RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16147/palestinians-annexation

It is dead wrong to assume that if Israel abandons its plan, most Muslims would give up their desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an extremist Iran-style Islamic state.

[Islamic officials] are now calling on Palestinians to launch terror attacks against Israel, not because of the “annexation” plan, but in order to drive the Jews out of the “Palestinian Arab Islamic lands.”

Those who are pressuring Israel not to proceed with the “annexation” plan need to hear what Islamic leaders are saying, day and night: that the conflict is not about Jewish settlements or the Jordan Valley, but the “big settlement” called Israel.

As far as Palestinian Islamic religious clerics are concerned, Israel’s intention to extend its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, particularly Jewish settlements and the strategic Jordan Valley, means very little: to them Jews “have no right to Palestinian, Arab and Islamic land.”

The position of the Islamic figures contradicts the Palestinian Authority’s claim that the annexation plan would “destroy the two-state solution and any chance of a peace process with Israel.”

The picture Palestinian Authority officials are painting is that the Israeli annexation of any part of the West Bank is the one and only obstacle to regional peace, security and stability. According to these officials, the Israeli plan would deprive the Palestinians of their right to establish an independent and sovereign state on the pre-1967 armistice lines.

A large group of Palestinian Islamic scholars and clerics, however, evidently disagree with the Palestinian Authority’s claim.

On June 21, the Association of Palestine Scholars held a meeting in the Gaza Strip to discuss the Israeli plan. The meeting was attended by several Islamic religious judges representing the Supreme Council of Sharia Judiciary, senior officials of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs, academics from several Islamic colleges and universities, as well as jurists who issue rulings on Islamic law (sharia).

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/netanyahu-must-stay-strong-sovereignty-pressure-caroline-glick/

Over the past week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed his mind countless times regarding how and when he will implement Israel’s sovereignty plan in Judea and Samaria in consonance with President Donald Trump’s vision for peace. Netanyahu’s vacillations are clearly a product of the immense pressure being exerted on him to cancel the plan to apply Israeli law to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley and turn his back on Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

This is a shame. It is also absurd. When we consider the source of much of the pressure—and the reasons it is being exerted—it becomes glaringly clear that the critics and opponents must be ignored. Their actions are not being taken out of conviction so much as hostility or distress. Israel must cast aside their hectoring and pressure and implement the sovereignty plan with all due haste.

Consider one of the most talked-about recent efforts to pressure the Israeli public and Netanyahu to set aside the sovereignty plan and spurn Trump.

Last Friday, United Arab Emirates Ambassador in Washington Yousef Al Otaiba published an article in Yediot Ahronot. Otaiba threatened that if Israel implements its sovereignty plan in Judea and Samaria, the prospect of normalized ties with the Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf will fall by the wayside.

The media played up the author. But it quickly became clear that the idea of publishing the article in Hebrew in an Israeli newspaper didn’t come from Otaiba. Hours after the morning papers arrived, the media reported that it was Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban’s idea to have Otaiba publish his threatening article in Yediot.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/06/116-republican-house-members-supporting-israeli-daniel-greenfield/

This is what actually being pro-Israel looks like.

JNS – Republican lawmakers on Monday released a statement of support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and parts of  Judea and Samaria.

The letter, which was signed by 116 of the 198 Republicans in the House, was led by Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Foreign Affairs Committee Republican Leader Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and David Kustoff (R-Tenn.)

The sovereignty measure would apply Israeli law to parts of Israel that were liberated in 1967. It ought to be non-controversial, but here we are anyway.

As Rep. Scalise notes, “The move follows several letters led by Democrat Members of Congress threatening the collapse of bipartisan Congressional support for Israel. The Republican letter affirms common democratic values between our nations and voices strong support for President Trump’s Vision for Peace Plan.”

Here’s the letter.

June 22, 2020

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:

We write to reaffirm the unshakeable alliance between the United States and Israel, to emphasize that Israel has the right to make sovereign decisions independent of outside pressure, and to express our support for you as you make such decisions in your capacity as Israel’s democratically-elected prime minister.

We are aware of and deeply concerned by threats being expressed by some to retaliate against Israel as it makes decisions to ensure defensible borders. It is shortsighted to threaten relations with Israel, a long-time friend and critical ally that shares our democratic values. We support the Trump administration’s engagement with Israel on the Vision for Peace Plan, which was based on the critical premise that Israel should never be forced to compromise its security. We assure you that we will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel and oppose any effort to apply pressure.

As you know well, the Palestinians have rejected Israel’s bids for peace time and again and have shunned the Trump administration’s efforts to bring peace to the conflict since the administration’s earliest days, even before the President’s vision was unveiled. The Trump administration’s new approach offers the promise of success where past efforts have failed, recognizing Israel’s vital national and security interests while providing for a fair and reasonable compromise with the Palestinians, should Palestinian leadership opt finally to prioritize peace.

