RUTHFULLY YOURS

Today, when Jews in Israel are threatened by many enemies throughout the world, even assisted by some Jews, the Rav urges us to ignore their message of despair, self-doubt and defeatism. On Independence Day, 1956, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “the Rav,” wrote Kol Dodi Dofek (“Listen – My Beloved Knocks”) in which he sought to place the Jews’ return to their homeland into perspective; it could not have been, he concluded, the result of coincidence or luck.

The Rav referred to a tragic parable in the Song of Songs in which a lover knocks on his beloved’s door one night, but she tells him she is tired and he should come back the next day. When he does not return, she searches for him but realizes that he is gone forever and that she has missed her chance for love. Today, when Jews in Israel are threatened by many enemies throughout the world, even assisted by some Jews, the Rav urges us to ignore their message of despair, self-doubt and defeatism.
When published, the Rav’s essay ran to 60 pages. I have highlighted its main points, added a few contemporary details, and included an additional “knock” to make the sound clearer.

1. The first knock of the Beloved (God) was when, despite the antagonism between the West and the Soviet Union, both recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state. The United Nations came into being solely in order to facilitate that right, on November 29, 1947, and confirmed it by recognizing the State of Israel in May, 1948. A year later, Israel was accepted as a member of the United Nations.

2. Following the establishment of the State of Israel, the second knock was on the battlefield, when the small IDF defeated the mighty armies of five Arab countries.

Using the analogy of the Exodus from Egypt – when Pharaoh hardened his heart and ended up with a worse deal than was originally offered to him – the Rav considers the Arab attack a blessing in disguise. Had the Arabs accepted the UN partition plan and not attacked, Israel would have had to settle for a state which excluded Jerusalem, half of the Galilee and part of the Negev including Beersheba. It could not have survived.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly canceled a meeting with visiting German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel after Gabriel met with Breaking the Silence, an organization that accuses the Israeli government of war crimes. As the Times of Israel explained:

Few organizations are more despised on the Israeli right — and by many who are not on the right — than Breaking the Silence, which publishes anonymous testimonies documenting alleged human rights abuses by Israeli soldiers.

That’s the equivalent of meeting Wikileaks — denounced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo as a “hostile intelligence service” — right before a scheduled meeting with the U.S. president. Or the equivalent of a senior American official meeting with German ultra-rightists before a scheduled meeting with Chancellor Merkel. Visiting diplomats simply do not raise the profile and credibility of fringe groups that question the legitimacy of their host government.

Gabriel’s action was obnoxious in the extreme, and Israel’s prime minister had no choice but to snub him. More egregious than Gabriel’s sin of commission, though, was his sin of omission: Germany could explain the reality of their circumstances to the Palestinians more credibly than any other country, by reference to its own sad history.

Why the German foreign minister felt compelled to violate basic rules of diplomacy is another question. Germans dislike President Trump by a 3-to-1 margin, and showing disrespect to Israel is an indirect snub at the United States. As a leader of the Social-Democratic Party, moreover, Gabriel speaks to a left-wing constituency — many of whom equate Israelis with Nazis. As Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick observes:

As polls taken between 2011 and 2015 showed, between a third and half of Germans view Israel as the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany.

That is of minor consequence in the great scheme of things. The Germans will never forgive us for Auschwitz, as an Israeli psychiatrist quipped, and the memory of Nazi crimes is made easier to bear by believing that the Jews are just as bad. (I run into Germans who believe this from time to time, and tell them that the so-called Palestinians they see on television are actors — we exterminated all the real Palestinians, just like the Nazis).

Sigmar Gabriel should have explained to the Palestinians that they are beaten, and what it means to be beaten.

The conflict continues because the Arab side — after losing the 1947 War of Independence, the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and two pointless Intifadas — refuses to accept that it is beaten. That is a common occurrence in history. Most casualties in war occur well after hope of victory has vanished; that, as I wrote in a study for Asia Times last year, explains why many wars continue until there aren’t enough men left to fight.

These are embarrassing truths that the pro-Hamas feminist, Linda Sarsour does not want to hear. The rights of women who are being oppressed by Hamas are the last thing on her mind.

Sitting in the comfort of the U.S. and other Western countries, Linda Sarsour and her colleagues are too busy inciting against Israel to remember the plight of women in most Arab countries, including those living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. Sarsour’s claim, that Zionism and feminism are incompatible, is nothing but a grimy lie.

The Palestinian Hamas terror movement recently banned Palestinians living under its control in the Gaza Strip from celebrating International Women’s Day. Hamas dismissed a decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in the West Bank to give all civil servants a day off on this occasion, arguing that International Women’s Day was a “Western and foreign” event that is incompatible with Islamic traditions and teachings.

The Islamic movement also issued a warning to all public and private institutions in the Gaza Strip, including schools and universities, to refrain from marking the occasion.

Hamas’s decision drew sharp criticism from many Palestinians, especially women’s groups and human rights organizations, as well as the Palestinian Authority. The critics maintained that the ban was a sign of Hamas’s disrespect for women and their contribution to Palestinian society.

The General Union of Palestinian Workers issued a statement in which it condemned Hamas’s refusal to acknowledge and honor the role of Palestinian women. The statement said that Palestinian women have made huge sacrifices and contributed remarkably to the Palestinian labor force and the development of society.

