RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/benshapiro/2024/09/04/the-evil-of-cowardice-n4932220

On Saturday night, the Israeli military made a macabre and horrifying discovery: the slain bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas, including American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. All six hostages had been shot point-blank in the head some 48-72 hours prior, presumably upon the approach of IDF soldiers; Hamas terrorists chose to murder the hostages they had held in terror tunnels for over 300 days rather than risk their liberation.

The discovery sent the entire nation of Israel into mourning. On Oct. 7, Israelis were forced to remember that the enemy they face is not merely violent, but purely evil. In subsequent months, with the extraordinary progress of the IDF in Gaza over the protestations of the Biden administration, Hamas’ evils were relegated once more to the realm of military conflict. But the very thought of these victims — Goldberg-Polin, 23; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Ori Danino, 25; Alex Lobanov, 32; Carmel Gat, 40; and Almog Sarusi, 27 — suffering without sunlight, food or water for nearly a year, all to be shot to death within hours of their possible freedom, reopened all the wounds of Oct. 7.

It turned out that all the diplomatic overtures made by America — overtures largely accepted by the supposedly intransigent administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — meant nothing. As Netanyahu pointed out, “whoever murders hostages does not want a deal.” That was predictable enough, given the fact that Hamas’ chief goal is its own survival — a goal directly at odds with Israel’s necessary goal of extirpating Hamas. That is why Hamas has consistently declared for months that there would be no hostage release without a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, along with the discharge of hundreds of convicted terrorists and murderers. Anything less than survival for Hamas is a loss. Dead Palestinians help Hamas achieve its goal of pressuring Israel; dead hostages help Hamas achieve its goal of pressuring Israel.

https://www.ruthfullyyours.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

“Israel has a right to defend itself,” Kamala told CNN. And then insisted that the “war must end.”

What Kamala was really saying was that Israel has a right to defend itself against an attack, but it doesn’t have a right to win.

Democrats and some Republicans have offered the same formulaic responses since Oct 7.

And long before that.

“Israel has a right to defend itself from rocket attacks,” Obama said in 2014 before calling for a ceasefire. Israel has a right to defend itself, Bush and Clinton used to say before urging a quick end to the fighting in order to make a deal with the terrorists Israel is defending itself against.

Israel has a right to defend itself is the bare minimum allotted to anyone. Everyone has a right to defend themselves when they are attacked. Agreeing to it is not a pro-Israel statement. It is at best a neutral position to which the alternative position is that the Israelis should have allowed themselves to be overrun, destroyed and massacred, men, women and children, on Oct 7.

Anything less than the assertion that Israel has a right to defend itself is a declaration that it deserves to be destroyed. And that is the state of the debate within the Democratic Party.

On one side are the supporters of a two-state solution who want to split Israel between the Jews and the Islamic terrorists. Every time the terrorists invade and kill Jews, the Israeli army would have the right to briefly defend the country before the politicians make a new deal with the terrorists. On the other side are the one-state solution backers who don’t believe Israel has a right to exist and therefore no right to defend itself and support the Islamic terrorists who call themselves ‘Palestinians’ in their quest to destroy it by any means from BDS to genocide.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20917/israel-protests-embolden-hamas

Hamas leaders, who are closely observing the protests, are likely to harden their stance in the hope that the Israeli government will give in to the demonstrators’ demands, including an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has the Israeli public pressuring their government to allow Hamas to “live to fight another day”: to rearm, regroup and continue attacking Israelis – as Hamas official Ghazi Hamad vowed.

Hamas leaders are banking on the Biden administration to compel the Israeli government to give in to the terror group’s demands…. It has long been the dream of Hamas and many Palestinians to see the US turn its back on Israel.

Hamas’s primary goal is to remain in power and return to the pre-October 7 era, when it built a large terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Hamas knows it will not be able to accomplish its aims without a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and an official end of the war.

That is why Hamas is insisting that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Israel’s presence there obstructs Hamas’s efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip through cross-border tunnels, as it has been doing for the past two decades.

Hamas is reportedly demanding US and international guarantees that Israel will not target the terror group anytime in the future. Until then, Hamas will continue to hold on to many of the hostages as an “insurance policy.”

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 atrocities, will not release all the hostages at once. He will continue to physically surround himself with many of them to ensure that Israel does not kill him. Sinwar does not care how many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip perish, as long as he is permitted to stay alive.

Even if Hamas were to initially release 10 or 20 hostages as part of any agreement, who could ensure that the remaining captives would be released? Are we supposed to take Hamas’s word for it? Are we supposed to believe that the Americans, Egyptians and Qataris would be able to force Hamas to comply with the terms of any agreement?

