RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-netanyahus-significant-victory-suff

Keeping in mind that the results of Israel’s Knesset elections are not final, the tally indicates that the attempt to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed abysmally. It remains to be seen whether his party’s victory on Monday means that his bloc has enough of a majority to form a government. While the initial numbers were encouraging—with Likud outnumbering its key rival, Blue and White by four mandates and the right-wing bloc surpassing the left-wing block by five—throughout Tuesday’s ongoing vote count and verification, the picture continued to fluctuate. By late afternoon, it appeared that Netanyahu’s victory was amazing, but not sufficient.

The significance of this election—the third in less than a year—lies in its elements of surprise. In the first place, voter turnout reached 71 percent, the highest in 21 years.

Despite public whining about “election fatigue” and surveys suggesting that the political deadlock would not be broken, citizens came out in record numbers to cast their ballots. Contrary to descriptions of countrywide malaise, the atmosphere at polling stations was cheerful and energetic. Social media was rife with smiling selfies of voters doing their civic duty, as well as photos of children accompanying their parents in the process.

Even most of the 5,500 Israelis subjected to house quarantine—as a result of possibly being exposed to the coronavirus—showed up at the 16 special tents set up for them across the country. Though they complained of long lines, they appeared to be happy to be out in the world after spending several days stuck in isolation, with only Netflix to keep them company.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-conservative-consensus-11583281438?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

A nationalist leader runs against liberal elites and a rigged system. He’s opposed by most of the security establishment, called a threat to democracy, and bombarded with legal investigations and prosecutions. Yet the efforts to use the legal system to oust him fail and even cause his support with voters to tick upward.

That could apply to President Trump, but it also reflects the political saga of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday outperformed expectations at the ballot box even as his corruption trial looms. Sixty-one seats in the Knesset are required for a majority government, and Mr. Netanyahu’s center-right coalition is expected to secure 58 to the opposition’s 55 in the latest Haaretz tally.

That’s a notable improvement on the 55 seats Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition won last time, but it may not be enough to break the political stalemate that has led to three Israeli elections in a year. If the numbers hold, the Prime Minister still must coax at least three parliamentarians from opposing parties to his side.

Mr. Netanyahu’s comfortable majority fell apart last May when a secular nationalist party headed by Avigdor Lieberman broke with Mr. Netanyahu over his accommodation of military exemptions for Haredi Jews. The second election in September saw Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc shrink, but the opposing Blue and White coalition also couldn’t form a government.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15671/palestinians-voting

The absence of parliamentary life for the Palestinians has, in fact, been highly convenient for Abbas, who continues to demonstrate zero tolerance towards his political rivals and critics.

While Palestinian members of parliament have been deprived of salaries and stripped of parliamentary immunity, as well as denied freedom of expression and the opportunity to exercise their parliamentary work, Arab members of the Knesset in Israel are free to say whatever they wish about the Israeli government and its policies without giving a single thought to possible repercussions.

For now, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will have to continue accepting the reality of living under the unelected and totalitarian leaders of the PA and Hamas. For the Palestinians, each Israeli election serves as a sad reminder of the catastrophic failure of Palestinian leaders and the complete absence of democracy under the PA and Hamas.

The international community, meanwhile, continues to ignore that the Palestinians are being denied the chance to hold elections. Denouncing Israel can be a full-time job, one that leaves little room for remembering that, for 14 years, Palestinians have been deprived of their right to touch a ballot.

Yesterday, March 2, Israeli voters headed to the ballot boxes for the tenth time since the signing of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians in 1993. The Palestinians, by contrast, have since had only four elections — two for the Palestinian Authority (PA) presidency and two for the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

The last Palestinian election took place in 2006, when Palestinians voted for the PLC. Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip, won 44.4% of the vote (74 seats), while PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s rival Fatah faction won 41.4% of the vote (45 seats). The PLC has 132 seats.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/beyond-netanyahus-on-the-brink-of-triumph/91034/

The way The New York Sun looks at what appears to be a dramatic victory by Prime Minister Netanyahu in today’s election is as part of a broader story. It involves not only Israel but all of the freedom countries. It echoes Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s triumph in the campaign for Brexit. The dynamic at work in the two elections may turn out to presage a victory by President Trump in the election that is gathering in America.

