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ISRAEL

Israel Has Every Right to Destroy Hamas By Mario Loyola

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/06/14/israel-has-every-right-to-destroy-hamas/#slide-1

The goal should be to end missile terrorism, not get a cease-fire

For more than 50 years, the diplomacy surrounding major outbreaks of Israeli–Arab violence has followed a standard progression. The United Nations Security Council goes into emergency session, with most members calling for an immediate cease-fire. America uses its veto power to stave off Security Council action for a few days or weeks, buying Israel a bit of time to in­flict significant damage on its enemies. Then America decides that time’s up, and Israel — beholden to America’s moral and material support — is forced to suspend large-scale military operations. All sides declare victory and live to fight another day.

The bloody ritual was performed once again last month, and once again Israel’s principal assailant was Hamas, which brutally rules over 2 million Palestinians in a part of the “occupied territories” known as the Gaza Strip, which is be­tween Israel and Egypt, and which Israel stopped occupying in 2005. Hamas is an Islamist terrorist organization that is supported by Iran and totally devoted to Israel’s destruction; it has stockpiled tens of thousands of missiles for the purpose of terrorizing Israeli communities whenever the fancy strikes.

This time, the fancy struck over a mundane landlord–tenant dispute in East Jerusa­lem and Palestinian riots on the Temple Mount. Hamas used this as a pretext to unleash a new barrage of missile terrorism across Israel, reaching every major city with hundreds of missiles per day in its most expansive and destructive offensive yet. Even as Israel’s sophisticated Iron Dome missile-defense system knocked most of those missiles out of the sky (at the lopsided cost of about $80,000 per intercept), millions of Israelis scrambled into bomb shelters, and scores were injured or killed. After eleven days of fighting, Israel caved in to American pressure and agreed to an Egyptian cease-fire proposal.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Israel goes way beyond what should be expected of any nation of comparable size and population. This week’s medical highlights include therapy for “incurable” wounds and diseases, life-saving discoveries, fast cancer diagnosis, organ donations and even the treatment of citizens of an enemy terror state. Israeli technology is literally “out of this world”; it is re-inventing the wheel and saving the planet from starvation. Israeli artists and athletes are smashing records, while Israeli organizations are ensuring that the Jewish State prospers financially and socially even in difficult times. Michael Ordman

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Blood clot treatment for chronic wounds. Israelis Dr Igal & Alon Kushnir founded RedDress Medical to develop ActiGraft – a revolutionary fast treatment that uses blood clots made from the patient’s own blood to heal chronic wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers. It is saving lives in Israel, the US and 15 other countries.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israelis-invent-revolutionary-blood-clot-that-heals-chronic-wounds/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmiAeO2bH44 (testimonial from a South African Muslim)
https://reddressmedical.com/technology/
 
Early warning of dialysis problems. Israel’s PatenSee has developed an image system to detect deterioration of fistulas – the artery / vein connection from dialysis machines to patients. Over time these connections fail due to blockages (stenoses), risking blood clots and thromboses. The system is in trials at two Israeli hospitals.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3907910,00.html   https://www.patensee.com/
https://www.medxelerator.com/patensee-initiates-first-in-human-trial-with-its-contactless-imaging-surveillance-system-for-patients-undergoing-hemodialysis/
 
Swiss partner to fight bowel disease. Israel’s CytoReason (see here previously) is partnering Swiss multinational Ferring to find new treatments for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). CytoReason’s AI technology will enable the joint building of models of diseased cells on which therapies will be tested.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/swiss-pharma-firm-ferring-israels-cytoreason-join-to-battle-bowel-disease/
 
Clues to the origins of Parkinson’s. Researchers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Penn State College of Medicine have made an important discovery about the protein alpha-synuclein, associated with the development of Parkinson’s and dementia. It gives hope for new therapeutics to delay or halt their progression.
https://www.afhu.org/2021/05/19/protein-simulation-experiments-unveil-clues-on-origins-of-parkinsons-disease/  https://www.cell.com/structure/fulltext/S0969-2126(21)00160-X
 
European certification for AI cancer detector. Israel’s Ibex Medical Analytics (see here previously) has received Europe’s CE Mark for its Galen Breast image analysis solution to help pathologists detect various types of cancer. It follows successful trials in Israel and France.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3908568,00.html
 