Hamas is only interested in a deal that would keep it in power and make Israel lose the war. Hamas does not feel under pressure, at all, to reach any deal. Why should it? If US President Joe Biden were serious about reaching a deal, all he has to do is phone the leader of Qatar and tell him, as he allegedly told Netanyahu a few weeks ago, to “stop bullshitting me!”

The hostages-ceasefire negotiations have broken down because of insufficient pressure from the Biden administration on Hamas’s patrons in Qatar. The failure of the negotiations should be attributed to Qatar’s lack of action against the Hamas leaders who are living in luxury in Doha. Qatar is not doing anything because it is not under any serious pressure from the Biden administration. Has the Biden administration considered using the threat of withdrawing the US Central Command from Qatar’s Al-Udeid Air Base from to pressure the Gulf state’s rulers into convincing their friends in Hamas to free all the hostages?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/09/01/the-deaths-of-these-hostages-shames-the-western-conscience/

The discovery of the bodies of six Israeli hostages in a tunnel in Rafah confirms what many of us knew about Hamas – that it is a Jew-killing machine that masquerades as a national-liberation movement. That it has no purpose beyond the persecution and slaughter of the Jewish people. That its aim, for all the crowing of its useful idiots in the West about ‘resistance’ and ‘decolonisation’, is nothing more and nothing less than the fascistic terrorising of the inhabitants of the Jewish State. The ‘brutal murder’ of these six people, their only crime their Jewishness, is the bloodiest proof yet that in Hamas Israel faces not only a military foe, but also a virulently racist, existential threat.

But the discovery of the slain Jews shines a harsh light on other people, too. Not just Hamas, but also us, the West, and especially that portion of it that calls itself ‘progressive’. When I saw the photos of the four men and two women killed by their captors in a dank lair in Rafah, I thought to myself: there are people in my community here in the UK who have defaced posters of these people. There are people on my streets who scrawled the word ‘coloniser’ on their faces. There are people in my profession who described the day they were kidnapped as a ‘day of celebration’. There are people in London – and New York, Berlin, Sydney – who expressed solidarity not with these six seized Jews, but with the racists who seized them.

And it made me think: it is not enough today to condemn Hamas. We must also ask how so many in the West came to share in Hamas’s twisted, bigoted hatred for these six human beings. Why so many in the West made excuses for their abduction, vandalised their likenesses and falsely called their persecution ‘resistance’. The barbarism uncovered in Rafah is on Hamas. But the Western conscience is not wholly innocent of this depraved crime.

Let us be clear: the horror in Rafah is what some progressives in the West felt ‘exhilarated’ by, it’s what they ‘celebrated’. This is Hamas, this is its ‘resistance’. All six, according to the IDF, were ‘brutally murdered’ a ‘short time’ before being found. They were: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an Israeli-American; Alexander Lobanov, a 32-year-old father of two; Carmel Gat, a 40-year-old from Tel Aviv who was visiting her parents in the Be’eri kibbutz on the day of the 7 October pogrom; Almog Sarusi, a 27-year-old who loved ‘travelling around Israel in his white SUV with his guitar’; Eden Yerushalmi, a 24-year-old who was bartending at the Nova music festival; and Ori Danino, 25, who was about to embark on an electrical-engineering course when he was seized.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20916/gaza-ceasefire-hostages

The Biden-Harris administration apparently sees no problem with a Palestinian state being yet another terrorist state, committed to annihilating Israel — as both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force commander General Esmail Qaani (“Israel is a cancer that must be eliminated”), and senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad have straightforwardly vowed.

A ceasefire might sound as if it is a “good thing” that benefits everyone — understandably if a friend or family member is a hostage. The problem seems to be the Hamas demand that Israel should leave the “Philadelphi corridor” on the border between Gaza and Egypt, so that Hamas, backed by its patrons Qatar and Iran, can resume smuggling weapons and ammunition into Gaza, rearm, rebuild and attack again.

It is probably more convenient, for all those trying to overthrow Netanyahu, to look at him rather than at the real perpetrators: Hamas, Iran and Qatar.

Qatar, “the Trojan Horse in Washington D.C.,” has long been financing Islamic terrorist organizations, as well as bestowing more than $6 billion on US universities to teach American youths whatever Qatar’s leaders decide. Nevertheless, the Biden-Harris administration decided that these qualifications made Qatar perfect to negotiate the Gaza war on America’s behalf, the same way the administration unfathomably decided to have Russia negotiate on America’s behalf with Iran over restarting the nuclear deal.

