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ISRAEL

Norway’s Foreign Minister Targets Israel – and Trump Things have gone completely haywire under Espen Barth Eide. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/norways-foreign-minister-targets-israel-and-trump/

Weird thing about Norway: on the one hand, the people, by Western European standards, are unusually patriotic and fiercely protective of their sovereignty, waving flags every year on Constitution Day (May 17) and voting twice (in 1972 and 1994) to keep their country out of the EU. On the other hand, these same people’s government is, decades in and decades out, more slavishly devoted to international institutions than that of any other country on earth. Hence Norway, a member of the European Economic Area, is quicker to obey EU directives than are actual EU members. This is true when the “bourgeois” or “conservative” (i.e. socialist) parties are in charge, and it’s even truer when the “socialist” (i.e., really, really socialist) parties are in charge. But since the current Labor Party government took power three years ago, and especially since an absurdly self-regarding mediocrity named Espen Barth Eide was named Foreign Minister a year ago, things have gone utterly haywire.

So last Thursday, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, on the premise that they’ve been guilty of genocide in Gaza, Eide’s ministry was quick to announce that if Netanyahu and Gallant set foot in Norway, they’ll be arrested at once. Andreas Kravik, Eide’s #2 man, explained that as a member of the ICC, Norway has no other choice than to take this drastic action. “The ICC plays a crucial role in ensuring accountability for serious crimes,” professed Eide in a fatuous press release. “It is important that the ICC carries out its mandate in a judicious manner. I have confidence that the Court will proceed with the case based on the highest fair trial standards.” Little tyrants! At the same time, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. This is not quite equal treatment, given that Deif, having been killed in an airstrike in July, is no longer with us.

That’s not Eide’s only recent outrage. Earlier this month, after Turkey wrote a letter to the UN calling for an arms embargo of Israel, Norway, which is to say Eide, signed on – along with 52 other countries, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Venezuela, and Lula’s Brazil, plus the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Norway, note well, was the only Western country to lend its support to this reprehensible document.

Why Palestinians Will Not Have New Leaders by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21152/palestinians-new-leaders

For the past three decades, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have systematically targeted political activists, journalists, social media users, students, professors and human rights activists as part of an ongoing campaign to silence critics and deter others from speaking out against the lack of democracy and freedom of speech.

Torture included beatings, solitary confinement, feet-whipping, threats and taunts, and forcing detainees into various painful positions for extended periods. [Human Rights Watch] commented that “the habitual, deliberate, widely known use of torture, using similar tactics over years with no action taken by senior officials in either authority to stop these abuses, make these practices systematic.”

This abuse has transformed the PA-controlled areas in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip into Palestinian dictatorships similar to those that have long existed in most Arab countries. In addition, it has resulted in the suppression of the emergence of new leaders capable of leading the Palestinians towards security, stability and prosperity.

Palestinians still remember how political activist and human rights defender Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of corruption in the Palestinian Authority, was beaten to death by PA security officers in Hebron in 2021. Until today, no one has been punished for the killing of Banat.

The family of the slain political activist was naïve enough to believe that the ICC or any other international agency would serve them justice.

The ICC does not care about crimes committed by Palestinians against their own people. Instead, the court’s antisemitic prosecutor is busy searching for ways to punish Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for daring to fight back in a war that was launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Palestinians have not only been deprived of a large portion of the international financial aid — stolen by corrupt Palestinian leaders — but also of the right to elect new leaders and representatives through free elections.

Those who are hoping that a new (and pragmatic) Palestinian leadership will take over one day are in for a disappointment. Even after 89-year-old PA President Mahmoud Abbas is gone, his cronies and inner circle will continue to run the show. They will not, under any circumstances, share the cake with other Palestinians.

The same applies to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. No Palestinian will agree to play any role in the administration of the Gaza Strip after the current Israel-Hamas war, as long as the Iran-backed terrorist group and its friends are still around. That is why it is necessary to eliminate Hamas completely and make sure that it loses its military, political and civilian capabilities in the Gaza Strip. This could take a few more months or years, but it is far better than ending the war in a way that keeps Hamas in power.

