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ISRAEL

Israelis moving quickly to get out a COVID-19 vaccine By Howard Richman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/israelis_moving_quickly_to_get_out_a_covid19_vaccine.html

Israeli scientists have outraced the world in creating a coronavirus vaccine.

Israeli scientists at the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute had worked for four years and had successfully developed a Coronavirus vaccine for chickens which passed clinical trials. When they saw the genetic sequencing of the COVID-19 virus, they realized that they could quickly adapt their chicken vaccine to the human virus. Ella Dagan, a spokesman for MIGAL told europorter:

When the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus COVID-19 was published, the researchers realized that the two viruses have the same infection mechanism similarities so they can use it, with small amount of adaptation, to achieve an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time.

Dr. Shahar, one of the scientists at MIGAL saw God’s hand in this. He told nocamels.com:

It’s a little bit like fate that we were working on this coronavirus vaccine at the same time that the world was suddenly hit by this epidemic of coronavirus for humans.

MIGAL created its vaccine by synthesizing two proteins. Unlike vaccines that are created by injecting a dead or weakened disease-causing virus, there is little danger that a synthetic virus will give patients a disease.

Its vaccine creates antibodies in the mucosal immune system of the body which consists of thin permeable barriers to infection in the lungs, gut, eyes, nose, throat, uterus, and vagina. Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology group leader, gave europorter a detailed cellular-level description of how MIGAL’s vaccine works:

The scientific framework for the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a chimeric soluble protein that delivers the viral antigen into mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis (a cellular process in which substances are brought into a cell by surrounding the material with cell membrane, forming a vesicle containing the ingested material), causing the body to form antibodies against the virus.

Israel’s Minister of Science and Technology, Ofir Akunis, is expediting the human vaccine through Israel’s approval process. According to eureporter:

Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer moves up a space to 9th in annual Newsweek ranking of world’s best hospitals.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/276656?utm_source=VeryGoodN

Newsweek magazine has deemed the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer the world’s ninth-best hospital, one place ahead of last year’s ranking, and placing it alongside the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Toronto General Hospital, and more.

Located in the Tel Aviv area, Sheba is israel’s largest medical facility, and also home to more than 25% of all Israeli clinical research.

In its performance rating, Newsweek cited the hospital’s collaborations with biotech and pharmaceutical companies worldwide to develop new drugs and treatments, in addition to its groundbreaking research in cancer, cardiology, brain diseases, genetics and more.

“The selection reflects another year of excellent and advanced medicine, breakthrough research and world-leading innovation,” said Sheba Medical Center Director General Professor Yitshak Kreiss, a former IDF Surgeon General who has headed the hospital since 2016.

“I am happy and proud of each one of our 9,131 dedicated and professional employees who think outside of the box every day. The continued rise in the rankings puts us in line with the world’s leading hospitals. As in every situation, and especially today when we are leading the national effort to treat the Coronavirus, it is a privilege to provide the Israeli population with the best medicine in the world.”

GOOD NEWS FROM ABSOLUTELY AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Lung cancer transplant patient receives his own lung. (TY David F) In a medical breakthrough, surgeons at Israel’s Beilinson hospital temporarily removed the left lung from a lung cancer patient. They then cut out a tumor from the lung that had been blocking the main airway and finally replaced the lung back into the patient.
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/02/28/medical-breakthrough-in-israel-a-lung-was-removed-from-the-body-of-a-cancer-patient-cleaned-and-returned/
 
Coronavirus vaccine news. Latest progress on the vaccine being developed by Israeli scientists at the Migal Research Institute in Kiryat Shmona on the border with Lebanon. Also, an article on how the vaccine works.
www.nocamels.com/2020/03/israeli-scientists-avian-vaccine-adapt-coronavirus/
https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/coronavirus-outbreak-israeli-scientists-confident-of-breakthrough-in-developing-vaccine-for-covid-19/1886367/
 
Helping coronavirus patients breathe. (TY UWI) Doctors at Jerusalem’s Alyn hospital developed Coughsync some 10 years ago to help relieve lung congestion in physically challenged and disabled children. Now it is being mass-produced to help clear secretions from the lungs of Chinese coronavirus patients on ventilators.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-used-to-treat-coronavirus-victims-in-China-617530  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyW027huElc
 
Breakthrough in generating heart cells. (TY UWI) Researchers led by Professor Lior Gepstein of Israel’s Technion Institute and Rambam Medical Center have generated heart cells from stem cells that can be either atrial (upper) or ventricular (lower) chamber cells. It has significant benefits for testing cardiac treatments.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-researchers-build-3D-model-of-heart-tissue-from-stem-cells-617525
 
Sheba is now world’s 9th best hospital. Newsweek magazine listed Israel’s Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer as the world’s ninth-best hospital, up one place from last year (see here). Newsweek highlighted Sheba’s groundbreaking research in cancer, cardiology, brain diseases, genetics plus its global collaborations.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/276656
 