The easy road to recovery. Israeli founded Laguna Health aims to reduce costly hospital readmissions and shorten recovery times. Its app can provide patients in the US either with a fully digital and personalized recovery journey or enable interactions with live expert recovery coaches via text, telephone or video.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3908592,00.html  https://www.lagunahealth.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1wRbuL-vu4
 
The inventor of the first ingestible camera. Technion UK’s webinar on 31st May features Israel’s Rafi Nave, senior researcher at Israel’s Technion. He headed the development of the PillCam, the world’s first ingestible camera for imaging the digestive tract. NHS UK is about to use PillCam for 11,000 patients across England.
https://technionuk.org/event/early-cancer-detection-the-nhs-and-israel/
 
Gazan children in Israeli hospital. Children from Gaza, being treated free of charge by doctors at Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), normally go home after surgery. But due to Hamas rockets, 3 post-surgery Gazan kids had to stay in the SACH children’s house and six more in the hospital itself.
https://www.israel21c.org/gazan-kids-celebrate-ramadan-in-israeli-hospital-despite-rockets/
 
More supplies for the South. Israeli volunteer medical equipment organization Yad Sarah (see here previously) has sent hundreds of home hospital equipment, wheelchairs, crutches, respiratory aids etc. to reinforce its branches in the south of the country.
https://www.jns.org/yad-sarah-provides-medical-equipment-support-services-to-israeli-citizens-under-fire/
 
Saving lives has no boundaries. Two real-life stories highlight the lengths that United Hatzalah volunteers will go to treat Israeli citizens of any religion, whose lives are in danger.
https://israelrescue.org/blog/amid-the-tensions-jewish-emts-perform-cpr-in-east-jerusalem-save-a-muslim-mans-life/ https://israelrescue.org/blog/muslim-doctor-lightly-injured-after-protecting-a-jewish-man-with-his-own-body-during-an-attempted-lynch-in-tamra/

Blinken and Netanyahu: Ships Passing in the Night The first meeting between the U.S. secretary of state and Israel’s prime minister laid bare a series of problems that politely slipped past one another. That is not the end of them. By Shoshana Bryen

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/27/blinken-and-netanyahu-ships-passing-in-the-night/

After their meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made what were supposed to be “soft” public statements. The politely worded remarks deliberately slid past serious policy differences, but those differences cannot and should not be hidden. Moreover, they should form the basis of conversation between the two allies in the future.

Blinken laid out four reasons for his visit to the region. 

First, “to demonstrate the commitment of the U.S. to Israel’s security.” This needs no comment.

Second, “to start to work toward greater stability and reduce tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem.” 

Blinken didn’t mention the six weeks of intense Palestinian Authority (PA) incitement to violence, including speeches and music videos promising glory for those who killed Jews. A music video was repeatedly broadcast in which Palestinians declared, “I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts . . . My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.” Mahmoud Abbas’ religious affairs ministry told viewers, “Islam does not want you to be submissive to others,” and “if you die fighting, you go to paradise; if you kill the enemies, they go to hell.” Check out the “TikTok Intifada.” 

This, of course, caused tension for Palestinians who believed Israel ultimately would respond. But in addition, Blinken might have noted the tension in Israel resulting from that same incitement, and the ensuing violence, along with the periodic addition of terrorist Hamas rockets being fired into civilian neighborhoods.

The third reason, said Blinken, was “to support urgent humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for Gaza, to benefit the Palestinian people.” 

Joe Biden did say Hamas would be kept away from the reconstruction money and materiel, but it is unclear how that will be enforced and who will do the enforcing, as the PA has absolutely no control over what Hamas does in Gaza. Neither does the United States. Nor does the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Nor do the usual European donors, who are, this time, showing some skepticism about pouring more money down the hole. 

Did UNRWA’s Gaza director lose the plot? By Ruthie Blum  

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/did-unrwas-gaza-director-lose-the-plot-opinion-669433

Normally, I wouldn’t take pity on anyone associated with UNRWA, whose entire existence is based on a false premise: that millions of Palestinians who are not refugees by any measure get to be categorized as such. The semantic trick has kept the NGO in clover since 1949, with its coffers filled and replenished for decades by the international community, in spite of its outdated mandate.

But Schmale deserves at least some sympathy for the wrath that he aroused in Gaza this week. In an interview with Channel 12’s Arad Nir, he had the gall to tell the truth about Operation Guardian of the Walls and the situation in Gaza following last Friday’s ceasefire.

