RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Trump needs a win. Fortunately, one is within reach.

In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, a law that mandated moving America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to a “unified” Jerusalem by May 31, 1999. But that move never happened, and, as Ambassador John Bolton pointed out in his recent congressional testimony on the subject, the U.S. embassy to Israel remains the only American embassy not located in the host country’s capital.

How has the Jerusalem Embassy Act not yet been fully executed? One of the law’s provisions grants the president the authority to bypass its penalty for not moving the embassy by issuing a waiver, renewable every six months, which invokes “the national security interests of the United States.” The latest waiver was issued on June 1 of this year.

Every president since 1999, from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump, has kept up the unending string of waivers, declining to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Some of them have promised, as candidates, to make the move, but none have followed through. The next waiver is set to expire on December 1. On that day, Trump can break the streak.

Security concerns do not merit a waiver of this provision of the Jerusalem Embassy Act. It is true, as events across the Arab world in 2012 showed, that U.S. embassies and consulates are targets for attacks by violent extremists. That has been the case since at least 1998, when al-Qaeda terrorists blew up American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.The response of the United States to those attacks, however, was not to withdraw from Nairobi or Dar es Salaam. As Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law professor Eugene Kontorovich argued in his own congressional testimony, after these very attacks “the Executive undertook to hunt down and punish the perpetrators, while Congress appropriated extraordinary amounts for improved security at diplomatic facilities around the world.”

Recent events do not suggest that beginning to grant Jerusalem equal status with other world capitals would significantly endanger American security. Last April, Vladimir Putin’s Russia became the only country on Earth to actually recognize West Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The silence across a Middle East split on religious lines, riven by proxy wars, and aflame with extremism was deafening.

America’s policy of maintaining its embassy in Tel Aviv was born not of security concerns, but of legal deference to the U.N. General Assembly’s Resolution 181, a 1947 proposal that would have made Jerusalem into an international city governed by a “Special International Regime,” while partitioning the rest of Mandatory Palestine into Arab and Jewish sections.

The New Israel Fund (NIF) is headquartered in New York, and maintains offices throughout the U.S. as well as in Canada, the UK, Switzerland, and Germany. Since its founding in 1979, as a political framework following the 1977 Israeli elections which brought Likud to power, NIF has provided over $300 million to more than 900 Israeli organizations.
Shatil is the Israel-based “operating arm” of the NIF,” that creates and nurtures coalitions of NGOs, attempts to influence laws and bills in Israel, and holds workshops for staffers of NIF-funded NGOs.
Declared objectives: “to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy, progressive forces in Israel” and help “Israel to live up to its founders’ vision.” According to the NIF, the Israeli government and public have strayed from the vision of Israel as a “Jewish homeland and a democracy.”
A common theme of NIF fundraising and campaigning is the supposed “erosion of Israeli democracy.” In September 2016, the Israeli Ambassador to Switzerland refused an invitation to participate in an NIF event, titled “Is Israeli democracy in danger?” The Israeli Foreign Ministry explained that the “provocative” title and NIF involvement were the reasons for the refusal.
To achieve these goals, the NIF “brings the broad range of civil rights, social justice and religious tolerance issues to the attention” of individuals and institutions, including the media and the Knesset. It presents itself as the “only” group working on such issues, attempting to restore Israeli democracy to its founders’ vision.
In New York, NIF participation in the Celebrate Israel Parade is the subject of controversy and criticism.
Engages in intense confrontation with “rights wing” opponents, including Israeli government officials, MKs, and NGOs such as Im Tirtzu,.
Finances

Expenses in 2015 were $31 million, approximately the same as in 2014.
Total authorized grants to Israeli NGOs were approximately $13.8 million in 2015 (including donor-advised grants), a 5.8% decrease from 2014 ($14.7 million). (See Appendix 1)
Although NIF grants are for organizations based in Israel, the organization is not registered with the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits.
NIF publishes a list of donors in its annual reports; some appear as “anonymous.”