The Biden-Harris administration seems to want Netanyahu gone to be able to work with “their” prime minister: one who presumably would be delighted not only to have a terrorist Palestinian state on his borders — a state sworn to Israel’s destruction — and who would also be delighted if Iran — also sworn to Israel’s destruction — had nuclear weapons. It is the policy embraced by Obama, so long as Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons “on his watch.” Down the road, however, would be an altogether different story.

What many Israelis seem unwilling or unable to see is, sadly, that even with a ceasefire, the hostages will not be released. Hamas will hold on to as many of them as they can for as long as they can, to keep them in play as a weapon.

With a ceasefire, Israel unfortunately will not get peace and will not get the hostages. The Israelis might see a few hostages at a time dribbled out, the living ones first, they hope, each one exchanged for hundreds, if not more, of convicted Palestinian terrorists released from Israeli prisons, whose first job would be to go right back to terrorizing.

Meanwhile, the negotiations over every hostage would allow plenty of time for Iran and Hamas to bring more weapons in through the unguarded border from Egypt into Gaza, in order to rearm. The current leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, is himself a convicted terrorist who confessed to murdering four people with his own hands. Sinwar was serving four life sentences in an Israeli prison when he was released, among more than 1,000 terrorists, in exchange for one Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, in 2011.

There is at least one way to get the hostages back quickly…. “Many Americans believe that they owe Qatar for its hosting of the U.S. CENTCOM base. The truth is precisely the opposite: It is Qatar that owes the U.S., for locating this base there. Without this base’s presence in the country, Qatar would disappear within less than a week – its neighbors would eat it up.” — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, June 10, 2024.

Instead of saying, as the propagandists no doubt like, “Bring them Home,” meant to sound as if Netanyahu is hiding the hostages under the Knesset, Israelis would be better off saying, “Release the Hostages” — directed at Hamas, Qatar and Iran.

A ceasefire deal unfortunately will not bring back the hostages any time soon. Hamas will drag out each negotiation, continue attacking Israel and try to make Israelis miserable enough to give up the fight, as many seem to be doing even now.

The murder of six more Israeli hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino — captured by the terrorist group Hamas appears to be leading many Israelis, along with most of their ever-gullible media (remember the Oslo Accords?) to think that if only their government would agree to a ceasefire, they would get their hostages back. Most people, at least in the West, would desperately like that — not just the American ones — all 120 of them, especially before Hamas finishes murdering them. If the Israelis really want their hostages back, however, they had better think again.

https://www.thefp.com/p/bari-weiss-dark-tunnels-and-moral?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_

Today at The Free Press, we mourn the six innocent Israelis murdered by Hamas terrorists who stole them nearly a year ago.

They are:

Eden Yerushalmi, a 24-year-old from Tel Aviv, who attended the Nova music festival with friends.

Ori Danino, a 25-year-old from Jerusalem who escaped the Nova music festival, but returned to help save others and was captured.

Alex Lobanov, 32, the head bartender at the Nova music festival, who leaves behind two children, one who was born while he was held captive.

Carmel Gat, a 40-year-old yoga instructor and occupational therapist from Tel Aviv. She had been visiting her mother in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7. Released hostages reported that Carmel had been seen practicing yoga with other hostages.

Almog Sarusi, 27, from Ra’anana, north of Tel Aviv, who attended the Nova music festival with his girlfriend. She was murdered there.

And Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, the American-Israeli citizen who lost part of his left arm reportedly fending off grenades, and was taken hostage from the Nova music festival.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin (courtesy of family)

It is that last name that will be most familiar to you.

Hersh’s father, Jon Goldberg-Polin, was one of the first people The Free Press interviewed in the hours after we learned of the October 7 massacre. Jon told us that at 8:11 a.m. that morning, he and his wife, Rachel, received two text messages from their only son. “Message number one said ‘I love you.’ Message number two said ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Jon told us on Honestly. “It’s been chaos ever since.”

https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/09/02/mcmasters-jerusalem-revelation/

Lt. Gen. (ret.) H.R. McMaster reveals in his new book that as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, he warned that there would be terrible consequences if the US embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Well, guess what? The embassy was moved, and there weren’t any terrible consequences. So what does that tell us about all the “experts” – and there were many – who made those kinds of predictions? According to McMaster’s new memoir, “At War With Ourselves”, President Trump was ready to announce the relocation of the embassy when he visited Israel in May 2017.

