Yet ever since UNRWA’s mandate has been “renewed every three years by the UN General Assembly.” As a later article will analyze in detail, the key to UNRWA’s longevity lies in UNRWA’s refusal to apply ordinary resettlement processes to these refugees and their multiplying “refugee” descendants. Rather, UNRWA insists that they “return” to modern Israel.

UNRWA is anomalous in other ways, for it demonstrates an inordinate global attention to Palestinian refugees. As Bedein wrote, “UNRWA remains the only UN organization dedicated to handling exactly one ethnic group of refugees.” Thus, UNRWA “stands in sharp contrast to” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who “works on behalf of all refugees in the world.”

 For more than 20 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, anti-Zionism was a regional phenomenon—a clash between Arab and Jewish national movements in the Middle East. In the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe the Soviets exploited antisemitism for political purposes, but it was rarely part of international debate until after the Six-Day War in 1967. By the end of the 1960s, and since 1975, anti-Zionism became international in scope. It first appeared in the universities in the West where the New Left, in cooperation with the Arab student associations, attacked Israeli policy. [1]

 When the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 on November 10, 1975 and declared “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” it significantly expanded anti-Zionism into the sphere international non-governmental organizations and therefore into the Third World countries. This was done by an alliance of the Arabs and the Soviet Union. They endowed anti-Zionism with legitimacy and official recognition. [2]  

 After the First World War, the Arabs expected Greater Syria—which included Palestine and Lebanon—to become a vast united and sovereign Arab empire. Instead the French and the British divided the area into what the Arabs considered “irrationally carved out” entities that became the present-day states of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Trans-Jordan (later Jordan), Iraq and Israel. They were outraged that a “non-Arab embryo state in Palestine” had been inserted into an area where they would never be accepted. They claimed that this shattered their dreams of unification and impeded their search for a common identity.  [3]  

 The Fight for “Dignity and Independence”

The fight against a Jewish homeland became an integral part of their struggle “for dignity and independence.” Israel’s existence, they claimed, “implied that not only a part of the Arab patrimony, but also parts of Islam had been stolen. For a Moslem there was no greater shame than for that to happen.” The only way to eliminate this deeply felt affront—this “symbol of everything that had dominated them in the past”—was to rid the area of “imperialist domination.” [4]  

Zionists were the official enemy of the Arab national movement, but Arab governments have long been accused of using the Arab Israeli confrontation to divert attention from their own critical domestic social and economic problems. When confronted, they respond that if this were not a real concern, it would not resonate so strongly among the Arab masses. [5]

The late Bernard Lewis, the dean of Middle Eastern scholars, said Arab preoccupation with Israel is the licensed grievance. In countries where people are becoming increasingly angry and frustrated at all the difficulties under which they live—the poverty, unemployment, oppression—having a grievance which they can express freely is an enormous psychological advantage.” [6]

https://unitedwithisrael.org/in-medical-first-israeli-doctors-freeze-out-cancerous-bladder-tumors/?utm_source=newsletters_

Doctors at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital are hopeful the procedure will eventually become an outpatient treatment.

Doctors at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital removed cancer tumors from the bladders of four patients by freezing them out rather than by cutting. The procedure has never been tried before and offers tremendous potential to reduce bleeding, infection, pain and other risks.

All the patients were discharged without side effects and will be monitored over several weeks.

“Normally, the tumors are frozen by injecting the freezing agent using needles, but this can’t happen with bladder cancer,” said aide Dr. Isaac Hoffman, who operated with his colleague Prof. Gilad Amiel.

Instead, an Israeli medical company, Vessi Medical, based near Nahariya, developed a process to spray a freezing agent on the cancerous cells. Ice forms around and within the cancerous cells without damaging the bladder muscles.

The bladder is unlike other organs, explained Eyal Kochavi, CEO of Vessi Medical. “It’s mostly muscle and very flexible. It has the ability to change its volume in a way that we don’t pay attention to. So, for example, we don’t feel any urge to urinate until it fills to almost half a liter.”

Said Hoffman, “Here we are actually spraying liquid Co2 instead of cutting out the tumor, a process that causes scarring of healthy tissue…

“We are very happy that we succeeded in freezing the tumor, after which the cancerous cells die off without them needing us to cut them out.”

Hoffman added that the procedure could eventually be administered as an outpatient treatment. “The aim is to release the patient from the hospital on the same day as the procedure.”