Although the full details of the proposed plan have yet to be made public, the Palestinians have already made up their mind: Whatever comes from Trump and his Jewish team is against the interests of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians’ rhetorical attacks on the Trump administration are designed to prepare the ground for their rejection of the proposed “ultimate solution.”

Take careful note: these warning shots may well be translated into yet another intifada against Israel under the fabricated pretext that the Americans and Israelis, with the help of some Arab countries, seek to strip the Palestinians of their rights. One wonders when the world will wake up to the fact that those rights have already been stripped from the Palestinians — by none other than their own brainwashing, inciting and corrupt leaders.

Over the past year, the Palestinians have managed to keep under wraps their true feelings about US President Donald Trump and his Middle East envoys and advisors. In all likelihood, they were hoping that the new US administration would endorse their vision for “peace” with Israel.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas ensured that his spokesmen and senior officials spoke with circumspection about Trump and his Middle East advisors and envoys. The top brass of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah felt it was worth giving Trump time to see if he was indeed gullible enough to be persuaded to throw Israel under the bus and fork over their demands.

Well, that bus has long passed.

The Palestinians are now denouncing Trump and his people for their “bias” in favor of Israel. Even more, the Palestinians are openly accusing the Trump administration of “blackmail” and of seeking to “liquidate the Palestinian cause.” To top off the tone, the Palestinians are insinuating that Trump’s top Jewish advisors and envoys — Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman — are more loyal to Israel than to the US.

The Palestinians’ unprecedented rhetorical attacks on the Trump administration should be seen as a sign of how they plan to respond to the US president’s plan for peace in the Middle East, which has been described as the “ultimate solution.” Although the full details of the proposed plan have yet to be made public, the Palestinians have already made up their mind: Whatever comes from Trump and his Jewish team is against the interests of the Palestinians.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Repairing severed spinal cord. Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute and Tel Aviv University have reconnected severed spinal cords of rats. Previously paralyzed rodents were implanted with cells induced into a neural phenotype, and regained motor control. It could lead to major advances in treating spinal cord injury.
http://www.sagol.tau.ac.il/en/prof-dani-offen-israeli-scientists-make-paralyzed-rats-walk-again/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00589/full

Predicting diabetes. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (twice) on Israel’s Medial EarlySign and its blood test for early detection of colon cancer. Now Medial has developed an algorithm with a 64% success rate for identifying which of 645,000 prediabetics were at risk of becoming diabetics within 12 months.
http://earlysign.com/news-and-events/medial-earlysign-machine-learning-algorithm-predicts-risk-prediabetics-becoming-diabetic-within-1-year-2/

Hope for bone marrow failure patients. Israeli biotech Pluristem has opened clinical centers in Israel and extended the trial of its stem cell treatment for insufficient hematopoietic recovery following hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). HCT is performed when bone marrow fails for reasons including cancer treatment.
http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/following-approval-of-israels-ministry-of-health-pluristem-extends-its-trial-of-plxr18-to-treat-20171026-00612

Managing chronically ill patients. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Nov 2012) on Israel’s Vaica and its system for reminding individuals to take their meds. Vaica has now launched Capsuled – a personally customized medication adherence solution.
http://www.vaica.com/vaicas-complete-solution/ https://www.youtube.com/embed/GYbcNnfm8fE?rel=0

Medical solutions for disasters. The Israeli pavilion at MEDICA 2017 in Dusseldorf, showcased specialized emergency medical services products for intensive care, respiratory, cardiac, central nervous system and trauma. Israeli companies presenting included Inovytec, Medisim, CardiacX and Guide in Medical.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-firms-display-life-saving-tech-in-dusseldorf/

Preparing Toronto hospital for disasters. A team of experts from Israel’s Rambam hospital shared their knowledge with Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children on how to prepare for disasters, such as mass casualties. As the city gets larger, the Canadian hospital needs to prepare for taking many casualties at one time.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-team-trains-torontos-sick-kids-hospital-on-disaster-preparedness/

Treating children in Georgia. Twice a year, for the past five years, doctors from Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center have traveled to capital city of Tbilisi to perform operations on local youngsters with serious congenital defects. The delegation consists of pediatric surgeons, anesthesiologists and intensive care specialists.
http://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Rambam-doctors-operate-on-children-in-Georgia-514601

