RUTHFULLY YOURS

Lasting six years and one day, the Second World War started on 1 September 1939 with Hitler’s invasion of Poland and ended with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust-that is one of every three Jews in the world.  Three years after the war, in spite of British duplicity and Arab terror the ancient state of Israel was reborn. Today Israel’s population constitutes 0.11% of the world. However, Israel’s outsize contributions in science, technology, agriculture, medicine and social services contribute to the welfare and quality of life of billions of people. This is the miracle of Jewish survival that we celebrate during the Holidays…. Best wishes to all and to Michael Ordman who compiles this wonderful list….rsk

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Know your enemy. (TY Hazel) Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute and the Israel Institute for Biological Research have identified four new proteins and 19 peptides that Covid-19 infected patients produce. They believe that these may help the virus to replicate, so targeting them could lead to new treatments.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-coronavirus-proteins-found-by-israeli-lab-potentially-helping-drug-efforts/
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/profiling-covid-19-coronavirus
 
That 3D-printed heart. Back in 2019 there was much excitement when Tel Aviv University scientists 3D-printed the first heart produced from human tissue (reported here previously). What was not reported was that the technology itself was licensed to Tel Aviv University from award-winning Israeli biotech Matricelf.
https://www.bioworld.com/articles/431737-matricelf-wins-seed-award-with-3d-printing-heart-design
https://matricelf.com/
 
New allies in the fight against viruses. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered that bacteria contain viperins – enzymes that produce antiviral molecules.  These substances are undergoing testing that may lead to the development of highly effective antiviral treatments against influenza and COVID-19.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/bacteria-could-provide-us-next-antivirals
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2762-2
 
Israel hosts Covid-19 conference. Israel hosted an online conference to discuss cooperation on fighting the coronavirus. It comprised science ministers of Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Peru, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-hosts-international-conference-for-18-ministers-on-fight-against-covid-19/
 
Bridge over troubled water. (TY UWI) This newsletter previously (here) featured the coronavirus sanitation bridging tunnel developed by Israel’s RD PACK. The video describes its key component – the disinfectant spray – comprised, amazingly, of electrolyzed water (no chemicals) developed at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPsHGKQaJTI
 
Printing lungs & kidneys. Good article about Israel’s Collplant (reported here previously) and its technology that turns tobacco leaves into bio-ink for printing human organs. Collplant, together with United Therapeutics Corporation have already made lung parts and will now start working on printing replacement human kidneys.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israelis-use-tobacco-plants-to-produce-3d-bioprinted-lungs-and-kidneys/
https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/09/21/us-firm-to-start-3d-printing-kidneys-using-israeli-technology/
 
Expanding digital health across USA. Israel’s DarioHealth (reported here previously) is partnering US giant HMC Healthworks to incorporate DarioHealth’s digital therapeutics solution into HMC’s comprehensive care management programs.  The platform will also be offered on a stand-alone basis.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/dariohealth-and-hmc-healthworks-announce-partnership-agreement-301134581.html
 
 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/absence-palestinian-leadership-vision-joseph-puder/

James Zogby of the Zogby Research Service (ZRS) is not known to be a friend of Israel. In fact, he serves as an effective spokesperson for the Palestinians. An Arab-Palestinian himself, Zogby has been a harsh critic of Israel. Yet, in an opinion piece in Cairo’s Ahramonline (the online version of Egypt’s major outlet Al-Ahram, September 7, 2020) Zogby expressed disappointment with the Palestinian leadership lack of vision.  He expressed it in his piece titled Absent But Needed: A Palestinian Vision.

Zogby pointed out that, “what had gone wrong with the Palestinian cause then (and now) is “visionless leadership.” He elaborated, that they (the leadership) “Lost their spark and their way after repeated costly setbacks: Black September in Jordan, their use of horrific acts of terror against innocents, their expulsion from Beirut in 1982, and their foolish embrace of Saddam in 1990.” The latter actions were decisions Yasser Arafat took in provoking an Israeli response to repeated terror attacks by Palestinians commanded by Arafat, including the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to London, which led to the First Lebanon War.