Palestinian leaders have a long history of cracking down on their political rivals and opponents. For the past three decades, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have systematically targeted political activists, journalists, social media users, students, professors and human rights activists as part of an ongoing campaign to silence critics and deter others from speaking out against the lack of democracy and freedom of speech.

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

As the ICC equates democratic Israel with Hamas terrorists, Israel’s positive news includes vast numbers of articles to highlight Israel’s indispensability in combating the world’s greatest problems. It is quite incredible to see the contrast. Michael Ordman

Members of the Hague’s Criminal Court should be denied all of Israel’s dazzling life saving and health enhancing technology and medicine. rsk

 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough. Tel Aviv University scientists have developed a low-cost vaccine for all Covid-19 variants that is administered as a nasal spray and can be stored at room temperature. The absence of needles means less stress for patients – a previous TAU study showed high stress made vaccines less effective.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/nasal-covid-19-vaccine-developed-by-tau/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202404159 (Advanced Science article)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/21983844/2024/11/40 (Advanced Science Back cover picture)
https://english.tau.ac.il/stress_vaccines
 
Prostate cancer radiation halved. (TY WIN) Doctors at Israel’s Beilinson Hospital have demonstrated the effectiveness of treating prostate cancer with two doses of high-dose external beam radiation instead of the current five doses. Benefits include less physical and emotional toll, less side effects, and shorter wait times.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-breakthrough-could-halve-radiation-sessions-for-prostate-cancer-patients/  
 
Can you change your DNA? Dr. Idit Maya, Head of the Genomic School at Beilinson Hospital explains how the body need to use different proteins to perform different functions. These proteins can be generated by making changes at the cellular level. In the future, new skills can be taught with the help of biological tools.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/r1gjujof1e
 
US clinics offer Israeli PTSD device. (TY ATS) the Prism electrodes-laden cap from Israel’s GrayMatters Health (see here previously) has been added to the PTSD treatments offered by two major US clinics – Home Base and Fermata. Prism helps patients control PTSD symptoms by displaying brain activity.
https://nocamels.com/2024/08/us-clinics-add-israeli-ptsd-treatment-to-roster/
 
Invisible eye surgery. Israel’s Beyeonics Vision (see here previously) has upgraded its “One” Augmented Reality digital visualization headset, with cutting-edge “invisible” infrared night-vision technology. It means that ophthalmic surgeons can now operate on patients’ eyes without causing discomfort to the patient.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beyeonics-one-revolutionizes-ophthalmic-surgery-with-invisible-light-technology-302272801.html   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLY5yM0tiwI  (eye surgery video)
 
Smart software for medical imaging. (TY ATS) Israel’s DeepDense has developed Plug-AI – smart tools to enhance the digital images produced by other medical companies. DeepDense has teamed up with US firm Spectrum Dynamics Medical to improve the quality of cardiac and spinal images and reduce scan times.
https://nocamels.com/2024/08/israeli-and-us-medical-imaging-firms-collaborate-on-ai-integration/
https://deepdense.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imxTTebQExI
 
Revolutionizing women’s health. Israel’s OCON Therapeutics (see here previously) develops, manufactures and markets women’s health products based on its patented, non-invasive, intrauterine therapy delivery technology. 85% of OCON’s workforce are women. Pipeline treatments include fibroids & abnormal bleeding.
https://www.israel21c.org/new-drug-delivery-stent-could-revolutionize-womens-health/
 
Medical clowns help children with pneumonia. (TY Yanky & ATS) At last, a positive Israel story from the New Scientist. It is known that medical clown reduce stress and anxiety in hospitalized children. Now Israel’s Carmel Medical Center found that medical clowns shorten the time children with pneumonia spend in hospital.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2446996-clown-visits-may-shorten-the-amount-of-time-children-spend-in-hospital/

The Folly of the ICC’s Arrest Warrants Does the U.S. have the right to take military action against the Court? by Jason D. Hill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-folly-of-the-iccs-arrest-warrants/

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, November 21, 2024, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant. Arrest warrants were issued also against slain Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri. All three are charged with alleged war crimes against humanity in the ongoing Gaza conflict.