The most teenage volunteer EMTs. (TY Hazel) 60 percent of the volunteer Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) staff of Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency-response network, are teenagers – the highest percentage in the world. 11,000 Israeli teenagers work voluntary shifts on MDA ambulances throughout Israel.
https://www.israel21c.org/why-israel-has-worlds-highest-percentage-of-teenage-emts/

Israeli MS treatment featured on UK TV. The normally anti-Israel UK TV Channel4 aired a rare positive feature about Mark Lewis and the trial stem cell treatment he received for Multiple Sclerosis at Israel’s Hadassah hospital. https://www.thejc.com/search-for-a-miracle-cure-follows-patient-31-mark-lewis-as-israeli-medics-develop-ms-treatment-1.448893
http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/miracle-in-jerusalem-mark-lewis-seeks-out-a-revolutionary-ms-cure/

1. During the 3rd quarter of 2017, foreign acquisition of Israeli startups reached $1.7BN, a 17-year-old quarterly record (Globes Business Daily, November 20, 2017).

2. During the 3rd quarter of 2017, (144) Israeli startups raised $1.4BN, 14% higher than the 2nd quarter. $3.8BN were raised during the first three quarters of 2017, similar to 2016, which set all time high record (Globes October 25).

3. During the 3rd quarter of 2017, Israel’s GDP grew at a 4.1% annual rate, up from the 2.5% during the 2nd quarter. Israel’s exports rose in defiance of the very strong Shekel (due to Israel’s strong economic performance, benefitting from the dramatic reduction of energy imports). Private consumption rose 7.8%, acquisition of machinery grew 29.9% and the import of private cars expanded 38.9% (Globes, November 17).

4. “In 2017, investment in autonomous car startups is more than double the 2016 totals. While Silicon Valley is a known hotspot for autonomous driving, Israel is a pretty solid No. 2 for startup deals, with three of the 10 largest rounds this year. Intel’s $15.3 billion purchase of Mobileye, an Israel-based startup, is also the largest M&A deal for an autonomous driving-related company for this or any year.”

5. Japan’s Mitsubishi Tanabe finalized its $1.1BN acquisition of Israel’s Parkinson disease biotech Neuroderm (Globes, October 20).

6. Luxembourg’s CVC Capital Partners ($100MN) and London’s Pantheon Ventures ($50MN) participated in a round of private placement by Israel’s cybersecurity Skybox Security, which raised $96MN, in 2016, from Rhode Island’s Providence Equity Partners. Israel’s financial-tech BlueVine raised $130MN from the Sillicon Valley Bank, Atlanta’s SunTrust Bank, Menlo Park’s TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC Corp., etc. Israel’s ForeScout (network security solutions) raised $116MN on NASDAQ.

7. The NYC-based SK Capital acquired Israel’s ChemAgis (owned by the Michigan-based Perrigo) for $110MN (Globes, Nov. 23).

8. China’s $7BN Chengdu Kanghong Pharmaceutical Group acquired Israel’s I-Optima for $56MN in four stages, ending in 2021 (Globes, November 22). Germany’s Tentamus Analytics Laboratories holding group acquired Israel’s Analyst Research Laboratories for tens of millions of dollars. Analyst is owned by one of the three founders of Israel’s Neuroderm, which was bought in July, 2017 for $1.1BN by Japan’s Mitsubishi Tanabe.

9. British Telecom selected Israel’s AudioCodes to provide communications solutions, which raised the NASDAQ value of AudioCodes by 9% (a 56% surge in a year), its highest in 3.5 years. The Kansas-based Sprint expanded its contract with Israel’s satellite networking technology Gilat, including a 3-year-multimillion dollar project, triggering a 4.3% rise in its value (Globes, October 18).

10. South Korea-Israel trade balance is expanding, while a free-trade-agreement is negotiated. Israel’s export to South Korea rose 36% during January-August, reaching $560MN, mostly medical equipment, chemical and metal products. During the same period, Israel import from South Korea totaled $880MN, mostly cars and machinery. South Korea’s Hankuk Carbon concluded a cooperation agreement with Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), establishing a joint venture, leveraging IAI’s unique experience in the area of developing and manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles, focusing on vertical takeoff and landing capabilities (Globes, October 19).