The Hamas ban also angered many Palestinian men, who expressed outrage over the “humiliation” of Palestinian women. Fathi Tbail, a leading Palestinian journalist, commented: “I will celebrate International Women’s Day, whether you (Hamas) like it or not. All you represent is retardation!”

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Pentagon funds Israeli infection test system. The US Department of Defense has awarded a $9.2 million contract to Israel’s MeMed to help it complete its pioneering platform for distinguishing bacterial from viral infections. MeMed (see here) had already received a 2.3 Euro grant from the European Commission.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-co-memed-wins-92m-pentagon-contract-1001185428

Robot-aided surgery fixes severe spinal fracture. (TY Eli) In the world’s first procedure of its kind, Israeli surgeons at Hadassah University Medical Center used a Mazor-Israel robot to operate on Aharon Schwartz, whose spine was broken in six places from a work accident. Schwartz is expected to be able to walk again soon.
http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Hadassah-docs-perform-worlds-1st-robot-aided-repair-of-severe-spinal-fracture-488831

An MRI machine for babies. Israel’s Aspect Imaging is developing a compact MRI system that can be placed in neonatal units for scanning newborns at the point of care. Aspect has just raised $30 million which will also help fund the development of a stroke-dedicated MRI System for Emergency Rooms.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-mri-co-aspect-imaging-raises-30m-1001185125

Fixing hernias. Israel’s Via Surgical has developed FasTouch – a next-generation system for fixing prosthetic material to soft tissues in surgical procedures such as hernia repairs. Less complications, less post-operative pain and faster recovery. FasTouch is to be distributed across the US by Progressive Medical.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/via-surgical-ltd-signs-exclusive-120000935.html
https://www.youtube.com/embed/qGgclIgO98E?rel=0

Another robot-guided needle. Ben-Gurion University and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital have founded Xact Medical, (no relation to XACT Robotics) to commercialize their Fast Intelligent Needle Delivery (FIND) system. Robotics and ultrasound guide the needle into the body – good for children, whose vascular systems are so small. https://aabgu.org/finding-a-more-accurate-needle/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/joint-israel-us-medical-tech-makes-taking-blood-easier/

The body’s garbage collector. A new video of Israeli Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover, co-discoverer of Ubiquitin – used by cells to re-cycle proteins and prevent them from causing disease and cancer. Ciechanover’s research has saved millions of lives, revolutionizing health, agriculture, and the environment.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/30OaGV7gT18?rel=0

Israel’s leading bio-medical conference. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s 16th MIXiii-Biomed conference, beginning on May 23, will focus on aging and age-related diseases. How to monitor, diagnose and treat elderly patients using precision medicine, genetics, personal diagnostics, digital health, robotics and regenerative therapies.
http://kenes-exhibitions.com/biomed2017/ http://kenes-exhibitions.com/biomed2017/program-overview/

Israeli calcium can fight cancer. I reported previously (twice) about Israel’s Amorphical which has developed amorphous calcium to treat osteoporosis in patients who have trouble absorbing current (crystalline) calcium supplements. Amorphous calcium also reduces the acidity that certain enzymes use to generate cancer cells.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/SIkxWsDqAM0?rel=0

New Haifa center for medical research. (TY Eli) Haifa University has joined with Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center to launch a project to build a 20-story “Medical Discovery Tower”. It will focus on academic and commercial research of diseases. Two floors will be assigned to the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/haifa-u-rambam-hospital-to-join-forces-on-medical-research/

This terrorist gallery of putative successors to Abbas is, as my late mother would say “worse and worser”….all Arafat redux…..and they would be touted by the media as “moderates and partners for peace, by partisans of the two state delusions. rsk

Here is an overview of four Palestinian leaders who could assume control of the Palestinian Authority through elections or by succession:

Marwan Barghouti , Fatah party

Marwan Barghouti appearing in a Jerusalem court, in a file photo from January 2012. Photo: Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

Marwan Barghouti, 57 years old, is the most popular candidate to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority. However, he is in prison serving multiple life sentences for planning attacks against Israelis. Under Palestinian law, Mr. Barghouti could run for president and hope that Israel released him in the event he won.

Ismail Haniyeh , Hamas

Ismail Haniyeh in a March photo from Gaza City. Photo: Mohammed Asad/APA Images/Zuma Press

Ismail Haniyeh, in his mid-50s, is Hamas’s most senior leader in the Gaza Strip. He is soon expected to become leader of the Islamist movement and take over from Khaled Meshaal. For Mr. Haniyeh to become Palestinian leader, his Hamas faction would have to win presidential and parliamentary elections, an outcome that would worry Israel and the international community.

Mohammed Dahlan , Fatah party

Mohammed Dahlan speaking in an interview with the Associated Press in a file photo from January 2011. Photo: Majdi Mohammed/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mohammed Dahlan, 55, was the former Fatah head in the Gaza Strip until he fell out with Mahmoud Abbas. He lives in Abu Dhabi and has the support of some Arab nations, such as the United Arab Emirates, to return to the Palestinian territories to help lead. But just 7% of the Palestinian public want to see Mr. Dahlan take over as Palestinian leader, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Mahmoud Aloul , Fatah party

Mahmoud Abbas in February appointed Mahmoud Aloul as the vice president of the Fatah party, for the first time indicating he might support a Palestinian official to succeed him. Mr. Aloul, a former governor of the West Bank city of Nablus, wasn’t appointed as deputy in the Palestinian Authority, however, making it unclear whether he would succeed Mr. Abbas.