RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/gideon-saar-and-another-referendum-on-netanyahu

All of the details surrounding the campaign, which will be shifting regularly during the coming weeks, are secondary to the big picture that’s gotten lost in the fray.
After the Knesset voted last week to dissolve itself and set a date for what will amount to the fourth election in less than two years, the political echelon went into a customary flurry of behind-the-scenes activity. Most of the bustle has been focused on unseating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yesh Atid-Telem MK Moshe Ya’alon was the first to declare his intention to establish his own list to run in the next election. In an interview with Channel 12 last Friday, he said that former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot was likely to join his party – as number two, of course. Eisenkot promptly denied it.

Then came MK Gideon Sa’ar’s dramatic announcement on Tuesday that he was quitting Likud to establish his own party. Reminding the public about his unsuccessful attempt a year ago to replace Netanyahu as head of Likud, he went on the say that everything disastrous that has happened in the country since then underscores just how necessary it was for him to have tried.

Sa’ar further stated that it was a painful decision for him to leave Likud, of which he has been a loyal member throughout his career. However, he said, the character of the party he once loved so dearly “dramatically changed” and strayed far from its origins.

“The movement became a tool serving the personal interests of its leader, including those relating to his criminal trial,” said Sa’ar, who formally resigned from the party and the Knesset on Wednesday morning. “Replacing Netanyahu is the order of the hour.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16832/palestinian-journalists-incitement

The Palestinian journalists’ group is angry not only because two Israeli reporters visited Ramallah. It is upset because the reporters dared to reveal an inconvenient truth: that Palestinians are enjoying themselves and that, despite the outbreak of the coronavirus, the economy in Ramallah is doing well.

This truth goes against the Palestinian leadership’s official and long-standing propaganda line: that the Palestinians are “suffering” as a result of the bad economy and therefore the world needs to continue providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

The only journalists the Palestinian leadership tolerates are those who do not question its policies and decisions and who do not ask embarrassing questions.

Will the International Federation of Journalists [the largest in the world; it represents more than 600,000 media workers from 187 organizations in 146 countries] condemn the Palestinians for threatening Israeli journalists on a regular basis? … International organizations rarely see any evil on the Palestinian side. The only culprit, for them, is Israel. The silence of the IFJ and other international media organizations and human rights groups is nothing short of a green light to Palestinians to physically attack the next Israeli reporter they see on the streets of Bethlehem or Ramallah.

At a time when Arab journalists from the Gulf are visiting Israel and saying that they are looking forward to working with their Israeli colleagues, Palestinians are continuing to incite hatred against the Israeli media and threaten Israeli journalists.

While the Arabs in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are working toward normalizing their relations with Israel, the Palestinians are continuing to threaten anyone who wants to make peace with Israelis.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-immoral-inversion-of-victim-and-perpetrator/

Dozens of demonstrators gathered on Saturday night at the entrance to the southern Israeli city of Arad to express solidarity with their friend and neighbor, Aryeh Schiff.

Schiff, 70, was arrested the previous week for killing 36-year-old Bedouin Muhammad el-Atrash, who had broken into Schiff’s car and was driving off when Schiff and his wife awoke to the noise. Schiff promptly drew a pistol and fired twice in the direction of the vehicle.

The first thing he did when he realized that the thief had been hit was to call the police and an ambulance. EMTs who arrived on the scene evacuated el-Atrash to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva, where he was pronounced dead from a bullet wound to the head.

Meanwhile, Schiff fully cooperated with police, acknowledging in his initial interrogation that he had not fired a warning shot in the air. He claimed, however, that he had aimed at the wheels of the car, not the driver.
“All my life, I will have to live with the fact that I killed a person unintentionally,” Schiff told the Beersheva Magistrate’s Court last Tuesday. “My grief is deep for taking a person’s life. … [W]hen I shot, I had no intention of killing him. I am very sorry for the tragic event. I have already received my punishment.”
When the court ruled to release him on house arrest for the duration of the investigation, police and prosecutors appealed. They claimed that video footage of the incident told a different story—one showing that Schiff had purposely pointed his pistol at the driver.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/trump-should-let-the-quartet-die-with-james-wolfensohn/

James Wofensohn was also one of the philanthropists that had the hair brained idea of buying the productive and state of the art Jewish farms and agricultural machines and systems in Gaza, in order to persuade Israel to leave Gaza. As soon as the Israelis left, local Arabs trashed and burned every single appurtenance and every home, barn, greenhouse and all the produce…..rsk

A review of the Quartet’s website is instructive in examining just what’s wrong with the body. Its failures—and they are plentiful—stem from its entire approach to Israel.

James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank Group, passed away on Nov. 15, and in the conclusion of his obituary, The New York Times quoted his “mission impossible” quip about his envoy experience with the Quartet on the Middle East.

“The Middle East turned out to be my mission impossible,” claimed Wolfensohn. He was tasked with working on Israel’s so-called disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would succeed Wolfensohn in leading the Quartet and be the last leader of the Quartet to have any gravitas on the world stage.

The Quartet has outlived both the involvement of Wolfensohn and Blair, who ended his own involvement with his 2015 resignation and now has outlived Wolfensohn himself. But it has also quite literally outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any at all.