The PLO’s campaign to get recognized as a state breached both of its agreements with Israel and the terms under which the US recognized it and permitted it to operate missions on US soil.

Is the PLO’s long vacation from accountability coming to an end? How about the State Department’s? In 1987 the US State Department placed the PLO on its list of foreign terrorist organizations. The PLO was removed from the list in 1994, following the initiation of its peace process with Israel in 1993.

As part of the Clinton administration’s efforts to conclude a long-term peace deal between the PLO and Israel, in 1994 then president Bill Clinton signed an executive order waiving enforcement of laws that barred the PLO and its front groups from operating in the US. His move enabled the PLO to open a mission in Washington.In 2010, then president Barack Obama upgraded the mission’s status to the level of “Delegation General.” The move was seen as a signal that the Obama administration supported moves by the PLO to initiate recognition of the “State of Palestine” by European governments and international bodies.

Whereas Obama’s PLO upgrade was legally dubious, the PLO’s campaign to get recognized as a state breached both of its agreements with Israel and the terms under which the US recognized it and permitted it to operate missions on US soil.

The operation of the PLO’s missions in the US was contingent on periodic certification by the secretary of state that the PLO was not engaged in terrorism, including incitement of terrorism, was not encouraging the boycott of Israel and was not seeking to bypass its bilateral negotiations with Israel in order to achieve either diplomatic recognition or statehood. Under Obama, the State Department refused to acknowledge the PLO’s breach of all the conditions of US recognition.

All people born in British Mandatory Palestine between 1923-1948 (today’s Israel) had “Palestine” stamped on their passports at the time. But when they were called Palestinians, the Arabs were offended. They complained: “We are not Palestinians, we are Arabs. The Palestinians are the Jews”.

After invading Arab armies were routed and the Arabs who had fled the war wanted to return, they were considered a fifth column and not invited back. The Arabs who had loyally remained in Israel during the war, however, and their descendants, are still there and make up one fifth of the population. They are known as Israeli Arabs; they have the same rights as Christians and Jews, except they are not required to serve in the army unless they wish to.

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.” – PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 1977.

In an op-ed in the Guardian on November 1, 2017, ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas called on the UK to “atone” for the century of “suffering” that the document allegedly wrought on the “Palestinian people.” Abbas reiterated the claims he has been making since 2016, to justify a surreal lawsuit he has threatened to bring against Britain for supporting the “creation of a homeland for one people [Jews], which, he asserted, “resulted in the dispossession and continuing persecution of another.”

“Palestinians” were the Jews who lived, along with Muslims and Christians on land called Palestine, which was under British administration from 1917 to 1948.

All people born there during the time of the British Mandate had “Palestine” stamped on their passports. But the Arabs were offended when they were called Palestinians. They complained: “We are not Palestinians, we are Arabs. The Palestinians are the Jews”.

Bernard Lewis explains:

“With the rise and spread of pan-Arab ideologies it was as Arabs, not as south Syrians, that the Palestinians began to assert themselves. For the rest of the period of the British Mandate, and for many years after that, their organizations described themselves as Arab and expressed their national identity in Arab rather than in Palestinian or even in Syrian terms.”

When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, five Arab armies joined up to try to kill the infant nation in its crib. After they were routed, some of the local Arabs who had fled the war wanted to return, but they were considered a fifth column and most were not allowed back. The Arabs who had loyally remained in Israel during the war, however, and their descendants, are still there and make up one-fifth of Israel’s population today. They are known as Israeli Arabs; they have the same rights as Jews, except they are not legally required to serve in the army. They may volunteer if they wish to.

Israeli Arabs have their own political parties. They serve as members of Knesset and are employed in all professions. The moral is, or should be: Do not start a war unless you are prepared to lose it — as the Arabs in and around Israel have done repeatedly, in 1947-48, 1967 and 1973.