It is our hope that this plan brings peace, security, and prosperity to a region that has long endured conflict. As dedicated friends of the Jewish state, we reaffirm our steadfast commitment to the relationship between our two nations and Israel’s right to sovereignty and defensible borders.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/19/ron-dermer-we-must-stop-pursuing-two-state-illusion-commit-realistic-two-state-solution/

Ron Dermer is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

Determined to advance a realistic solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s prime minister laid out his vision of peace in a speech to the Knesset. The Palestinians, he said, would have “less than a state,” Israel would retain security control over the Jordan Valley “in the broadest meaning of that term,” Jerusalem would remain united under Israel’s sovereignty, and settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria would become part of lsrael.

Those words were not spoken recently by Benjamin Netanyahu but by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, when he defended the Oslo peace process he had initiated two years earlier with President Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat and for which he would be assassinated one month later.

Twenty-five years later, a gulf has emerged between the positions Rabin staked out and what is increasingly believed to be the gold standard for a potential Israeli-Palestinian peace. The result has been the emergence of a two-state illusion that will never happen rather than a two-state solution that might advance peace.

The extension of Israeli sovereignty to certain territories in Judea and Samaria will not, as many critics suggest, destroy the two-state solution. But it will shatter the two-state illusion. And in doing so, it will open the door to a realistic two-state solution and get the peace process out of the cul-de-sac it has been stuck in for two decades.

Let me explain why.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16135/palestinians-family-law

“I understand the head of the clan, who does not want sovereignty other than the rule of the male, but what do the lawyers refuse?” Harhash asked. “This means that the woman here would not have a law that protects here or a lawyer who represents her if she is killed, beaten or assaulted.” — Nadia Essam Harhash , Palestinian journalist, raialyoum.com.

“Is preserving the Palestinian family by beating and killing the woman and denying her right to inheritance? How can a lawyer stand against a law that might do justice to an oppressed woman or person? How can a lawyer stand against a law that might do justice to an oppressed woman or person?” — Nadia Essam Harhash , Palestinian journalist, raialyoum.com.

For now, it appears that the PA government is hesitant to pass the law out of fear of alienating Islamists and conservative clan leaders. The widespread opposition to the proposed legislation is further proof of the growing popularity… of Hamas and other extremist Islamist groups among Palestinians. According to them, criminalizing the beating or murder of women is a clear-cut violation of Islamic teachings and values.

Palestinian women and human rights organizations are under attack by Hamas and other Islamic groups and figures for supporting a new family protection bill that is currently being drafted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) government.

The PA’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs says the proposed law would amend the penal code to establish a minimum age for marriage, review current legal protections for victims of domestic violence, impose harsher penalties on perpetrators, and train the police force in assisting victims.

For many Palestinians, particularly Islamists, the proposed law is like a red rag to a bull.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Covid-19 antibody treatment is now available. Israel’s Kamada (reported here previously) has completed manufacturing the first batch of its plasma-derived Immunoglobulin G (IgG) product for Covid-19 patients. Initial vials of the antibody have been made available for compassionate use in Israel.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3834010,00.html
 
Human trials for possible Covid-19 cure. (TY Dick) In a world first, a trial of Ivermectin – an antiparasitic treatment – has been launched at Sheba Medical Center on Covid-19 patients. Ivermectin has been available since 1981 and in the laboratory was recently found to kill the coronavirus within 48 hours.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-researcher-anti-parasitic-drug-could-cure-coronavirus-631526
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#History
 
Remote detection of Covid-19 complications. Israel’s Clew Medical (reported here previously) has just received US FDA emergency use authorization to remotely identify patients who are likely to experience common coronavirus complications, including respiratory failure and hemodynamic instability.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3833655,00.html
 
Adapting virus test for Covid-19. (TY Hazel) Israel’s MeMed (reported here previously) identifies whether an infection is viral or bacterial. MeMed is now working with hospitals in Israel, the Netherlands and elsewhere to identify Covid-19 patients and the potential severity of the infection.
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-firm-advances-diagnostic-solutions-for-covid-19/
 
Israeli progress combating Covid-19. Good video summarizing some of Israel’s latest projects to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68uvUsUAxGI
 
More telemedical devices. Israel’s Beecardia connects patients, doctors and remote specialists. The startup of ex-Ukrainian immigrants has developed a portable cardiograph, a wireless ECG recorder, a digital stethoscope, a portable spirometer (measuring lung capacity), a pulse oximeter, blood pressure monitor and glucometer.
https://beecardia.com/products  https://beecardia.com/about
 
