RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://bit.ly/2SPKEgZ

1. The growing interest, by global hightech companies, in Israeli technologies, is represented by the Pennsylvania-based Qlik, acquiring Israel’s data-integration Attunity for $560MN (Globes Business Daily, February 25, 2019). In January, 2019, Thoma Bravo private equity, which owns Qlik, acquired Israel’s cybersecurity Imperva for $2.1BN.

2. The Silicon Valley-based global cybersecurity leader, Palo Alto networks, acquired Israel’s automated security solutions, Demisto, for $560MN (Tech Crunch, February 19). In April, 2018, Palo Alto acquired Israel’s endpoint detection and response, Secdo, for $100MN.

3. Google acquired Israel’s cloud migration, Alooma, for $100MN. In January, 2019, Amazon acquired Israel’s Cloud Endure for $250MN (Globes, February 21).

4. Intel (which employs 13,000 Israelis, exporting $4BN from Israel) intends to invest $11BN in constructing a new fab in Israel – in addition to last year’s investment of $5BN – asking Israel for a 10% grant (Globes, January 29).

5. According to Bloomberg, February 12, 2019, “big carmakers are flocking Israel… dealing not with sales, but with research and development…. Volkswagen, Renault, Hundai, Skoda and Seat are a few of the companies that have opened such innovation centers… investing and collaborating with local startups…. Only two international carmakers have full-fledged R&D centers in Israel: General Motors (since 2008; 300 employees) and Daimlers, the parent company of Mercedes (since 2018)…. The user interface installed in the Bolt, Chevrolet’s electric car, and in many late-model Cadillacs was developed in Israel… which is a center for smart transportation…. Israeli startup entrepreneurs come with experience from the Israel Defense Forces hightech units….”

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Freezing bladder tumors. Israeli startup Vessi Medical has developed unique bladder-specific cryotherapy technology for treating surface cancer on the inside lining of the bladder. Existing therapies are invasive and have a high recurrence rate. Vessi has conducted clinical trials and hopes to begin human trials shortly.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-startup-seeks-to-freeze-bladder-tumors-after-seeing-success-in-pigs/

A computer in your heart. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported 3 years ago (see here) when Israel’s Vectorious Medical raised funds to trial its V-LAPTM microcomputer that monitors for imminent heart failure. The device has just been successfully implanted in the first human trials in a six-minute procedure, under local anesthesia. It is said to be the world’s first digital, wireless, battery-less device that can communicate from deep within the body.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/vectorious-1st-human-trial-wireless-heart-monitor-implant/
http://vectoriousmedtech.com/

ReWalk’s soft suit completes trials. I reported previously (see here) about ReStore, the soft suit exoskeleton from Israel’s ReWalk that enables stroke patients to walk. ReStore recently completed successful trials at five US rehabilitation centers and ReWalk has now applied for US FDA and European CE approval.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3756695,00.html

Treatment for refractory seizures. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Teva has launched a generic version of Sabril (vigabatrin) in the US for the treatment of refractory Complex Partial Seizures (CPS). It is meant for adults and children over 10 with this form of epilepsy who have failed to respond to several alternative treatments.
https://www.tevapharm.com/news/teva_announces_u_s_launch_of_a_generic_version_of_sabril_vigabatrin_02_19.aspx

Unique way to mend a broken heart. A 29-year-old Israeli staggered into Sheba Medical Center with a left ventricle aneurysm (ruptured heart artery). Cardiologist Professor Victor Guetta performed a “first in the world” procedure using a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) occlude (normally used to open arteries) to plug the hole.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-israeli-doctor-plugs-heart-bleed-with-innovative-procedure/

Lab-grown bone patient competes in triathlon. Danny Yaakobson suffered a serious leg injury in a car accident and risked losing his leg. He was the first patient to receive a transplant using bone grown from his own fat cells by Israel’s Bonus Bio. Danny completed the 112-mile cycle race of Eilat’s 2019 Israman triathlon.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/world-1st-patient-lab-grown-bone-implant-israman-triathlon/

Predicting the spread of melanoma. Scientists at Ben Gurion University, working with others at the University of Texas, have used microscopic cameras to film live cancer cells. They then used artificial intelligence to identify cells with metastatic potential that were likely to spread to other parts of the body.
http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/ai_melanoma.aspx
https://www.the-scientist.com/image-of-the-day/image-of-the-day–bad-behavior-65202

Finding the cause of genetic diseases. Israeli biotech Emedgene has developed a platform that can pinpoint the genetic mutation(s) responsible for rare genetic diseases. Emedgene gets cases from healthcare organizations and uses Artificial Intelligence and information databases to help geneticists uncover the underlying problem.
https://emedgene.com/emedgene-raises-6-million-to-scale-genomics-based-care-with-ai/

Hope for safer skin grafts. It’s early days, but Shahar Ben-Shaul from Israel’s Technion Institute looks to have improved the success rate for skin grafts. In laboratory trials, she and her team were able to connect blood vessels faster and safer using more mature (14-day-old) cells grown in the lab, in combination with real skin.
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-study-shows-more-successful-method-for-skin-grafts/
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/8/2955

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273063/unhrc-spews-another-modern-day-blood-libel-ari-lieberman

The United Nations Human Rights Council, the body that sanctioned and peddled the now infamous and thoroughly discredited Goldstone Report (later repudiated by its principle author, Richard Goldstone) is at it again. Late last week, the UNHRC, whose membership includes democracy stalwarts like Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan and China, released a commission of inquiry (COI)report accusing Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately targeting “journalists, health workers, children and persons with disabilities, knowing they were clearly recognizable as such.”