Contact lenses to correct color blindness. (TY Israel21c) Tel Aviv University researchers have developed customizable contact lenses that can correct deuteranomaly, a form of red-green colorblindness. Ultra-thin optical devices were incorporated into off-the-shelf contact lenses.
https://www.geek.com/news/these-high-tech-contact-lenses-correct-color-blindness-1819860/
https://www.osapublishing.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-45-6-1379
 

A new perspective on the Jordanian option following Trump’s peace plan Although Trump’s “Deal of the Century” has many excellent aspects, it is too expensive and wasteful. By Moshe Dann

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/A-new-perspective-on-the-Jordanian-option-following-Trumps-peace-plan-620985

Rejection of President Trump’s “Deal of the Century” by Palestinian leaders has resulted in a stalemate that leaves Palestinians who desire national self-determination frustrated and angry. The problem is because of the fixation on creating a Palestinian state only west of the Jordan River. This has prevented thinking about any other options.

For the last three decades, based on the Oslo Accords, the international community has tried to resolve the dispute over Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) by creating an autonomous area for Palestinians under a “Palestinian Authority” – but not a state – while allowing for some Israeli settlements.

Promoted as a “peace agreement,” it soon proved to be a failure. The reason is that it was based on the false assumption that Arab and Palestinian leaders wanted peace with Israel. Rather than moving toward peace, the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Hamas and other terrorist organizations only made the situation worse. Unsatisfied with what they were given, local autonomy, they continue to condemn Israel and support terrorism.

The Palestinian ‘Right of Return’ Is Really About Destroying Israel by Sean Durns

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/12/the-palestinian-right-of-return-is-really-about-destroying-israel/

On January 28, President Trump revealed his administration’s long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. As several commentators noted, the proposal explicitly states that there shall be no “right of return” — a key phrase with a very particular meaning that few analysts have carefully parsed out.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), the entity that governs the Palestinian areas of the West Bank, has continually demanded a “right of return” in nearly every negotiation that has occurred since the PA was created a quarter century ago. To understand the origin of this so-called “right,” one must first understand the history.

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a partition plan for British-ruled Mandatory Palestine: Resolution 181, which called for the establishment of both a Jewish state and an Arab state. Arab states and Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it out of hand, choosing war over statehood. They violated Resolution 181 by attacking the fledgling Jewish nation. In the combat that followed, hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Jews fled. In some cases, they were forced from their homes in Mandatory Palestine and beyond.

Estimates of the original number of Arab refugees vary. The British Foreign Office suggested the number was between 600,000 and 760,000. A 1950 report by the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine endorsed an estimate of 711,000 refugees by an “expert of the Statistical Office of the United Nations.”

Many of these initial Arab refugees were set up in camps in Arab nations that typically refused to grant them citizenship or equal rights. Rather, they were treated as political pawns and overseen by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

In retaliation, some Arab nations punished their native Jewish populations by seizing their property and expelling them or forcing them to flee under threat of death or torture. Of the more than 800,000 Jewish refugees, nearly 600,000 settled in Israel.

Sham Justice, Redux: Why the Deal of the Century will fail, and Israel must act Unilaterally… by Gerald A. Honigman

http://www.geraldahonigman.com/blog/2020/03/13/sham-justice-redux-why-the-deal-of-the-century-will-fail-and-israel-must-act-unilaterally/

To better understand why “The Deal of the Century” hit a very-predictable obstacle, let’s turn the clock back a bit…

Not having to yield anything whatsoever in utter rejection of anyone else’s dreams and rights in the region, on November 29, 2012, Arabs simply had their own one-sided vision of justice–which is no justice at all–endorsed by most of the rest of the world at the United Nations…the same body which passed the infamous “Zionism Equals Racism” resolution in the ‘70s.

Very little has actually changed since then either. Arabs and Muslim (i.e., Arabized) Turks, who have massacred, outlawed scores of millions of other native peoples’ language and culture (Kurds, Amazigh/Kabyle/“Berbers,” etc.), and so forth still continue to get free passes in too many circles (especially academia) while the Jew of the Nations–Israel–and the national liberation movement of the world’s most oppressed people, Zionism, continues to be exposed to endless hypocritical vilification.

Arabs timed that 2012 event so that the date fell on the anniversary of the November 29,1947 United Nations’ vote to partition what was left of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine, after Arab nationalism–in another of its many permitted varieties–was already awarded almost 80% of the total area in 1922 (“Transjordan”), into one Jewish and a second Arab state.

Obviously disappointed, Jews nonetheless accepted the ’47 partition plan (at almost the same moment in history that the Indian subcontinent was being divided between Muslim Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India, with similar population exchanges as well)–even though their state would emerge on a mere 12% of the original post-World War I Mandate’s territory. On a world globe, Israel appears as a mere fleck adjacent to the over six million square miles of territory Arabs got to claim for themselves in the region. Try finding it without a magnifying glass. Arabs claim Jews got most of the land…taqiyya.

Ruthie Blum:Israel vs. coronavirus: macro-genius, micro-idiocy

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Israel-vs-coronavirus-macro-genius-micro-idiocy-620772

Israel’s impressive initiative in the battle to contain the coronavirus pandemic is not surprising. Aside from directing scientists to develop a vaccine for the novel strain as soon as it emerged in China and began to traverse borders, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly adopted measures to slow its entry into and spread across country.
His efforts didn’t wane, even while campaigning for reelection, facing a looming court date for the beginning of his corruption trial and attempting to cobble together a coalition.