Nir had to try hard to hide his surprise. Bashing Israel in general, and in the wake of a war in particular, is a no-brainer for UNRWA representatives. Yet Schmale actually attempted to portray a complex reality, not merely launch into the kind of tirade that would have matched the footage of Gaza selected to illustrate the three-minute Zoom conversation.

Asked about the “humanitarian situation” in the Strip, Schmale said that though at least 1,000 residential units were destroyed, leaving “a couple of thousand people who don’t have a home they can go back to,” he considers the “biggest damage [to be] psychological,” because “building and rebuilding buildings is easy, and easy to plan for.”
Nir’s attempt to goad him into bemoaning the Gazans’ lack of basic needs also flopped.

“During the 11 days of war, we did not run out of food, water and supplies, [though] we would have if Kerem Shalom and the border would have stayed closed,” he stated. “So, from my point of view, there is no acute or serious shortage of medical supplies, food or water, as long as this now starts – continues – to come in.”

Nir then wanted to know Schmale’s opinion on “claims by Israeli officials that the IDF bombardments were very precise.” Shockingly, the bigwig replied: “I’m not a military expert, but I would not dispute that. I also have the impression that there is a huge sophistication in the way the Israeli military struck over the last 11 days. So, that’s not my issue. My issue is another one. I’ve had many colleagues describe to me that they feel that, in comparison to the 2014 war, this time the strikes felt much more vicious in terms of their impact. So, yes, they didn’t hit, with some exceptions, civilian targets, but the viciousness, the ferocity, of the strikes was heavily felt.”

John Oliver and Israel’s ‘War Crimes’ Late-night’s useful idiot. Hugh Fitzgerald

John Oliver is the host of the late-night talk-show “Last Week Tonight.” On May 12, after two days of fighting between Hamas and Israel — the war started with a volley of 140 rockets that Hamas, in Gaza, launched against Israel — Oliver delivered his thoughts on the conflict. He came down hard on Israel. Yuval Yoaz reports on Oliver’s palpable want of sympathy for the Jewish State here: “What John Oliver doesn’t get about the war in Gaza,” Times of Israel, May 21, 2021:

“There is a lot to unpack there,” John Oliver began his opening monologue of “Last Week Tonight” last Sunday, where he sharply criticized Israel for its crushing airstrikes on Gaza strip. “From the use of the phrase ‘tit for tat’ war in a conflict in which one side has suffered over 10 times the casualties, something that speaks to the severe power imbalance that played here.” Oliver’s conclusion: this”severe power imbalance“ often “gets obscured by how we choose to talk about it.”

Oliver is, of course, free to criticize Israel, and, although he himself attests to the great difficulty in judging “the latest chapter in a long story you haven’t read” regarding the conflict in the Middle East, he is also free to draw conclusions and formulate a moral position. But Oliver should do this with the same standard he sets for others. Specifically, he’d better avoid obscuring essential facts in the way he chooses to talk about them.

The prism through which Oliver observes the latest flare-up between Israel and Hamas is that of power disparity. Israel has a strong and sophisticated army, fighter jets, and missile defense systems; Hamas does not. This much is true — there are huge, undeniable gaps in military power between Israel and Hamas.

In fact, the common notion is that these gaps are the exact reason the State of Israel exists: had it not built from the ground up a stronger army force than those of its enemies in the region, it is likely that it would have been erased from the map long ago.

Bolstered Jewish – and Inflated Palestinian – Demography Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinge

 https://bit.ly/3bRqzDu

Official Palestinian demographic numbers are highly-inflated, as documented by a study, which has been ongoing since 2004:

*500,000 overseas residents, who have been away for over a year, are included in the Palestinian census, contrary to international regulations. 325,000 were included in the 1997 census, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and 400,000 in 2004, according to the Palestinian Election Commission. The number grows steadily due to births.

*350,000 East Jerusalem Arabs are doubly-counted – by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority. The number grows daily due to births.

*Over 100,000 Arabs, who married Israeli Arabs are similarly doubly-counted. The number expands daily due to births.   

*350,000 Arab emigrants from Judea & Samaria are excluded from the population census of the Palestinian Authority, notwithstanding the annual net-emigration since 1950.   For example, 26,357 in 2019, 7,778 in 2018, 15,173 in 2017, 15,502 in 2016, 16,393 in 2015 and 24,244 in 2014, as documented (exists and entries) in land, air and sea international passages.  

