RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20108/france-eu-israel

At the recent European Summit in Brussels, the heads of state and government did not make the call for “humanitarian pauses” conditional on the release of the Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.

Thirty-five French citizens were murdered by Hamas on October 7, and nine others are being held hostage (among approximately 230 hostages), but France wants to provide aid to those who are holding them?

Unsurprisingly, according to reports, Hamas has been hoarding the food and medicine intended for the suffering people of Gaza… Cement for “rebuilding Gaza” has instead been diverted to building attack tunnels, and water pipes from the European Union are made into rockets. Hamas has also reportedly hoarded food, water, medicine and fuel, with the fuel being used in their rockets.

Central, however are the hostages. Their release will not be facilitated by a ceasefire or humanitarian corridors; quite the contrary. France and the European Union should have made their aid to Gaza conditional on the hostages’ release, and stated that no “humanitarian” aid will be provided until Hamas releases them. Hamas has created this situation, not Israel.

Last week, with 120 votes in favor, 15 against and 45 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly passed a shameful resolution calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors in Gaza — without condemning the crimes of Hamas. While four European countries voted against and fifteen abstained (including Germany), France approved a UN General Assembly resolution that makes not even mention of Hamas’s crimes. At the recent European Summit in Brussels, the heads of state and government did not make the call for “humanitarian pauses” conditional on the release of the Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.

https://www.commentary.org/articles/norman-podhoretz/jaccuse/

“In the broadside from which I have borrowed the title of this essay, Emile Zola charged that the persecutors of Dreyfus were using anti-Semitism as a screen for their reactionary political designs. I charge here that the anti-Semitic attacks on Israel which have erupted in recent weeks are also a cover. They are a cover for a loss of American nerve. They are a cover for acquiescence in terrorism. They are a cover for the appeasement of totalitarianism. And I accuse all those who have joined in these attacks not merely of anti-Semitism but of the broader sin of faithlessness to the interests of the United States and indeed to the values of Western civilization as a whole.”

The war in Lebanon triggered an explosion of invective against Israel that in its fury and its reach was unprecedented in the public discourse of this country. In the past, unambiguously venomous attacks on Israel had been confined to marginal sectors of American political culture like the Village Voice and the Nation on the far Left and their counterparts in such publications of the far Right as the Liberty Lobby’s Spotlight.

Even when, as began happening with greater and greater frequency after the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel was attacked in more respectable quarters, care was often taken to mute the language or modulate the tone. Usually the attack would be delivered more in sorrow than in anger, and it would be accompanied by sweet protestations of sympathy. The writer would claim to be telling the Israelis harsh truths for their own good as a real friend should, on the evident assumption that he had a better idea than they did of how to insure their security, and even survival.

In perhaps the most notable such piece, George W. Ball (of whom more later) explained to the readers of Foreign Affairs “How to Save Israel in Spite of Herself.” No matter that Ball warned the Israelis that unless they adopted policies they themselves considered too dangerous, he for one would recommend the adoption of other policies by the United States that would leave them naked unto their enemies; no matter that he thereby gave the Israelis a choice, as they saw it, between committing suicide and being murdered: he still represented himself as their loyal friend.

And so it was with a host of other commentators, including prominent columnists like Anthony Lewis of the New York Times, academic pundits like Stanley Hoffmann of Harvard, and former diplomatic functionaries like Harold Saunders. To others it might seem that their persistent hectoring of Israel was making a considerable contribution to the undermining of Israel’s case for American support and thereby endangering Israel’s very existence. Nevertheless they would have all the world know that they yielded to no one in their commitment to the survival of Israel. Indeed, it was they, and not Israel’s “uncritical” supporters, who were Israel’s best friends in this country. As a matter of fact, they were even better friends to Israel than most Israelis themselves who, alas, were their “own worst enemies” (an idea which recently prompted Conor Cruise O’Brien, the former editor of the London Observer, to remark: “Well, I suppose Israelis may be their own worst enemies, but if they are, they have had to overcome some pretty stiff competition for that coveted title”).