The 22-page report purportedly examined the deaths of 189 Gazans allegedly at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces since March 30, 2018. That date coincides with the beginning of the Hamas–orchestrated and choreographed Palestinian riots along the Gaza border, dubbed by the terror group, “the Great March of Return.”

Israel did not cooperate with the UNHRC’s investigators and for good reason. The UNHRC is an irredeemably flawed organization whose well-documented bias has made it the poster child for antisemitism on the world stage. The body is obsessed with vilifying Israel to the exclusion of all other nations and maintains the infamous Agenda Item 7, which mandates debate on Israeli actions against Palestinians at every council session. No other nation on the planet, including those with abysmal human rights records, is subjected to such outrageous treatment.

Clearly, there can be but one reason for such “special” treatment. Seventy-four years after the Holocaust and the martyrdom of six-million Jews, the United Nations chooses to obsessively focus its negative energies on the world’s only Jewish nation. The same fascist, anti-Semitic ideology that infected Germany then, infects today’s UNHRC and similar UN committees like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO is driven by a near-mad obsession with severing the Jewish nexus to the Land of Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-From-Wrong-Sexual-harassment-hypocrisy-582783
The exception to this rule, it turns out, is a woman whose accusations could cause problems for the only candidate who poses a threat to Netanyahu’s continued premiership.

When Israeli ex-pat Navarone (Nava) Jacobs came forward on February 27 with a Facebook post about having been sexually victimized by Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz some 40 years ago, the only person who seemed to respond without stammering was the alleged perpetrator himself.

Indeed, while the Israeli #MeToo movement barely blinked over the allegations – and said that there is “no corroborating evidence” to back up Jacobs’s account – Gantz immediately filed a NIS 500,000 ($142,000) libel suit against her at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court. The suit claims that Jacobs’s accusations are “false from start to finish,” and that she “acted at the behest of, or with the help of political parties that seek to humiliate and discredit Gantz,” ahead of the April 9 Knesset elections.

In her social-media post, the New York-based Jacobs, who has been living in the United States since 1980, wrote that when she was a 14-year-old freshman at Hakfar Hayarok boarding school in Ramat Hasharon, Gantz — who was 17 or 18 at the time and a senior at the same institution — cornered her in the cowshed and exposed himself.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273065/israel-cross-hairs-international-criminal-court-joseph-klein

The Palestinians have weaponized the International Criminal Court (ICC). Leveraging the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to bestow Palestine with the title “Non-Member Observer State,” the Palestinian leaders decided to join the ICC, which accepted its application with open arms. Then, on May 15, 2018, the Palestinians exercised their “right as a State Party to the Rome Statute to refer the Situation of Palestine for immediate investigation” of alleged Israeli crimes to the ICC prosecutor, who had previously opened an informal “preliminary examination” on her own initiative.

The Palestinians’ referral checked many of the boxes defining the crimes subject to ICC jurisdiction, particularly the alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. On May 24, 2018, the ICC’s Presidency assigned the “Situation in Palestine” to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber, which took steps to begin informing alleged “victims” as to the ICC’s role and activities, so they can “properly exercise their rights.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s office issued its “Report on Preliminary Examination Activities” for 2018 dated December 5, 2018, which included a section on the Palestinian situation. It appears that a decision is near on whether to open a formal investigation into Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza mentioned in the report, including demolition of Palestinian property, eviction of Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, plans to evacuate residents of the Bedouin village Khan al-Ahmar, settlements construction, the 2014 Gaza war, and more recent violence in and around the Gaza Strip border with Israel stemming from Palestinian mass protests. Experts believe that the prosecutor will open such an investigation with the Pre-Trial Chamber’s blessing in the near future, especially in light of her recent expressions of concern over continuing casualties in the proximity of the Gaza border with Israel.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-palestinians-continue-to-prove-the-peace-fantasists-wrong/

As Mahmoud Abbas himself told leaders in Baghdad, the Trump administration “is encouraging Israel to be a state above the law,” as well as “biased and not suitable to be a sponsor of peace talks.”

The Palestinians have been busy for the past week demonstrating in word and deed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” will be dead on arrival.

In an op-ed on Sunday in the official, Palestinian Authority-controlled daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, who served as national-affairs adviser to former P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, launched an assault on the White House. While he was at it, he offended all people with special needs.As Palestinian Media Watch reported, Al-Ghoul wrote, “Anyone who looks at [Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt] discovers that he has external and inner characteristics similar to those suffering from Down syndrome: He is short, his eyes are similar to Mongoloid eyes, he prattles unrestrainedly, and is politically retarded.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/making-news-ignoring-real-problems/

srael is shaken and wounded. On Thursday, the country’s top prosecutor, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, with 57 pages of allegations, announced his intention to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, thereby not only undermining a great leader – a key political figure both at home and abroad – but also clearly trying to heavily influence the outcome of the upcoming general election to be held on April 9.