Donating blood saves lives. New video featuring Magen David Adom’s blood donation service and how vital it is for use in surgical operations and medical research. Also, blood plasma helps patients with compromised immune systems. Finally, construction of the world’s first underground blood bank is proceeding well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXuctXsdfzM
 
Self-healing electronic artificial skin. Muhammad Khatib, PhD student at Israel’s Technion. has developed a polymer that is strong, water resistant, conducts electricity and is super elastic. Furthermore, when it is cut and put into water it will repair itself! Future applications include robotic skin, prosthetics and wearable devices.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-researcher-invents-self-healing-electronic-skin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI0xP66cS58
 
Focusing protons to kill cancer. (TY I24 & WIN) A new video from Israel’s P-Cure (reported here previously) that is using its focused proton radiation therapy device to destroy cancer tumors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI3qtQAXPX8
 

https://bit.ly/37PDd2r

Do commitments made by a US president bind his successors? History proves that these commitments do not even bind the president who signed them.

Even when the US commitments are driven by the purest of intentions, one should recognize certain features – a derivative of the US Constitution and the power struggle between the Legislature and the Executive – which have characterized all US international agreements, pacts, memoranda of understandings and guarantees since 1776 (thoroughly researched by Hebrew University Prof. Michla Pomerance).  These inherent features are designed to subordinate the implementation (or non-implementation) of all US international commitments to the overriding US interests, as defined by the implementing president, not necessarily the president who signed the commitments.

Take for example, the feature of vagueness and non-specificity, as demonstrated by “the Deal of the Century.”  The Deal stipulates Israeli security control in the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. But, who defines “control?”  Will it be President Trump and his team, or the more pro-Palestinian team of President Biden? Obviously, each team will have a different interpretation, reflecting their different worldviews and ideology, minimizing or maximizing the scope of “control,” which could render Israeli “control” highly-constrained and quite ineffective.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16125/palestinians-iraq

“The animals that live in European countries have a better life than us… [The] UNHCR lied a lot to us…. Even the [Israeli] enemy has not acted in this way.” — Palestinians in Iraq, Al-Youm newspaper, May 28, 2020.

Before the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, there were about 34,000 Palestinians living in Iraq. Only a few thousand Palestinians are now living there, and many face harassment, threats of deportation, media scapegoating, arbitrary detention, torture and murder.

The Arab states unremittingly subject Palestinians to apartheid and discriminatory measures. Yet the heads of the UN and its member states seem too busy with their obsession with Israel to attend to their pleas of these Palestinians, who are being deprived of basic rights in Iraq and throughout the Arab world.

Facing discrimination, poverty, and misery, Palestinians residing in Iraq have finally broken their silence in an attempt to draw the world’s attention to their predicament. The Palestinians are accusing the Iraqis and the United Nations of taking a series of measures that have further aggravated the conditions of hundreds of Palestinian families in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

In a letter to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Youm, Palestinians complained that “the animals that live in European countries have a better life than us.”

These animals, the refugees said, “have someone to defend them, protect them and provide them with housing worthy of human beings. As for us, the Palestinians, there is no local or international official or organization that inspects our conditions.”

The Palestinians’ complaint was mainly directed against the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), after its decision to halt financial aid to Palestinian families in Iraq.

“UNHCR lied a lot to us,” the Palestinians wrote. “We have become victims like sheep surrounded by wolves. Even the [Israeli] enemy has not acted in this way.”

The Palestinians pointed out UNCHR had informed a large number of Palestinian families in Iraq of its decision to cease disbursement of rental allowances starting March 2020.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/if-black-lives-matter-then-dont-palestinian-lives-matter-opinion-631983

Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters across the West are on a rampage against cultural and historical symbols that they deem racist. No book, film, play or monument is safe from their scrutiny and disdain.

Minnesota removed Mark Twain and Harper Lee novels from its schools’ curricula. HBO pulled Gone with the Wind from its movie line-up.

The Paramount Network canceled the new season of the popular reality show Cops before its June 15 premiere. Other studios and companies are rushing to follow suit with everything from sit-coms to old classics.

Statues of American founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have been defaced. Even the legacy of Britain’s lionized late prime minister Winston Churchill is under assault.

Indeed, nothing is sacred and all is fair game when it comes to the “woke” generation taking personal or political offense.

Given the unapologetic ignorance displayed by students everywhere these days, it is heartening to discover that the young people demonstrating from California to Melbourne are remotely familiar with the iconic figures they’ve been trashing since the horrific killing of George Floyd on May 25 by a Minneapolis police officer. While most are able to rattle off the names of every Kardashian, sports star and Instagram influencer, few appear to be versed in much of anything other than fashionable slogans and platitudes about the world in which they live.