But McMaster and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pushed to delay the move, because they thought there would be a massive, violent Arab reaction. Their advice succeeded, for a time: Trump held off on the relocation for another seven months before finally proceeding with it in December 2017. Looking back to see who else got it wrong is important – not because of the I-told-you-so opportunity, but because so many of those people are today still in positions of influence, or are still being quoted by the major news media as “experts.”

Ilan Goldenberg, for example. He’s a senior Middle East adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris and serves as her liaison to the American Jewish community. Many media outlets are reporting that he would have a major role in US Mideast policy if Harris becomes president.

Moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be “playing the role of arsonist throwing more fuel on the flames instead of calming things down,” Goldenberg told Politico. A Jewish ex-State Department official likewise invoked the dramatic danger of Arab wildfires if the embassy was moved. “It’s hard to come up with a single act that would make the Middle East burn more than it is burning right now,” Aaron David Miller declared.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Upstate, amid corn farms and bright summer sunflowers, and some early autumn coloring, I spotted an  “I stand with Israel ”sign in a small fishing tackle store. When I thanked the owner, he said “Ain’t no country like it’…..and Michael Ordman proves that every week. Here are just a few headlines, but checkout the whole list, and you will agree that “Ain’t no country like it.” rsk

IDF rescued a Moslem Bedouin hostage from a Hamas tunnel in Gaza.

Pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah rocket launchers saves countless Israeli lives.

Israeli cancer treatment achieves almost 100% success.

Arabs praise IDF rescuers of Moslem hostage and Jewish doctors who treated him.

Israelis provide technology and training to US Department of Defense.

Three more Israeli tech companies help conserve global water resources.

Israel’s economy is showing remarkable resilience.

A Jewish seal from the 1st Temple period was found by the ruins of the 2nd Temple.

Bedouin hostage rescued after 326 days. (TY WIN) 52-year-old Bedouin Muslim Quaid Farhan Al Qadi and father of 11, was rescued by IDF forces from a tunnel in Rafa, Gaza after Israel received intelligence about the presence of living hostages in the area. Farhan’s brother said “Baruch Hashem” (Blessed is G-d) on the news.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hostage-rescued-by-idf-from-tunnel-in-south-gaza-after-10-months-of-hamas-captivity/  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w67w47eego  
 
Soul food for the IDF. Shlomi, a former IDF soldier wounded in the Lebanon War, rises at 5 a.m. to buy the freshest ingredients for his food truck, now based at the ill-fated Nova dance party location. Shlomi  feeds 250-400 soldiers every day since the Gaza war began. The IDF provides sustenance, but Shlomi provides soul food.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/395076
 
Shawarma still turning in Kiryat Shmona. (TY Yanky) The shawarma spit is still turning in Toby Abutbul’s fast-food restaurant, Baguette Shlomi in Kiryat Shmona. Toby is determined to remain in the Northern Israeli town and keep his restaurant running – a reflection of the resilience of many Israelis during the war.
https://www.jta.org/2024/04/19/israel/amid-attacks-by-hezbollah-kiryat-shmonas-only-open-shawarma-restaurant-aims-for-routine
 
No holiday for Hassidim. (TY Yanky) The Rebbes of the Belz and Sanz Hassidim are forgoing their vacation this year. Both sects encourage their followers to serve in the IDF. “How can I travel for rest and vacation when we are fighting a battle on all fronts and soldiers are sacrificing their lives”, said the Belz Rebbe.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/en/news/393636
 
Bedouin girl leaves hospital. Amina Alhasoni, the 7-year-old Bedouin Muslim girl critically wounded in Iran’s April 13 missile attack on the Jewish state (see here previously) has been released from Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva. Amina underwent numerous neurosurgeries during her three months in hospital.
https://www.jns.org/months-after-direct-iranian-attack-bedouin-girl-victim-leaves-hospital/
https://x.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1817582004398899472
 
Blind grandfather presents grandsons with IDF berets. In a poignant ceremony, a visually impaired grandfather had the unique honor of presenting his grandsons, who serve in the IDF, with their hard-earned berets. Warning – video may cause excessive eye moisture!
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-blind-grandfather-presents-grandsons-with-idf-berets/
 
Adir’s diamonds. Israeli jeweller Alon Mesika has donated over 100 engagement rings in tribute to his son Adir, murdered by Hamas on Oct 7.  Each ring, valued up to 8,000 shekels, went to an IDF soldier planning marriage. “Adir is not going to build a family in Israel, but because of him, a lot of people will”, said Alon.
https://israfan.com/p/father-nova-victim-donates-rings-idf-couples
 