The ICC judges have stated that there were plausible grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Galant were responsible for criminal acts that include murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war as “part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”

The judges have insisted that the blockade on Gaza that facilitates the lack of food, water, medical supplies, and fuel has “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration.”

Masri was charged with spearheading the mass killings during the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that initiated the Gaza war. He is also indicted on charges of rape and the kidnapping of hostages. He is also dead, having been killed by the Israeli Defense Force.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called on member states to execute the ICC’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as well as Hamas’ military commander Mohammed Deif. Borell has said that neither side can achieve total victory in the Gaza war.

Douglas Murray on why he defends Israel – Freedom of Zion Conference in Jerusalem VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEX6LDGKCV4

The Pope’s embrace of evil With his attack on Israel fighting for its life, the pontiff has taken the Vatican backwards into a very dark past Melanie Phillips

https://www.jns.org/the-popes-embrace-of-evil-discourse/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

With just a few words, Pope Francis has plunged relations between Jews and Catholics into their worst crisis for decades and undone years of delicate rapprochement.

In a new book published for the Catholic Church’s jubilee year, he wrote:

According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. We should investigate carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.

This is far from the first time the Pope has attacked Israel over the war against Hamas and Hezbollah.

In September, he berated Israel for an immoral lack of proportion. “Defence must always be proportionate to the attack,” he said. “When there is something disproportionate, one shows a tendency to dominate which goes beyond what is moral.”

These remarks are deeply troubling. They are the accusations routinely made by the enemies of Israel in the west, and they are shameful on many levels.

The “genocide” claim is as ludicrous as it is monstrous. Genocide is the intentional annihilation of a people. Yet according to the CIA’s World Factbook, the population of the Gaza Strip has grown by 2.02 percent since the October 7 pogrom and the war that has followed.

Far from intending to wipe out the residents of Gaza, the Israel Defence Forces have been shunting them around the Strip in order to get them out of harm’s way as the IDF has pounded Hamas.

The Pope is also wrong about proportionality in warfare. Defensive military action must be proportionate not to any one attack but to the threat posed by the enemy. The threat against Israel is the stated intention to eradicate it from the face of the earth. What does the Pope believe is the proportionate response to that?

If he really is arguing that the response should be identical in scope and nature to the attack, is he therefore proposing that Israel should set out to murder, rape and mutilate 1,200 Gazans as they did to the Israelis on October 7? Or fire tens of thousands of rockets and drones at civilians in Gaza and Lebanon with the intention of murdering them, as Hamas and Hezbollah have done to Israeli civilians for years?

Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro tell thousands in Jerusalem: You are the ‘tip of the spear in a civilizational battle’ By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/douglas-murray-ben-shapiro-pack-israels-largest-auditorium/

Two giants of political conservatism, Douglas Murray and Ben Shapiro, starred at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center on Tuesday night before a sold-out crowd of more than 3,000 in what might best be described as a mutual admiration society, with the crowd applauding its pro-Israel champions as they in turn voiced esteem for Israelis’ grit and fighting spirit.

“Thank you on behalf of Western civilization for fighting the fight the rest of the West should be fighting,” Shapiro told the audience at the “Freedom of Zion” conference.

He asked those with loved ones who had served in the Israel Defense Forces in the past year to stand up. Nearly all did. “That’s unique. It’s something that doesn’t exist in the West anymore,” Shapiro said, describing it as a “civic militarism” once common in Western societies.

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro speaks at the Freedom of Zion Conference at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Nov. 19, 2024. Photo by Yaakov Nachumi/Herut Center.

“There are people here … who … put their bodies on the line defending civilization. I am merely a writer,” said Murray. “If I give you any encouragement, you should know that the encouragement you give me is 1,000-fold.”

Early reports pointed to an enormously successful event. The Jerusalem Post on Monday said that Shapiro-Murray was the hottest ticket in town, with fans “scrambling for scalped seats,” likening it to a Taylor Swift concert.

“Trying one more time. Looking for one ticket to the Ben Shapiro/Douglas Murray event in Jerusalem Tuesday evening. Willing to pay well over face value. Please DM [direct message] me,” posted a member of Secret Jerusalem, an online community of Jerusalemites.