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/how-i-became-a-zionist/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-from-author&utm_term=first

I was not always a Zionist.

That is perhaps not a surprising statement for an Irish Catholic born in the 1970s. Nor for conservatives in general above a certain age. But how I got there is a journey others have taken, and it bears lessons for those taking a fresh look at Israel after October 7.

Out of the Cold War

Israel was for many years a socialist country, and more socially liberal than the United States. Our government has, since 1948, consistently recognized Israel as a sovereign state and supported its right to exist, but that commitment in the past was far less certain than it is today. Early Israeli governments had, for a time, fairly warm relations with the Soviet Union, before the USSR decided that Israeli democracy was a greater liability than Israeli socialism was an asset. For the first three decades of Israel’s existence, America often had more of an arm’s-length relationship with Israel than an alliance.

The overriding imperative of American foreign policy between 1947 and 1990 was the Cold War. That was the foreign-policy framework I grew up with in the 1980s. Rose-colored retrospectives may paint the Reagan era as a time of pristine moral clarity, pitting the Free World against the Evil Empire. And so it was, in its essential character and in important aspects of the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and his administration. But there was continual agitation over the unsavory anti-communist allies (dictators, human-rights abusers) who made their home under the umbrella of “the Free World.”

This was practically necessary, but it also required us to steel ourselves to a foreign policy that was not always morally pure. Some de facto allies, such as apartheid-era South Africa or Mao’s China after 1972, were sufficiently odious that the United States didn’t quite acknowledge them as allies. Famous neoconservatives such as Jeanne Kirkpatrick argued for the necessity of alliances with authoritarians.

So, it was fashionable, or at least necessary, for Reagan-era Cold Warriors to make their peace with the fact that the choice of allies and enemies around the world was not always just about the fellowship of liberal democracies. It was, like our wartime alliance with Josef Stalin himself, sometimes simply a matter of the enemy of my enemy — in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous phrase, an SOB, but our SOB.

If you looked at things in the coldest light of realpolitik, it seemed strange that we would ally ourselves with Israel at the cost of alienating its many enemies. Israel was one small state, of little or no economic importance at the time, and with no oil. The Arab and Muslim states were numerous, populous, oil-rich, and covering many strategically important corners of the map. Even in spite of their obvious military inefficiency in comparison with the Israelis, it would seem that one would prefer them as allies in a global war if choosing between the two.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/female-battalion-of-idf-eliminates-100-terrorists/

While many “progressive feminists” in the West, for reasons that are entirely unclear, choose to take part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, apparently unaware of how they would fare in a society run by fanatical Muslims such as those of Hamas, the most effective feminists in the world, who have now shown conclusively that they can perform as well as men in that most masculine of undertakings — war fighting — have been defending their tiny state, Israel, against those who would destroy it. More on their feats of derring-do can be found here: “Squad of female IDF combat troops eliminated nearly 100 Hamas terrorists,” Jerusalem Post, October 23, 2023:

Only a few have had the chance to witness the extraordinary actions of the Caracal Battalion during their battle against Hamas terrorists.

Lt.-Col Or Ben-Yehuda, the commander of this unit, now recounts her experience in the southern Gaz Strip, where her battalion eliminated approximately 100 terrorists. She also has a clear message for those who question the capabilities of female fighers in the Caracal (Desert Lynx) and Tank Battalion.

As the assault on the Gaza border area began, Ben-Yehuda swiftly moved from the battalion headquarters in Nahal Raviv to a post on the Egyptian border with armored personnel carriers. Rockets were raining down, and warnings arrived regarding potential terrorist infiltration in the Shlomit and Bnei Netzer towns.