*A 32% artificial inflation of Palestinian births was documented by the World Bank (page 8, item 6) in a 2006 audit.

*The Judea & Samaria Arab fertility rate has been westernized: from 9 births per woman in the 1960s to 3.02 births in 2021, as documented by the CIA World Factbook. It reflects the sweeping urbanization, growing enrollment of women in higher education, rising marriage age and the substantial use of contraceptives.

*The number of Arab deaths in Judea & Samaria has been systematically under-reported for political and financial reasons.

Biden’s Palestinian Mission is Doomed to Fail by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17402/biden-palestinian-mission

The big problem, though, with Mr Biden’s commitment for the US to work with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza is that the ability of Mr Abbas’s organisation to exercise any influence over Gaza is virtually negligible.

While Mr Abbas continues to indulge in the fiction that he is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, the reality so far as Gaza is concerned is that it is the Islamist leaders of Hamas who exercise total control over Gaza.

The jubilant celebrations that took place among Palestinians when the ceasefire finally took hold were not held to express their relief that the fighting was over. The celebrations took place as a demonstration of support for Hamas’s role in launching a massive attack on Israel.

The bad news for Mr Biden is that Hamas not only has zero interest in working with the US and other aid agencies on reconstruction projects in Gaza and other Palestinian territories. It has no interest in resolving tensions with Israel.

[T]he main objective of the Hamas movement, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by the US and a host of other Western governments, is the complete destruction of the state of Israel, an ambition it shares with Iran, Hamas’s close ally and benefactor.

Indeed, Israeli intelligence officials believe Iran deliberately used the recent bout of fighting to test Israel’s air defence systems with a view to improving Hamas’s capability to inflict maximum damage on the Israeli people in any future conflict.

To judge by the jubilant Palestinian celebrations that greeted the ceasefire that ended 11 days of fighting in the Gaza Strip, US President Joe Biden’s belief that the agreement presents a “genuine opportunity to make progress” on resolving tensions between Israel and the Palestinians seems naively optimistic.

Moreover, the same can be said of the president’s pledge to provide Gaza with humanitarian and reconstruction aid to help the Palestinian residents in the wake of the latest outbreak of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

Inside Hamas’ Hate A journey into the Heart of Darkness. Dr. Shmuel Katz

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/understanding-hostility-dr-shmuel-katz/

There is ongoing incitement by the radical Muslims and their supporters against Israel using lies and deception. These actions are preparing their supporters to use and implement the concept of Jihad, to act against the Infidel in general, and against the Jews in particular.

Recently, there has been a confluence of several factors which gave the terror-supporting Iran and their proxy Hamas the miscalculated incentive to rally their oblivious supporters, and try to liquidate the state of Israel and gain power.

The initial excuse for the Arab confrontation in Jerusalem, was associated with two big lies:

1. “The Jews decides to evict innocent Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem” – This is a lie. The fact is that this dispute is related to a long-standing refusal of four Arab squatter Families to pay rent to their Jewish landlords. This case was deliberated in the Israeli courts for many years and now it seems that the courts, that have already ruled to recognize the ownership of the Jews of these houses in the past, clarified that the Arab tenants refusal to pay rent is against the law. There is a pending Supreme Court decision which may decide that the squatters should be removed form these houses, which do not belong to them.

2. “The Israeli police decided to attack peaceful Muslim worshipers on Temple Mount” – This too is a lie. The fact is that following violence by some Radical Muslims and by few Radical Jews, Arab Palestinian agitators and Hamas supporters piled up fire bombs, firecrackers and rocks on the Temple Mount and in the Al Aqsa Mosque, and used them to attack the Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall Plaza, about 70 feet below them. The police had to go into the involved areas on Temple Mount, in order to stop these terror attacks and riots which spilled over also into other locations in Jerusalem and into other cities in Israel.

Hamas gave an ultimatum to Israel on May the 10th to leave the Temple Mount and the Sheikh Jarrah areas, and release by 6:00 pm all the Arab rioters that were caught and arrested by the Israeli police. Israel ignored this insane ultimatum, and Hamas started a massive assault on Jerusalem and other Israeli locations, launching multiple rockets from within their own civilian population, into the Israeli civilian population, in order to initiate and support a wider Jihad against Israel. They were hoping that it would involve even more of the brainwashed Israeli Arab Citizens and many of their international supporters around the world. Unfortunately, even many Media outlets fell prey for these maliciously calculated terror waves. Seeing civilian casualties is horrible, but when the casualties are caused by malicious calculation of a terror organization which planned to create this human disaster, it makes it even worse. Some of these casualties came despite the careful defensive Israeli efforts to stop the Hamas rocket launchers and the attempt to destroy the Hamas infrastructure which supported this terror effort. In addition, many Palestinian casualties were caused by the misfired rockets which were launched by Hamas, which were aimed at Israeli civilians, but hit their own population.