On the contrary, the pains he has taken to protect the public – from both illness and panic – have increased with every rise in the number of infected citizens and accompanying surge in home quarantines. Exhibiting true leadership, he has been giving press conferences to provide health directives and updates.On Wednesday alone, for example, he addressed the nation twice on this topic. First, he announced the injection of billions of shekels in aid to the health and small-business sectors, both of which are hurting from the current state of emergency.

“Corona is greatly affecting the global economy and our economy as well, [but] we are entering this crisis in a good situation,” he said. “The Israeli economy is in a better situation than most economies in the world. Unemployment is low, growth is high and the debt-to-GDP ratio is good. However, we have a great challenge here that we all are feeling and of which we are all aware. In our view, we can also deal with it in a way that will allow us to get through it successfully in peace – not without difficulty and not without sacrifice – but ultimately in peace, and I think that we can do this together in the best way possible.”

Gantz shows Netanyahu was right about ‘Bibi or Tibi’ Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/opinion/gantz-shows-netanyahu-was-right-about-bibi-or-tibi/

His having revealed that even an anti-Zionist partner is preferable to being second in a rotation as prime minister with Benjamin Netanyahu has done him the kind of harm that could cost him his short-lived political career.

 It appears that Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz has called his own bluff. Yes, the true colors of the so-called “center-left” Israeli party that has been trying desperately to wrest the reins from Likud leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bleeding all over its pearly white facade.

Ironically, this is not due to Netanyahu’s repeated warnings during the campaign ahead of the March 2 Knesset elections that a vote for Gantz was tantamount to a ballot for Ahmad Tibi, a prominent member of the Joint Arab List.

Tibi heads Ta’al, one of the four parties that makes up the Joint List. A veteran member of the Knesset, he was an adviser to and close confidant of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, chief of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

“Bibi or Tibi” was a rhyming slogan that aroused the gleeful ire of both the Joint List and Blue and White, for ostensibly opposite reasons. The former called it “racist”—a typical Netanyahu “scare tactic” aimed at underscoring the treasonous disloyalty of Israel’s Arab citizens. The latter referred to it as “fake news.”

Palestinians Revive Blood Libels as Israel Saves Their Lives by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15697/palestinians-blood-libels

Earlier, the Israeli authorities announced that they had facilitated 105,495 humanitarian crossings for Palestinians to receive medical treatment in Israel during the last week of February.

Yet, rather than showing gratitude toward the Israeli authorities for their assistance, the Palestinian Authority and its media outlets and officials are continuing their campaign of incitement against Israel.

If, as the Palestinians claim, the Jews have been using wild boars for the past two decades, why has no one snapped even one photo of an Israeli truck carrying the animals into Palestinian villages?

What about the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the West Bank? How come they too have not been attacked by wild boars? And how are these wild boars able to distinguish between Arabs and Jews?

While this sort of perverse Palestinian payback is nothing new, it nonetheless ought to interest anyone in the international community who is considering contributing to the Palestinian cause.

Israel is making a massive effort to help the Palestinians contain a coronavirus outbreak after several Palestinians in Bethlehem tested positive for the disease. In return, the Palestinians are continuing to spread blood libels against Israel and the Jews.

On March 5, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced that it has been working in the past two weeks to assist the Palestinian Authority in “curbing and preventing a coronavirus outbreak” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli authorities have transferred 250 coronavirus test kits from Israel to the Palestinians. Furthermore, joint training sessions for Israeli and Palestinian medical personnel were organized for the professional study of the virus, the protection of medical personnel, and the testing of patients suspected of being virus carriers.

Who’s Attacking Palestinian Christians? by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15690/attacking-palestinian-christians

The plight of Christians living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is one that is often ignored by the international community and foreign journalists based in the Middle East.

It is worth noting that that the Christian population in the Bethlehem area has dropped from 86% in 1950 to less than 12% today. Across the West Bank, Christians now account for less than 2% of the population….

In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the situation of Christians is even worse.

Instead of raising their voices against the persecution of Christians by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, these Christian leaders are busy trying to blame Israel. They want the world to believe that Christians are fleeing Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip because of Israeli security measures against terrorists, and not because of the brutalities perpetrated by the Palestinian authorities and Muslims in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If their claim were true, why aren’t Muslims also fleeing as a result of the purported Israeli measures?

While Christian leaders are busy condemning Israel and spreading blood libels against it, Christians in Bethlehem are again being targeted by hoodlums and punks.

The latest victim of this anti-Christian violence is Dr. Salameh Qumsiyeh, a gynecologist from Bethlehem who was brutally attacked by unidentified thugs as he was driving his car in the center of the city on February 18.

Four masked assailants intercepted Qumsiyeh’s car, eyewitnesses said, and beat him with clubs and sharp tools before fleeing the scene. Qumsiyeh was rushed to hospital, where medics said that the wounds he had suffered were serious.