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

In the midst of so much gloom in the world-pandemic, catastrophic rise in global anti-Semitism and persecution of Christians, political upheaval and election tampering- I get hope and cheer from Michael Ordman’s compilations of Israel’s remarkable success and contributions. Happy Chanukah! (December 10-18) rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

More accessible cancer treatment. The Car-T cancer therapy invented by Israel’s Professor Zelig Eshhar (see here) is curing thousands of blood cancer patients. But the manual effort is hugely expensive. Now Israel’s ADVA Biotechnologies is developing a simpler, automated process. More lives will be saved with less cost.

https://www.advabio.com/   https://www.jpost.com/health-science/adva-biotechnology-643385

AI in Israeli hospitals. Good to see that Israel’s six largest medical centers are using AI-based software from Israel’s Aidoc (see here) to analyze CT scans and pinpoint cerebral hemorrhage, pulmonary embolism, stroke and C-spine fractures. They are Sheba, Hadassah, Sourasky (Ichilov), Rabin, Shaare Zedek and Assuta centers.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/6-biggest-israeli-hospitals-use-aidoc-software-to-read-ct-scans-firm-announces/

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israelis-discover-brain-injuries-in-record-time-with-new-ai-tech/

Go barefoot to reduce foot pain. Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered a simple cure for people suffering from osteophytes (bone spurs) – lumps that grow on the heels of the feet. A 1-month controlled study of 50 patients found a 10-30 minute daily barefoot walk at home, or on a treadmill, significantly reduced pain.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/foot-pain-israeli-researchers-discover-simple-cure-for-most-common-cause/

Not heart-stopping at all. Israel’s Mitrassist Medical (reported here previously) has advanced to human trials of its innovative heart valve implant that avoids the risks of stopping the heart during open heart surgery. Mitrassist has just raised funds to recruit more employees and tackle additional structural heart diseases.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3878551,00.html   http://mitrassist.com/

Blood test analyzers for Australia. (TY Hazel) Israel’s PixCell Medical (reported here previously) will be deploying its blood test analyzers in labs and emergency departments in New South Wales, Australia. PixCell’s HemoScreen low-cost portable hematology analyzer can perform a complete blood count at the point of care.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pixcell-to-deploy-blood-test-analyzers-in-australias-new-south-wales/

Relieving the pressure on Cypriot hospitals. (TY Hazel) Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem will accept non-Covid patients from Cyprus with serious and life-threatening medical conditions to relieve local hospitals under strain from Covid-19. Hadassah also wants to build a hospital complex and rehabilitation center in Cyprus.

https://cyprus-mail.com/2020/11/26/israels-hadassah-to-accept-critical-non-covid-patients-from-cypriot-hospitals/

Israeli masks are good for you. (TY Uri) Nice article in TravelTrend about how the SonoMask facemasks from Israel’s Sonovia (reported here previously) protect their wearers and the public against the coronavirus.

https://www.trvltrend.com/technology/sonovia-antiviral-facemask/   https://sonoviatech.com/

https://unitedwithisrael.org/bahrain-minister-loves-jerusalem-the-most-spiritual-city

Visiting minister sneaks out of hotel to see for himself: “The most spiritual city in the world … I felt it,” he told Times of Israel.

With the two countries basking in the warm glow of their new peace accord, Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem this week welcomed the second visit by a high-ranking official from the government of Bahrain.

Bahraini Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed bin Rashid Al-Zayani had a packed schedule, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, four other Israeli cabinet ministers and dozens of Israeli business and industry officials.

But the eloquent minister needed to see the city for himself,. He told Times of Israel that he took an unscheduled evening stroll in Jerusalem’s magical and intriguing Old City – and he was immediately smitten.

“I’ve always spoken to people who’ve been to Jerusalem. And they always told me: It’s probably the most spiritual city in the world. I felt it last night. I felt it,” he told the Times . “And the closer you get to the holy sites — I don’t know, maybe it was a weird feeling, maybe it’s just me — I felt there’s more spirit.”

“Last night I personally went out to walk around the city, on my own, with a couple of friends. I kind of snuck out because I wanted to go and see and feel for myself, as a normal citizen, not as a government official. I spent an hour walking in the Old City, and I went to the shopping mall across the road. I didn’t feel threatened, I didn’t feel any security issues.”

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/saying-goodbye-to-benny-gantz-once-the-government-falls-opinion-651077

The assertion that Netanyahu spends all his time fretting over his legal troubles and none handling affairs of the state is especially ridiculous in light of recent events. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Wednesday’s passage of the first reading of the Knesset dispersal bill by reminding the public that politics is secondary to policy.
He did this not merely by stating – as he and his key coalition partner, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz, have been doing ad nauseam – that ministerial rivalries need to take a back seat to the needs of the country as it grapples with the health-related and economic ramifications of the coronavirus crisis. Rather, he highlighted his own recent achievements, both in spite of and in relation to the pandemic.

This is not to say that he didn’t finish his oratory without attacking Gantz. On the contrary, he let his defense minister/alternate premier have it.

Blaming Gantz for “being dragged to elections” by opposition leader Yair Lapid and Yamina MK Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu accused him of having formed an “opposition within the coalition.”

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

The United States is Israel’s ally of first choice. And Israel remains one of the few countries the US can rely on to defend itself by itself and in coordination with American interests. Today, Israel lies in EUCOM – the United States European Command – while some analysts suggest it belongs in CENTCOM – the Central Command, encompassing the Middle East and parts of Southwest and Central Asia.

Historically, having Israel in EUCOM had its downsides – American military personnel in CENTCOM were, at one point, prevented from visiting Israel despite common interests. Their knowledge of Israel was skewed by Arab states with which they worked.  I had the honor for years of accompanying recently retired American Flag and General Officers to Israel – and tried to choose CENTCOM officers to “right the ship” a bit. One Marine general was a tough sell, ultimately convinced to go by another participant.  About three weeks after the trip, he called; it went like this:

Him: I didn’t want to go on your trip.