Results in Israel’s vote — it’s third in the past year, after two earlier contests failed to produce a government — appear, finally, to have put Mr. Netanyahu within reach of a mandate. It’s all the more astonishing because it comes as the incumbent premier is about to stand trial on criminal charges of bribery. Yet early returns show that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party appears to be within a seat or three of a majority in the Knesset.

If confirmed, that would put Mr. Netanyahu in the pole position to seek to put together a government by trying to win over from other parties one or more Knesset members. He could even seek coalition partners from the main opposition bloc, known as Blue and White. The betting is that Mr. Netanyahu will be able to do that. No newspapermen are predicting otherwise, though final results are due only Wednesday.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Benjamin-Netanyahus-Right-bloc-wins-majority-exit-polls-619513

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded in winning 60 seats for his bloc of right-wing and religious parties in Monday’s election, one less than he needed for a majority in the Knesset, according to exit polls on the three television networks.

The exit polls indicated that Netanyahu’s Likud won 36-37 seats. Its allies in Shas, UTJ and Yamina won 9, 7-8 and 6-7 respectively. The polls gave Blue and White 33 seats, its ally Labor-Gesher-Meretz 6-7, the Joint List 14-15 and Yisrael Beytenu 6-8.The numbers are expected to change overnight. The votes of IDF soldiers, who tend to lean to the Right, have not yet been counted and the Joint List tends to go down a seat when the soldiers’ votes are added. But if the Right does not obtain its 61st seat, it could end up being because the far Right Otzma Yehudit party refused Netanyahu’s repeated requests to quit the race.

Before getting into high gear regarding Bernie Sanders & Co., it may be useful to review some previous thoughts for good background information. So, let’s take a look…

Spend some time on many-to-most university campuses these days; read or listen to numerous Jewish commentators and editorialists in the mainstream media dealing with Israel and the Middle East.

With rare exceptions, you’ll be hard pressed finding Jews (let alone others) who have not succumbed to the pressure to adopt one set of standards by which Israel and Zionism is studied and judged, and another entirely different set by which the rest of the Middle East and North Africa—indeed, the rest of the world–is scrutinized. While Zionism is routinely vilified, have you ever heard the word Arabism even mentioned? https://ekurd.net/arabism-zionism-journeys-2019-01-12 Has it come up in any of the Democrat debates to see who gets to confront President Trump in the-fast approaching American election?

Frequently, Jewish organizations (J Street U, Jewish Voice For Peace, and too many others–including even Hillel, at times) are prominent, or at least collaborative, in partaking in the one-sided Israel and Zionism-bashing goings-on of other groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Muslim Students Association, radical Leftists, and “Progressive” Liberals.

While students learn about the ‘evil’ quest of Jews to cast off their millennial victim, scapegoat, and whipping post status, they’ll neither hear nor read anything about the plights of scores of millions of other non-Arab peoples in the region. They won’t find, for example, a local chapter ofStudents for Justice in Kurdistan or for the Kabyle or Amazigh (Berber”) people, whose programs they can attend. And they won’t find a post-Zionist, “Progressive” Hebrew or other professor mentioning anything about them either. Together, just the Kurds and Imazighen alone account for some 75-80 million non-Arab people in a region that Arabs claim to be merely “purely Arab patrimony…the real main cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict in a nutshell.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Breakthrough in fighting resistant bacteria and cancer. Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have used Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and AI to design new antibiotics and treatments for RNA viruses responsible for diseases such as hepatitis, HIV and many cancers.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/breakthrough-israeli-screening-method-could-lead-to-new-cancer-treatments-antibiotics/
 