In the midst of this chaos, she received a message from Lt.-Col. Yonatan Tzur, the commander of the Nahal Brigade’s patrol battalion, who was later tragically killed in an encounter with terrorists. He reported an infiltration near Sufa and Nirim, saying, “There are several terrorists there… They’re heavily armed!”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20106/palestinian-authority-hamas-massacre

There is absolutely no difference between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas when it comes to spreading hate against Israel and inciting the murder of Jews. It has also been proven that each time Israel cedes land or makes gestures to the PA or Hamas, they respond by increasing terror attacks against Jews.

Make no mistake. Inflammatory statements such as these drive Palestinians to carry out terrorist attacks against Jews.

The terrorists in Gaza must have said to themselves: If terrorism is working in the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority is not doing anything to stop us from murdering Jews, why not launch an attack to murder Jews from the Gaza Strip?

This month alone, the Palestinian Authority will pay the families of the Hamas terrorists who were killed this month at least 11.1 million shekels ($2.7 million) “Pay-for-Slay” reward for perpetrating the atrocities against Israeli civilians.

[I]t is not enough to condemn Hamas for the atrocities. The Biden administration and the international community must understand that the hands of Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority also drip with the Hamas victims’ blood.
While many have condemned the Iran-backed Hamas terror group for the October 7 massacre that killed 1,400 Israelis and wounded at least 5,400 others, the fact is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its leaders also bear responsibility for the carnage. The PA’s rhetoric and actions actively paved the way for the hell that Hamas unleashed on Israel.

There is absolutely no difference between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas when it comes to spreading hate against Israel and inciting the murder of Jews. It has also been proven that each time Israel cedes land or makes gestures to the PA or Hamas, they respond by increasing terror attacks against Jews. The areas controlled by the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have become havens for countless terror groups.

Dear E-pals,

Israel defends and helps during the struggle between pure evil and a benevolent nation. Those who are not holding arms in dangerous areas, flying airplanes to quell enemy rockets and missiles, or patrolling seas teeming with enemy vessels, are busy 24/7 in labs performing research and development to help all mankind to a better future for all. Here are some heartwarming stories about courage and patriotism in time of war from Michael Ordman.  rsk

AMAZING ISRAEL BEHIND THE WESTERN HEADLINES FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
More heroes. Many examples of brave Israelis confronting Hamas terrorists. A wounded battalion commander rescued an abducted French tourist and carried on fighting. A brigade commander got into three separate tanks, one after another, and then ran over Hamas vehicles to reach the Sderot police station besieged by Hamas.
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/rkuxomwb6
 
The few against the many. Less than ten brave young men on Kibbutz Kerem Shalom held 100 Hamas terrorists at bay for more than 6 hours, despite being low on ammunition, until the Israeli Army came in and rescued them.  https://www.israelunwired.com/heartbreaking-story-from-a-hero-who-saved-his-kibbutz-in-southern-israel-from-hamas/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s20ECtAf0GA
 
Bedouin bus driver saves 30. On Oct 7, Bedouin Arab minibus driver Youssef Ziadna went to pick up one of his regular customers at the outdoor party near Gaza and came face to face with Hamas’ brutal massacre. He then dodged bullets and drove off-road to rescue 30 Jewish Israelis and bring them to safety.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378869
 
Protestors metamorphose. Organizations that only weeks ago were protesting on the streets are now helping victims of Hamas. Some 15,000 volunteers at the Expo Tel Aviv International Convention Center are distributing donated equipment and food, finding accommodation for evacuees, and much more.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-stunning-response-15000-volunteers-fill-leadership-vacuum-to-help-victims-of-hamas/  
 
Tons of aid arrive. An EL AL 787 Dreamliner that landed on Oct 23 in Ben Gurion Airport was filled with 22 tons of supplies donated to assist with the ongoing war effort. Jointly sponsored by the Phoenix Group and NY-based Amudim Community Resources, plus El Al, the cargo hold was full of medical aid and clothing.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379006  https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-769687
 