The miracle of Aug 25. 15 minutes before Hezbollah planned to launch over 6,000 missiles at Israel, the Israeli Air Force destroyed most of the rocket launchers aimed at central Israel. Hezbollah fired some 320 rockets which caused limited damage, including to a chicken coup, which was mocked on Arab social media.
https://worldisraelnews.com/arabs-on-social-media-call-hezbollah-leader-nasrallah-chicken-hunter-for-foiled-attack-against-israel/
 
Praise for non-Jews defending Israel. Master Sgt. Ashraf al Bahir said that it was a “great honor” for Israel’s Bedouin community that he was able to travel to Washington with Israel’s Prime Minister, who highlighted his bravery, and that of other non-Jewish soldiers, in his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
https://www.jns.org/muslim-soldier-praised-by-netanyahu-in-congress-idf-needs-to-finish-hamas/
 
Ethiopian Israeli ran 12km to defend Israel. 2nd Lt. Avichail Reuven is another IDF soldier praised publicly by Israel’s Prime Minister during his speech to Congress. On Oct 7 Avichail, who has no car, ran 12 kilometers (8 miles) from his parents’ home in Kiryat Malachi, to the Gaza border to help fight off the terrorists.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-young-idf-officer-who-ran-8-miles-to-the-gaza-border-on-oct-7-to-fight-terrorists/ https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/07/25/netanyahu-highlights-israeli-heroes-in-us-congress-speech/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRwPo7SZEbc (Must-see video)
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Almost no re-ocurrence after freezing tumors. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s IceCure Medical (see here previously) presented the results of its three clinical studies using ProSense to treat breast cancer. Of the 389 patients treated, The ipsilateral tumor recurrence rate was 0.26%, resulting in a 99.74% recurrence-free rate.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/independent-study-results-in-japan-demonstrate-zero-0-breast-cancer-local-recurrence-5-years-following-treatment-with-icecures-prosense-adding-to-continued-positive-data-published-globally-302137926.html
 
Breakthrough device treats heart failure. Israel’s Restore Medical (see here previously) has been granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the U.S. FDA for its transcatheter Pulmonary Artery Banding (PAB) system designed for patients suffering from left ventricle failure who currently have limited treatment options. 
https://www.ajmc.com/view/fda-grants-breakthrough-device-designation-to-contraband-system-to-treat-hfref
 
Israel approves oxygenation system. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Ministry of Health has approved the ART100 Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation and Cardiopulmonary Bypass system from Israel’s Inspira Technologies (see here previously). The ART100 helps increase the level of oxygen in patients’ blood.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inspira-receives-israeli-regulatory-approval-for-the-inspira-art100-system-302194789.html
 
MDA partners midwives in Northern Israel. Magen David Adom is partnering with the Israel Midwives Organization to help women deliver their babies safely even when war prevents immediate transport to hospital. Midwives are matched to expectant mothers. Equipment is funded by the Jewish Federations of North America.
https://www.jns.org/wire/magen-david-adom-teams-up-with-israel-midwives-organization-to-help-expectant-mothers-in-israels-embattled-north/
 
How cells coordinate activity. Researchers from Israel’s Ben Gurion and Canada’s British Columbia universities have discovered the pathway for cells to coordinate activity such as tissue repair.  3 to 8 local cells send Calcium ion signals to “hot-spots” inside lymph nodes, which then trigger actions and send signals back.
https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/news-and-articles/cells-coordinate-to-create-tissue-scale-behaviors/
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2318155121
 
Preventing adverse medication interactions. Israel’s FeelBetter (see here previously) has validated its AI algorithm, using Israeli patient records, to predict and reduce the risk of multiple medicines causing side effects. FeelBetter has just partnered New Jersey’s Atlantic Health Systems with its half a million patients.
https://nocamels.com/2024/07/patient-care-platform-makes-taking-multiple-medications-safer/
 
High-school space experiment. 4 years ago, six Israeli 9th-grade students put an experiment about brain disease progression aboard the International Space Station. The results have just been published in the June edition of Astrobiology. If repeated, it could have major implications for neurodegenerative disease treatment.
https://worldisraelnews.com/israeli-high-school-students-research-could-impact-long-term-space-missions/
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2023.0096
 
Still smiling. If you wanted to know what happened to Aerodentis (see here previously) from Israel’s Dror Ortho-Design, there is good news. Aerodentis has been rebranded as Zsmile and its orthodontic system that straightens your teeth while you sleep is about to launch commercially. https://www.zsmile.com/