Diaspora Follies When the likes of Sarah Silverman smear the IDF Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/diaspora-follies-bruce-bawer/

These days the shameless perfidy of the New York Times is palpable on the front page of every new issue, but it can take a big story like armed conflict between Israel and Hamas to ratchet up the paper’s bias and duplicity to Pulitzer Prize levels. You barely need to look beyond the headlines: “Gaza War Deepens a Long-Running Humanitarian Crisis” (May 18); “After the Cease-Fire, Gaza Awakens to a Sea of Rubble” (May 21); “Life under Occupation: The Misery at the Heart of the Conflict” (May 22). Such articles being tailor-made to manipulate readers who still get their news (to use the term loosely) from the mainstream media, and whose opinions on serious issues are easily influenced by shamelessly contrived propaganda, it was no surprise to find one Marisa Kabas opening her own recent piece for Rolling Stone with a reference to a May 13 Times article, headlined “In Gaza, an Ordinary Street, and Extraordinary Horror, as Missiles Thunder In,” about Palestinians killed by IDF rockets. Kabas’s take: as the “granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor,” she had been “raised to see Palestinians as the enemy” and never to question “Israel’s existence, actions, and connection to the United States”; but after reading this Times article, she confesses, “I mourn.”

In fact, Kabas (B.A. in journalism, George Washington University, 2009) more than mourns. She has now decided – and seems to be under the impression that this is a fresh thought – that Jews’ “history of oppression should make us even more empathetic to the displacement and killing of Palestinians.” And she tells us that when she posted this insight on social media, she “was surprised and humbled by the overwhelmingly affirmative response, with fellow American Jews publicly and privately agreeing they’re no longer able to accept the party line on Israel-U.S. relations” or to “square their love for their people and history with their commitment to racial and social justice.” One of the fellow American Jews who have evolved along with her, she is glad to inform us, is a certain Jeremy Slevin (B.A. in political science, Washington University in St. Louis, 2010), who, as it happens, works as “senior communications director for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar” – a job that over time has helped him, as Kabas puts it, “to separate his Jewish American identity from Israel.” Gee, I’ll bet it has. (Slevin, according to his LinkedIn page, has previously worked for Keith Ellison, MSNBC, and John Podesta’s Center for American Progress.) Kabas concludes that “causing trauma to another group will never ease our own. Killing more than 200 Palestinians in two weeks won’t bring back our ancestors who perished in the Holocaust, and it certainly won’t bring us closer to a lasting peace. Until we recognize that no one is safe until we’re all safe, the cycle of oppression will play on.”

Rebuild What With Whom? Shoshana Bryen

https://www.newsweek.com/rebuild-what-whom-opinion-1594375?utm_term=Autofe

Video has emerged of Palestinians fighting on the grounds of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, also known as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The AP reported that only hours after the ceasefire with Israel took effect, thousands of Hamas supporters demonstrated against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the rule of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, chanting, “Dogs of the Palestinian Authority, out, out. The people want the president to leave.” Violence quickly ensued.

This is a glimpse of Palestinian politics that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken should take seriously as they discuss reconstruction in Gaza. The Hamas rocket war on Israel owed much to the Hamas-Fatah civil war that began in 2007 and has simmered since then, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank. Each is a dictatorship. In the run-up to a planned 2021 Palestinian election, Abbas stoked violence against Israel, claiming that Al-Aqsa was under siege and Israel was committing “ethnic cleaning.” Abbas, apparently, feared he might lose the election to Hamas—so he canceled it and blamed Israel.

PA television was full of speeches and music videos promising glory for those who killed Jews. A music video was repeatedly broadcast in which Palestinians declared, “I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts. …My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.” Abbas’ religious affairs advisor told viewers, “Islam does not want you to be submissive to others,” and “if you die fighting, you go to paradise; if you kill the enemies, they go to hell.”