Vegan meals for 6,000 IDF soldiers. Israel’s Redefine Meat is producing thousands of nutritious protein-rich vegan dishes each week to feed the many vegan / flexitarian IDF soldiers serving on the front lines. Redefine Meat’s head chef has enlisted vegan startups, 100 volunteers, and private chefs to work at his Tel Aviv kitchen.
https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/israel-hamas-palestine-war-food-tech-founders-feed-6000-vegan-meals-soldiers/
 
US firefighters respond. 23 American firefighters from the Emergency Volunteers Project (EVP – see here previously) left their homes to join the response effort in Israel. 60 more are on standby, ready to fly over at a moment’s notice. Many of those stationed in Ashkelon were hosted in Kibbutz Be’eri during a previous visit.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-firefighters-in-israel-worried-about-fate-of-beeri-families-who-hosted-them/
https://www.evp.org.il/
 
8-year-old meets family of soldier who donated his liver. An emotional meeting was held at Schneider Pediatric Hospital between transplant patient 8-year-old Refael who received a liver lobe and the family of its donor – soldier Amichai Rubin – who was killed on Oct 7.  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379213
 
My home is your home. The World Zionist Organization has launched a project whereby owners of empty apartments in Israel release them to the WZO for evacuees from southern and northern Israel. The WZO will be the guarantor. The project includes a website, contact details, and global adverts in many languages.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379109
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Better cancer treatment. (TY OurCrowd) A trial of the PROphet blood test from Israel’s OncoHost (see here previously) has proved its accuracy and reliability in predicting the best treatment for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. OncoHost has received orders from 29 US cancer centers since its 2023 launch.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/journal-of-pharmaceutical–biomedical-analysis-publishes-study-analytically-validating-oncohosts-prophet-test-as-a-decision-support-tool-for-metastatic-nsclc-patients-301964509.html   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0731708523005721
 
Detecting too much calcium in the arteries. Israel’s Beilinson Hospital has completed a study of coronary artery calcium (CAC) levels using the HealthCCSng system from Israel’s Nanox.AI (see here previously) to review routine CT-scans. High CAC patients were referred to clinics for in-depth evaluation and treatment.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/377841   https://www.nanox.vision/ai
 
Partnering to develop IBD treatment. Israel’s Teva is partnering with France’s Sanofi (see also here) to develop and commercialize TEV 574, currently in Phase 2b clinical trials, for the anti-TL1A treatment of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s Disease, two types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-teva-teams-with-sanofi-on-inflammatory-bowel-treatment-1001459330
 
US approval for vision-correcting eye drops. The US FDA has approved the QLOSI eye drops, from Israel’s Orasis (see here previously), The prescription eye drops improve farsightedness (presbyopia) for up to eight hours without impacting distance or night vision. The treatment can benefit almost two billion sufferers.
https://nocamels.com/2023/10/eyedrops-that-temporarily-correct-vision-receive-fda-approval/
 
Sports tech to heal injured soldiers. The ElectroGear device from Israel’s Healables (see here previously) was designed to enhance performance and accelerate recovery among athletes. It is now being repurposed to treat pain and injuries suffered by IDF personnel. You can even help towards donating one to an Israeli soldier.
https://nocamels.com/2023/10/startup-repurposes-wearable-medtech-for-israeli-soldiers-in-battle/
https://electrogear.com/products/electrogear-military-hero
 
Treating war-related head trauma. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center is using innovative methods to treat the complex injuries suffered by those wounded by Hamas terrorists. One example is the AI systems from Israel’s Aidoc (see here previously), used to analyze brain aneurysms from gunshot wounds and rocket shrapnel.
https://nocamels.com/2023/10/israels-top-hospital-innovates-to-treat-war-related-head-trauma/
 
Using AI to speed up gene therapy development. Israel’s mana.bio harnesses the power of AI to significantly reduce development times for new nucleic acid therapeutics and vaccines. Mana.bio produces novel lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that deliver RNA and gene therapies to specific tissues in the body near to the liver,
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rjkyo2hzt  https://www.mana.bio/technology
 
Optimizing clinical trials. Israel’s PhaseV develops causal machine learning (ML) technology that optimizes clinical trial design and analysis. Its goal is to prevent bio-techs wasting money on failed or badly designed trials of new treatments.  It boosts clinical trial success rates while maximizing resource and time efficiency.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skymnbhf6    https://phasevtrials.com/
 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20104/hamas-ruse

Hamas worked out a scheme to make Israelis focus on the West Bank and Lebanon as the two most immediate sources of threat while portraying Gaza as relatively calm.