Bladder cancer affects around two million people globally. According to the Mayo Clinic, risk factors for bladder cancer include family history, a personal history of chronic bladder irritation or infection, age, smoking and exposure to certain chemicals used to manufacture dyes, rubber, paint and other textiles.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

This issue is packed full of life-saving examples. They include successful coronavirus treatments, UV sterilizing, and vaccine boosters; new treatments for bladder cancer, Parkinson’s, heart arrhythmia, back pain, damaged cartilage, stroke, allergies and more. There are also heart-warming stories from two Israeli life-saving organizations. Those citizens with disabilities and special needs can expect new opportunities for a better life and Israeli firefighters are helping save Greek citizens from deadly fires. New Israeli water innovations plus agricultural projects and startups are saving millions from drought and starvation. Finally, new international agreements will save many more lives in the future. Michael Ordman

Fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, Israel’s contributions truly set a light unto the nations.

“And unto your light, nations shall walk, and kings unto the brightness of your rising” Isaiah 60:3. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Hospital kills Covid with UV light. Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) is the first hospital to use ultra-violet (UV) light to disinfect medical spaces. The J. Protect system, from Israel’s Juganu (see here) uses UV-A in occupied rooms and UV-C when the room is empty. Bacteria, fungi and viruses (e.g., Covid-19) are killed in one hour.
https://worldisraelnews.com/israeli-hospital-first-ever-to-use-light-to-disinfect-spaces/
 
Covid treatment trial extended. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Health Ministry has approved a Phase 2 trial of Covid-19 treatment MesenCure (see here previously) from Israel’s Bonus BioGroup. The treatment helped 15 out of 17 severe Covid cases, to be released from hospital just one day after receiving their final dose.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israel-to-expand-use-of-covid-drug-that-gets-88-percent-of-patients-out-of-hospital-676397
 
Pfizer booster vaccine works. (TY Hazel) Researchers at Israel’s Beilinson Medical Center have found that twice as many organ transplant recipients developed antibodies after their 3rd anti-covid jab compared to their 2nd dose. There were also good results in the over-60s, of which over 750,000 have had their 3rd vaccination.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/3rd-covid-shot-highly-potent-in-israels-immunocompromised-early-study-shows/
 
Freezing bladder cancer. In a global first, doctors at Israel’s Rambam Medical Center in Haifa performed cryotherapy to treat superficial bladder cancer in a 60-year-old patient. The technology was developed by Israel’s Vessi Medical (see here previously). Bladder cancer is the most common cancer in men over 50.
https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/cryotheraphy_breakthrough.aspx  https://www.vessimed.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00cr009GQ2g
 
Defibrillator on a string. Israel’s Newpace has developed. the Implantable Subcutaneous String-cardio Defibrillator (ISSD) – a low-invasive heart rhythm defibrillator that is implanted under the skin and is recharged and monitored wirelessly using Bluetooth. Newpace is now to use the battery system from Israel’s Powermat.
https://powermat.com/news/press-releases/newpace-selects-wireless-power-market-leader-powermat-technologies-to-develop-advanced-wireless-charging-technology-for-innovative-life-saving-devices/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1BNfklrA8s  https://www.newpacemedical.com/products
 
European approval for spinal fusion system. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s ZygoFix (see here previously) has obtained the European CE mark for its minimally invasive screwless zLOCK Spinal Fusion system for the treatment of chronic back pain. The system has been in clinical use for over three years in Hungary and Israel.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zygofix-receives-ce-clearance-for-its-zlock-spinal-fusion-system-301320845.html
 
Successful trials for knee cartilage replacement. Israel’s CartiHeal (see here previously) has just announced successful results in the two-year trial of its Agili-C implant for 251 patients with damaged knee cartilage. Over 77% of patients said their condition had improved, compared to 33% of those who had conventional treatment.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-cartheal-succeeds-in-clinical-trial-for-cartilage-treatment-1001380565
 
Israel’s medical robotic revolution. Join Technion UK’s webinar on 24th Aug at 2pm UK time. Professor Alon Wolf, Head of Robotics and Vice President of Israel’s Technion Institute, will talk about his work. His startup Medrobotics is now transforming his search & rescue robotic snake into an anatomical surgery tool.
https://technionuk.org/event/the-medical-robotics-revolution/
https://technionuk.org/video/snake-robots-technion-biorobotics-biomechanics-lab-alon-wolf/
 
Hi-tech stroke rehab. Ben Gurion University has established a new rehabilitation lab for stroke victims. It is based at ADI ALEH Negev Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Village in southern Israel (see here previously). Patients spend 3 – 5 hours per day with cutting-edge equipment that utilizes the brain’s plasticity to repair itself.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/bgus-negev-lab-is-bringing-stroke-rehab-into-the-future-675273
 