It was Arafat’s decision in 1990 to support Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator, brutal invasion of Kuwait. As a result of Arafat’s action, the Kuwaiti government expelled half a million Palestinians who lived in the oil rich sheikdom. What Zogby failed to mention was the fact that Arafat once again provoked the Second intifada which killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians and brought destruction and economic ruin to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat, who gave Hamas a ‘green light,’ to execute suicide bombing against Israeli civilian targets was in total violation of the Oslo Accords. He hoped that it would weaken and demoralize Israel, then Israel would fall apart once the Palestinians launched a full-scale armed struggle.

Zogby suggested that more recently, the vehement reaction in Ramallah by the Palestinian Authority leadership to the Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal, “By focusing their wrath on the recent UAE-Israel accord, the Palestinian leaders missed the mark. The UAE’s move to normalize in order to stop annexation is not the cause of Palestinian woes; it is a symptom of the state of affairs that has for too long plagued the noble cause of justice for the long-oppressed Palestinian people.” Clearly, the Palestinians have once again missed an opportunity to be part of a positive development brought about by the Trump administration’s “Peace of the Century” deal. It might not have satisfied all of the Palestinian aspirations, including the disappearance of the Jewish state, but it would have given the Palestinian people an economic stake that would have improved their lives, and that of their children.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/09/18/no-jewish-behavior-does-not-enable-palestinian-rejectionism/

Algemeiner editor-in-chief Dovid Efune said this week that Jewish critics of the Israel-UAE/Bahrain agreement were “enabling” Palestinian Arab extremists. I respectfully disagree.

Mr. Efune was asked by an interviewer about left-wing Jews who have criticized the agreement. He replied that such criticism is “enabling Palestinian rejectionism,” “encouraging the Palestinians to take that position,” and “keeping this ongoing conflict alive for as long as possible.”

I have no sympathy for left-wing Jewish supporters of the Palestinian Arab cause. In fact, I have been one of their most vocal critics in the pages of The Algemeiner and elsewhere for many years. But they are not guilty of this charge. The dictionary’s definition of “enable” is “to make able,” “to make possible,” and “to give ability to.” No, Jewish behavior does not “enable” Palestinian rejectionism.

Palestinian Arab rejection of Israel is rooted in extremist Islam, militant Arab nationalism, and antisemitism. It long predated the rise of Peace Now or J Street. From Grand Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Arabs have waged an unrelenting war against the Jewish People for more than a century. They didn’t need Peter Beinart or J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami to “enable” them.

Groups like Jewish Voice for Peace are harmful to Israel and the Jewish people. But their criticism of the UAE/Bahrain agreement is not what is “keeping this ongoing conflict alive,” to use Mr. Efune’s phrase. What’s keeping it alive is Palestinian Arab bigotry against Jews and Israel.

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/hell-hath-no-fury-like-peaceniks-upstaged/

Israeli protesters gathered on Sunday night along the highway to Ben-Gurion International Airport, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was headed to board a flight to the United States.

With their usual chants of “crime minister” and other trite anti-Bibi mantras, these self-anointed guardians of freedom and democracy – members of the so-called “peace camp” – were livid that the premier was on his way to Washington, DC.

That the purpose of his trip was to sign the U.-brokered Abraham Accords – a peace treaty with the United Arab Emirates and declaration of peace with Bahrain – didn’t matter to them. On the contrary, it became another excuse for their outrage.

A mere two or so hours earlier, Netanyahu had announced that the steep and steady rise in coronavirus morbidity made a three-week countrywide lockdown necessary. As if this weren’t sufficient cause for exasperation, even among his supporters, his detractors took the opportunity to rail against him for going off to a “cocktail party” at the White House, leaving Israelis ill in every sense of the word, thanks to his government’s failed COVID-19 policies.

Yes, they insist, he is responsible simultaneously for the increasing mortality rate and disintegrating workforce – for opening up the economy too soon on the one hand and for not “having a proper plan” to prevent the spread of the virus on the other.