RUTHFULLY YOURS

Israel’s message to Hezbollah: Don’t get too comfortable

Israel’s undeclared and clandestine war against the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah erupted again today as IAF planes hit several Hezbollah positions along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Hezbollah denies that Israel attacked them. The IDF had no comment. But several Arab media outlets are reporting the strike occurred and residents of Baalbek, a strategic Lebanese hamlet on the Syrian border, are saying they saw the planes and heard the explosions.

24 News:

Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia group, denied the reports that Israel struck its positions and media outlets associated with the group said that no such strikes occurred.

Israel has not yet commented on the report and is unlikely to do so. According to usual protocol it does not disclose information about airstrikes in foreign countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prioritized the northern border as its greatest current threat, referring both to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian proxies on the Syrian border, which carries the danger of a united front against the Jewish state.

The real story now is no longer about what the foreign correspondents are reporting related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it is about what they are not reporting.

In its report — which so far appears to have been of less than no interest to both the foreign media and international human rights groups — the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights states that it has received complaints of torture and mistreatment from 46 Palestinians detained by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas during the month of February 2018 alone.

Both Palestinian dictatorships, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, therefore have nothing to worry about; they can go about their business of torturing and illegally detaining their own people. No one is watching.

What happens when Palestinians make allegations of torture and assaults on their public freedoms? If the finger is being pointed at Israel, the international media falls over itself to bring the story to the broadest possible audience.

The story would not even end there. Human rights organizations and United Nations agencies would blast Israel for “abusing” Palestinian human rights and the Security Council would hold an emergency session to condemn Israel.

The response, however, when Palestinians fall victim to the practices of their own governments — the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip — is a completely different one. That is when silence descends upon the international media community hides behind a blue wall of silence

How can one account for this sinkhole in communications? Simple: when the story is not about alleged atrocities committed by Israel, from the point of view of the Western media outlets it is presumably not a tale worthy of being told.

Israel said it destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, ending its silence over the airstrikes in what it said was a warning for an increasingly bellicose Iran threatening the country’s existence.

Israel in recent months has amplified criticism of Iranian attempts to set up military bases in Syria, warning it would counter any attempts by Tehran and its allies to strengthen their presence on its border.

Tensions escalated in February after Israel’s military said one of its jets was shot down by antiaircraft missiles during strikes on Syrian targets. Those strikes came after Israel said it intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria that had infiltrated its airspace.

Russia and Iran are the main backers of the Assad regime in the yearslong Syrian conflict and Tehran has vowed to destroy the Israeli state.

Some Iranian officials also have said Tehran could pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal that limits its enrichment program if the U.S. backs out, as President Donald Trump has threatened.

Iran says its enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel and other Western powers have long suspected that Tehran sought to develop nuclear weapons.

The acknowledgment of the destruction of the Syrian reactor “sends a clear message: Israel will never allow nuclear weapons to countries like Iran who threaten its existence,” Israel Katz, the country’s intelligence minister, wrote on Twitter.

His comments came after the Israeli military disclosed for the first time details about the 2007 operation, releasing previously classified information, pictures and video of the airstrikes.

“Israel’s policy was and remains consistent—to prevent our enemies from acquiring nuclear weapons,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Wednesday.

The Syrian regime couldn’t be reached for comment. It has previously denied that the bombed site was a nuclear reactor. An official at Iran’s United Nations mission in New York didn’t respond to a request for comment.

It was widely thought that the airstrikes in 2007 were carried out by Israel, but its formal disclosure on Wednesday comes as Mr. Trump considers scotching the Iranian nuclear deal in May. Israel is pushing for strict overhauls, including more-robust inspections of Iranian facilities and an indefinite period to restrict Iran’s nuclear program.

Ronen Bergman, a political and military analyst who wrote “Rise and Kill First”—a history of Israel’s intelligence agencies—said Israel was sending a message not just to Iran, but also to the Trump administration. CONTINUE AT SITE

You know the US ambassador is doing his job when the terrorists hate him.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman “a son of a dog” on Monday, with Friedman responding with a question: “Antisemitism or political discourse? Not for me to judge, I will leave that up to you.”

The US administration “has said that settlement building is legitimate,” Abbas said. “That’s what several American officials have said including, first and foremost, their ambassador in Tel Aviv, David Friedman. He said [settlers] are building on their land. Son of a dog, they are building in their land? He is a settler and his family members are settlers.”

Abbas was responding to a tweet earlier in the day by Friedman, who wrote of the recent terrorist attacks: “Tragedy in Israel. Two young soldiers, Netanel Kahalani and Ziv Daos, murdered in the North, and father of 4, Adiel Kolman, murdered in Jerusalem, by Palestinian terrorists. Such brutality and no condemnation from the PA! I pray for the families and the wounded – so much sadness,” Friedman tweeted.

In his speech to the antisemitism conference, Friedman explained the tweet, saying that he merely “observed something that was unfortunate and obvious. I observed this morning that three Jews were killed in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists, and the reaction from the Palestinian Authority was deafening. No condemnation whatsoever. I pointed that out without further commentary.”