Treatment for severe victims of coronavirus. As reported previously, (see here) the Allocetra treatment from Israel’s Enlivex cures patients suffering severe sepsis. Allocetra is now being offered to governments for the thousands of coronavirus patients suffering sepsis-induced organ failure due to overactive immune responses.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-company-ready-to-assist-coronavirus-victims-with-novel-drug-617777
 
Faster diagnosis of coronavirus. New technology developed by researchers at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University reduces the time taken to test viruses from an hour down to 15 minutes. The enhanced test is already used in Sheba Medical Center for other viruses and is now undergoing testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-tech-may-help-drastically-reduce-coronavirus-diagnostic-time-617796
 
Israeli support for coronavirus patients. Israeli innovation organization INNONATION recruited 100 Israeli volunteer doctors to provide medical videos to people in quarantine for Coronavirus in China and globally. It has also raised funds to send 150,000 pieces of medical equipment to China. Please see the inspiring video.
https://www.innonation.io/videos?wix-vod-video-id=baeb7735a7c84a1e90db1b678b6ca7c2&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-k0ezbnr7  https://www.innonation.io/
 
Monitoring suspected coronavirus patients. 12 Israelis exposed to the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) on the cruise liner in Japan have been quarantined at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. Each patient uses a TytoCare, device (see here) for doctors to remotely check pulse, temperature, throat, lungs, ears, heart, abdomen and skin.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/with-handheld-device-israelis-exposed-to-coronavirus-monitor-their-own-conditions/
 
Working on a coronavirus vaccine. The MIGAL Galilee Research Institute has made several scientific breakthroughs (see here)but the latest may be a treatment for the coronavirus (COVID-19). They are adapting their effective vaccine against avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV). Approval target is 90 days.
https://worldisraelnews.com/coronavirus-breakthrough-israeli-researchers-make-discovery-that-could-lead-to-vaccine/
 
Let me see inside your shoulder. The innovative AI-based / CT technology from Israel’s RSIP Vision (reported here previously)can now assist with shoulder surgery – one of the most complex procedures with a long recovery time. The system provides a precise 3D anatomical model of the shoulder for better diagnosis.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-ai-tech-lets-surgeons-see-inside-of-shoulder/
 
Now we’re smiling. Israel’s Mavrik Dental develops dental devices that help automate dental treatments. Its Thera-Smile teeth-whitening system has been cleared by the US FDA. Mavrik has just raised $30 million to fund opening commercial operations in the U.S. while retaining its product development center in Israel.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3793850,00.html  https://mavrikdental.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzi-_51FuyI
 
Israeli startups save lives. The 2020 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit attracted a record 23,000 delegates from 186 countries. They heard about three Israeli medical startups – Insightec, AlphaTAU and Surgical Theater and three of the patients whose lives they had saved with their groundbreaking technology.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/How-Israeli-technology-saved-78-years-old-Leah-from-skin-cancer-617514   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTEdBuRURE
https://www.timesofisrael.com/this-israeli-tech-helped-grandpa-stop-spilling-his-drink/
 
3D-printing in the hospital. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center is using 3D printing alongside MRI and VR/AR as a precision tool to save lives and greatly improve surgical outcomes such as in knee replacements, heart bridges and facial reconstruction. Printing replicas of organs and bones also helps train new surgeons.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/health-and-medicine/sheba-medical-center/printing-3d-dreams-the-future-of-operating-room-technology-has-arrived/2020/02/25/
 
Targeting solid tumors. Israel’s KAHR Medical (reported here previously) has just raised $18 million to advance its DSP107 treatment to combat solid tumors. DSP107 works by targeting CD47, a protein that is overexpressed by cancer cells. DSP107 prevents CD47 from suppressing the immune system.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3796430,00.html
https://kahr-medical.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/February-2020-KHAR-Round-D-financing-2020.pdf
 
Using bacteria to fight cancer. Israel’s NeoTX uses Selective T cell Redirection (STR) technology to enlist a powerful immune response against tumors. Mutated bacteria are fused with monoclonal antibodies which target the tumor’s 5T4 antigen, alerting T-cells to kill the tumor.  NeoTX has just raised $45 million of funds.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3794957,00.html