Several Knesset members also attended the event, including Amichai Chikli, Amihai Eliyahu, Dan Illouz, Ohad Tal, Ariel Kellner and Simcha Rothman.

Murray and Shapiro are renowned in conservative circles. Shapiro, an American Jew, is host of a daily political podcast, and founder of media company The Daily Wire. He frequently speaks on college campuses and is the author of numerous books, including, “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans” and “The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.”

Biden sanctions Israeli farmers while dropping sanctions on Palestinian terrorists Victor Sharpe

https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe

Here in the United States, journalism ruined itself and by extension harmed the nation. The leftwing legacy media, filled as it is with anti-Trump, anti-Republican, and increasingly anti-Israel hacks, exposed its relentless malignancy during this last election with its inexorable bias. However, vast numbers of U.S voters finally saw the malign legacy media for what it is and has become. They voted in favor of Trump and against the dangerous Democrat Biden-Harris policies that were pushed by the media.

The number of votes in favor of President Trump may have even exceeded that of the votes cast for Barack Hussein Obama in 2008. America may yet become great again.

There is little the Trump Administration may be able to do about the current malevolence which erodes ABC and CBS News, as long as those two media outlets don’t violate their license. But NPR and PBS violated the public trust with extreme and biased coverage during the election. For so many years they have been subsidized by the American taxpayers through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and it is now high time to end those subsidies. After all, that will help defeat their wokeism.

With support for the new President and his Administration, the hope is that the appalling measures that Biden, Harris and Blinken enacted since coming to power – and especially during these last two months of their term of office – will be toppled by President Trump. Biden immorally is ramping up yet more sanctions on Israeli farmers but is dropping those on Palestinian terrorists.

Unfulfilled Promise Pope Francis and the Israel-Hamas War Adam Gregerman

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/unfulfilled-promise-pope-francis-israel

Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s operation in Gaza constitutes genocide, according to a new book published for the Catholic Church’s jubilee year. “According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” the pope said in excerpts published Sunday by the Italian daily La Stampa.

What makes the inflammatory statements in the pope’s book especially disturbing is that they follow on remarks by the pope that appear to demonize Jews even more broadly and which are contrary to teachings of the Church. Pope Francis’ prior Letter to Catholics of the Middle East on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel from Gaza provoked widespread confusion and consternation among Jews and Catholics. While he has spoken regularly about the attack and the fighting that erupted in its wake, his inclusion in the letter of a citation of John 8:44 to denounce the evils of war was to many inexplicable.

The verse chosen by the pontiff, a vitriolic accusation that the Jews “are from [their] father, the devil,” has for centuries provoked and been used to justify Church hostility to Jews. Yet such terrible imagery of Jewish malfeasance is thoroughly out of place in a modern Catholic document. Regrettably, the pope nonetheless chose to use this notorious verse at a time when global antisemitism has reached disturbingly high levels. Such a statement threatens the intellectual work of his Catholic predecessors going back to the 1960s.

The Gaza Pier Scam Is Another Biden Disaster That Turned Deadly Shoshana Bryen

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2024/11/19/the-gaza-pier-scam-is-another-biden-disaster-that-turned-deadly/

U.S. Army Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley died earlier this month of injuries sustained last spring in the building of the Gaza pier. Rest in peace, soldier.

He died for a useless exercise in American arrogance. Disturbed by reports of “famine” in Gaza — the United Nations never said there was and admitted there never was such a famine — the Biden administration authorized the U.S. Army to build a floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea at the cost of either $320 million or $230 million U.S. taxpayer dollars, depending on which Department of Defense report you read.

The U.S. was going to swagger in and do what the administration said Israel was unable to do. But the pier was swamped and towed to Israel’s Ashdod port and repaired at a cost of $20 million. It was canceled in July.

Fast forward to October, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, demanded that Israel ramp up food aid to Gaza, and blamed Israel for the ongoing lawlessness in the northern area. If Israel didn’t meet U.S. conditions, they threatened, there could be delays or cancellations in U.S. military assistance. Israel had one month to comply. The State Department designated staff to audit Israel’s delivery of aid.