Preventing allergies in babies. Israel’s MyOR uses AI models and predictive data from studies worldwide to forecast which newborns are at risk of developing food allergies and atopic dermatitis (eczema). This, plus a sophisticated skin test, gives pediatricians a tool to guide parents on how to prevent allergies.
https://www.israel21c.org/this-startup-aims-to-predict-and-prevent-allergies-in-babies/  
https://www.myorcare.com/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJt2jT7E7A  (Bamba story at 8:15 mins)
 
Diagnosing cancer in Midwest USA. Alverno Laboratories, one of the largest integrated laboratory networks in the United States, is to deploy the Galen AI platform from Israel’s Ibex Medical Analytics (see here previously) to help pathologists provide accurate cancer diagnosis for patients.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3914741,00.html
 
Treating symptoms of Parkinson’s. Former Member of Knesset Michael (Miki) Eitan (aged 77) was once completely debilitated by Parkinson’s disease. In Feb 2021, he underwent Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) at Hadassah Ein Kerem in Jerusalem. Now, although the disease continues, most of his symptoms have gone.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/28-year-ex-likud-mk-staves-off-parkinsons-with-rare-brain-treatment/
 
Ethiopian’s 20-year heart guarantee. Israel’s Save A Child’s Heart (SACH) recently flew 33-year-old basketball coach Luleseged Kassa from Ethiopia to Israel, so that surgeons at could fix a faulty heart valve. The valve was one of two that SACH surgeons replaced (again for free) when Luleseged was just 13 years old.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/addis-ababa-man-battling-heart-defect-gets-second-free-treatment-in-israel/
 
The downs and ups of an EMT. Baruch, a United Hatzalah paramedic, lost vital minutes when the daughter of a heart attack victim gave the wrong address. He finally arrived to take over CPR from the patient’s exhausted wife and save her husband’s life. And a busy previous day meant that his medical kit was fully replenished.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/311474

https://dianebederman.com/bds-and-israel/

BDS, Boycott, Divest and Sanction of Israel is a policy shared by millions upon millions if not billions of people. BDS is meant to destroy Israel, the Jewish homeland for more than 3000 years. Why? Because these people are Jew haters. Hitler tried to kill  us. He managed to murder a third of the Jewish individuals; 6 million. BDS wants to destroy Israel itself. I mean, what else does “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” mean?

BDS accuses Israel of being an apartheid state – like South Africa.

From the BDS horse’s mouth:

The BDS movement was launched by 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the Palestinian BDS call urges nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law.

So what is Apartheid? It is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘separation’ and was the name given to the system of racial segregation and subjugation of the African and other non-white population of South Africa by white settlers from 1948 to 1994.

According to BDS, there are many similarities between apartheid in South Africa and modern day Israeli apartheid. South African apartheid was characterised by settler (white) colonialism and the forced displacement of the indigenous population (black), the division of the colonized into different groups with different rights, severe restrictions on movement and violent suppression of resistance. These, say BDS, are all key characteristics of Israel’s modern day regime over the Palestinian people.

Really? It’s not the Palestinian Authority? But I digress.

Hmmm. Muslims are in the Israeli government and Arab Israelis serve on the Supreme Court. Awad Suleiman  is the first Druze colonel to take command of Air Maintenance Unit 22.Col. Talk about diversity inclusion and equity – here it is.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he had emerged from a productive meeting with CIA director William Burns.

“We discussed the strengthening of intelligence and security cooperation between Israel and the United States, the situation in the Middle East, the emphasis on Iran and the possibilities for expanding and deepening regional cooperation. We will continue to cooperate with our closest friend,” Bennett wrote, signing off with an icon of an American flag next to an Israeli one.

Obligatory positive pronouncements aside, Bennett would do well to view Burns’s trip this week to Israel and the Palestinian Authority with wariness.

“The visit shows that the Biden administration is serious about restoring Washington’s relations with the Palestinians and strengthening the Palestinian leadership under President Mahmoud Abbas,” a PA official told The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh on Tuesday.
Noting the CIA chief’s scheduled rendezvous with Abbas and PA General Intelligence Service head Majed Faraj, the official pointed to the PA’s “sharp financial crisis” that requires “urgent [US] aid,” without which “Hamas will come to power in the West Bank.”

If Israel had a shekel for every time the PA whined to the West about its victimhood, the Jewish state’s coffers would be overflowing. In case the most recent example of this incredible chutzpah has escaped attention, a review of the events leading up to Operation Guardian of the Walls is in order.