Now that the judicial machine has been launched, it is quite realistic to think that Likud’s predominance will be put at risk in the coming days. According to the polls, it is already expected to lose four Knesset seats, thereby leading to a standoff with the opposing force, the Blue and White party, which was formed between Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. It’s not surprising that the timing of Mendelblit’s decision has people talking about a political putsch.

The chill of the situation – the embarrassment of a country – is also accompanied by overt expressions of satisfaction, even of crazy joy by a broad array of detractors, particularly the world’s media, almost all hostile towards Netanyahu. For years now, they have made Bibi their designated target, and on Thursday, the TV screens were home to scandalous parties of collective satisfaction. In the hours following Mendelblit’s announcement, the delight in which the media networks took in covering has certainly been an event in itself.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Early pregnancy blood test for genetic disorders. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a new blood test to detect genetic disorders in fetuses as early as 11 weeks into pregnancy. DNA in the mother and father’s blood is sequenced. Then fetal DNA fragments in the mother’s blood is checked for any mutations.
https://www.jpost.com/Jpost-Tech/Business-and-Innovation/TAU-develops-blood-test-to-detect-genetic-disorders-in-early-pregnancy-581252

Identifying the early signs of heart failure. Israel’s Technion has partnered with Israeli startup Cordio Medical to develop a smartphone app to identify the first signs of heart failure. The app detects changes in a person’s voice due to lung fluid – an early warning of congestive heart failure. Clinical trials are in progress.
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/technion-working-with-startup-on-app-to-identify-early-signs-of-heart-failure/

AI system for diabetes treatment. I reported previously (see here) on Israel’s DreaMed Diabetes monitors. DreaMed has just partnered with French company BioCorp to create an Artificially Intelligent system that integrates BioCorp’s Mallya smart cap for pen injectors with DreaMed’s Advisor Pro insulin analysis system.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190220005514/en/BIOCORP-DreaMed-Diabetes-Join-Offer-Outstanding-AI https://dreamed-diabetes.com/advisor/

Artificial Intelligence to benefit humanity. A brief introduction to Israel’s Weizmann Institute’s new Artificial Intelligence Center for Scientific Exploration. It highlights Professor Yaron Lipman’s recent AI breakthrough in developing the On-Sight algorithm to automate heart function measurement from ultrasound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITAtrt7iv6s
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/math-computer-science/algorithm-rivals-experts-could-save-lives

Why black women suffer hair loss. A 7-year international study led by Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s Professor Eli Sprecher, has revealed that a defect in the protein gene PAD13 is responsible for hair loss due to Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia [CCCA]. The condition affects 5% of African-American women.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Bald-black-woman-Israeli-scientists-make-the-leap-towards-a-cure-580698
https://read.qxmd.com/read/30763140/variant-padi3-in-central-centrifugal-cicatricial-alopecia

Predicting sports injuries. Israeli-founded startup Zone7 (InPlay Ltd) has developed software that analyzes data from wearables and video, tracks medical condition and performance and forecasts injuries. It is used by soccer clubs in the UK, Israel, and Spain. Zone7 has just raised $2.5 million including from top sportsmen.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3756158,00.html http://zone7.ai/

Hotline saves Israeli lives. ERAN is Israel’s only crisis intervention hotline, with 1,200 vetted and highly-trained volunteers, plus 25 full and part-time staff. They handled nearly 200,000 calls in 2018 and prevented some 800 likely suicides. ERAN has also trained 25 ex-pat Israelis in Canada to help cover overnight shifts.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-expats-in-canada-staff-hebrew-suicide-hotline-to-serve-their-homeland/

Stem cell transplant restored vision. Surgeons at Haifa’s Rambam hospital have restored vision to a woman suffering from chemical burns on her eyes. They took amniotic membrane from a mother who had undergone a Caesarian section and sewed it underneath the patient’s eyelids. After a short recovery, she could see!
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israqeli-doctors-restore-vision-with-revolutionary-membrane-transplant/

A center for stem cell donations. Israel has just opened the Ezer Mizion Stem Cell Harvesting Center – the first Israeli medical center specially designed to collect stem cells for bone marrow transplants. It will enable the public to donate stem cells in a dedicated environment, without having to spend up to 7 hours in hospital.
http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/israels-first-stem-cell-harvesting-center-established-outside-of-a-hospital-opened-by-ezer-mizion/

Eat healthy in Israel. (TY Jacob Richman) The Israel Ministry of Health has been running a TV and social media campaign against processed food. It recommends alternatives such as fresh chicken, legumes, and fresh vegetables. Jacob has created a page of the videos with English translations.
https://jr.co.il/videos/eat-healthy-hebrew-videos.htm
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3757091,00.html