The “demographic time bomb” concept accords mythical standards to Arab fertility and European standards to Jewish fertility, ignoring the Westernization of Arab fertility and the surging secular Jewish fertility, while significantly underestimating the potential of Jewish immigration (Aliyah) to Israel, which has been steady and continuous since 1882.

In March 1898, the leading Jewish demographer-historian, Shimon Dubnov, published a demographic projection, aiming to dissuade Theodore Herzl from the vision of the reconstruction of the Jewish State in the Land of Israel: “in 1998, there will be only half a million Jews in the Land of Israel…. Political Zionism is wishful-thinking….” Herzl was not deterred, although there was a meager 9% Jewish minority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel.

In October, 1944, Prof. Roberto Bachi, the founder of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, published a demographic projection, intending to convince Israel’s Founding Father, David Ben Gurion, that a population of then 600,000 Jews was not a critical mass for the re-establishment of the Jewish State: “In 2001, there will be, under the best case scenario, 2.3MN Jews, a 34% minority….” Ben Gurion proceeded to re-establish the Jewish State despite the mere 55% Jewish majority in the area partitioned for the Jewish State, and the 39% Jewish minority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel.

In 1946, Ben Gurion published Israel Trivus document – No Arab Majority in the Land of Israel – which exposed substantial deficiencies in the population censuses conducted by the British Mandate in 1922 and 1931, similar to the deficiencies of the contemporary Palestinian census: the inclusion of overseas residents in the census; the double-count of people moving from rural areas to urban centers; the inflation of numbers by clan leaders for political and economic reasons; the under-reporting of deaths. A June 10, 1993 document of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics noted that according to Palestinian reporting, Palestinian life expectancy, supposedly, exceeded life expectancy in the USA….

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Eyedrops could replace spectacles. Israeli scientists at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Bar-Ilan University have developed eyedrops that repair the corneas, improving near-sighted and far-sighted vision. The “nanodrops” are scheduled for human trials next year and could eventually replace multifocal lenses.
http://nocamels.com/2018/03/israel-opthalmologist-eye-glasses/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/JXAGnAIx4Z4?rel=0

Crohn’s gene mutation identified. International scientists, including from Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem and University of Haifa, have discovered a genetic mutation associated with Crohn’s disease. Those with the LRRK2 gene mutation are at high risk of developing the inflammatory bowel (IBD) disease.
https://www.israel21c.org/crohns-gene-mutation-identified-in-multinational-study/
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/423/eaai7795

Destroying tumors the size of golf balls. I’ve reported previously (several times) on Israel’s IceCure and its IceSense3 cryoablation (freezing) system for destroying even large tumors. This article and video provide an excellent explanation of how the system works, in conjunction with other medications and the immune system.
http://nocamels.com/2018/03/israeli-startup-cancer-tumors-ice-balls/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/qZwOUpv8XNQ?rel=0

Medical tools for developing countries. Israel’s Engineering for All (EfA) is developing RevDx – a small, portable device that can perform automated blood tests, diagnostics, and data analytics on the spot; a kind of hand-held hospital to assist under-equipped medical workers and technicians in rural areas.
http://nocamels.com/2018/02/israeli-startup-digital-health-remote-areas/

Former Kenyan President has treatment in Israel. 93-year-old former president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi is being brought to Tel Aviv for medical procedures. The ailing leader will also take the opportunity to visit holy sites around the country, Kenyan TV reported.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-former-kenyan-president-seeks-medical-care-israel/

This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams’ blog “Pressure Points.”

Seventeen “national security leaders” recently issued an alarming statement about Israel-Palestinian peace and U.S. policy. The statement was carried as an ad in The New York Times and a PDF version can be found here.

In my view, the statement is fairly radical in its departure from what has been U.S. policy for decades. How?

The Statement claims that “previous U.S. administrations” have “accepted” a Palestinian demand for “equal and minimal land swaps.” I will speak only about the George W. Bush administration. We understood that land swaps were a very useful idea to make the two-state solution work, but we did not back any demand that they be “equal and minimal.” That was to be negotiated by the parties.
The Statement says that “Jerusalem [is] to be the capital of Israel and Palestine, in the west and the east of the city respectively, an open city for the faithful of the three monotheistic religions.” The Bush administration also left the borders of Jerusalem to be determined by the parties, and never insisted on an “open city” – whatever that means.
The Statement calls for “ensuring the security of the two states consistent with their respective sovereignty and supported by a third-party security mechanism.” The Bush administration understood that security was an enormously complex and dangerous issue, but did not demand a “third-party security mechanism.” Again, the meaning of that phrase is entirely unclear, while it has long been entirely clear that Israel would not hand its security over to the United Nations, the United States, NATO troops, or any other possible “mechanism.”
The Statement says our goal should be “two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.” What’s missing here? Compare the words of President Bush when addressing the United Nations General Assembly in 2002: “In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides. America stands committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserve a government that serves their interests and listens to their voices.” The Statement makes no mention whatsoever of freedom or democracy, simply abandoning the hopes and indeed the rights of the Palestinian people in this regard.
The Statement says that a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians “remains a core U.S. national interest.” Really? A desirable goal to be sure, but as one thinks of the rise of China, American military preparedness, missile defense, Iranian and North Korean nukes, energy issues, and the like, does solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict qualify as a “core national interest”?