Iran may have helped sell that narrative in a number of ways.

It is, perhaps, too early to have a full picture of what led to the recent Hamas attack on Israeli villages close to Gaza.

One thing, however, is certain: the attack came when and where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet least expected.

But why? One answer adopted by Netanyahu’s team is “a failure of intelligence services”.

However, that answer, even if it contains a grain of truth, could not divert attention from a bigger failure: the Israeli leaders’ inability to correctly analyze the intelligence at their disposal and, and having bought into what looks like a ruse by Hamas, to imagine a worst-case scenario.

It now seems probable that Hamas carefully prepared a scheme to lull the Israelis into slumber as far as a threat from Gaza was concerned.

Iran’s Major-General Yahya Safavi, who wears the lofty title of “senior military advisor” to “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, says Hamas planned the attack over two years with a view to divert Israeli attention from Gaza and make a surprise attack possible. He does not say whether Iranians were involved in the planning but drops hints that they knew about the plot.

“The most important element was surprise,” he says.

https://www.thefp.com/p/six-myths-about-hamas

Alan Johnson gave this speech in 2014, after the 50-day military conflict between Israel and Hamas. We’re publishing it today, lightly edited for clarity, because we believe the myths are still with us and are still poisonous, radically misshaping the Western understanding of Hamas, Israel, and the history of the conflict, especially on the liberal left.

The horror of the 50-day conflict between Israel and Hamas is known to everyone here. You didn’t just watch it on TV. You had anguished conversations with your family and friends at home and in Israel.

You knew it was a legitimate act of self-defense by Israel against the rockets and the tunnels and the antisemitic hate of Hamas.

You knew Israel had offered Hamas “quiet for quiet” day after day in early July, holding back as the Hamas rockets rained down on Israeli civilians.

You knew that no one in Israel wanted this war. You knew Israel accepted an Egyptian cease-fire proposal seven days into the conflict while Hamas rejected it, fired more rockets, and used the terror tunnels to try and murder Israelis.

But on TV, we were presented with something quite different: a motiveless assault by a cruel IDF on Palestinian children. For a week or so, Israel’s right to self-defense was acknowledged. But then, as the number of casualties rose, Israel’s actions were called “disproportionate,” then “unjustifiable.” Then Israel was accused of “deliberately targeting civilians,” and a “slaughter of the innocents.” Before the conflict was over, the terms child killers and war criminals could be heard.

Make no mistake. Israel took a blow to the solar plexus when it came to global public opinion.

We saw several large demonstrations in London: criticism of Hamas was nowhere, but the demonization of Israel was everywhere.

We saw the National Union of Students vote to boycott Israel.

We saw the Labour Party abandon its balanced position. Ed Miliband “differentiated” the Labour Party from the Conservatives, condemning Israel’s necessary ground operation to deal with Hamas’s terror tunnels as “unacceptable and unjustifiable.” He attacked David Cameron day after day “for not condemning Israel’s unacceptable and unjustified killing of civilians in Gaza.” One of his MPs, Grahame Morris, asked the Prime Minister why returning lone IDF soldiers were not being treated in the same way as returning ISIS jihadis.

The low point was perhaps when Labour’s John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister of this country for many years, used his Daily Mirror column, twice, to say Gaza was akin to a “concentration camp” and Israel was akin to the guards.

We saw “Holocaust inversion” everywhere. You know the kind of thing—Bibi morphs into Hitler, the IDF into the SS, and so on.

And we had Vince Cable calling for a review of arms exports to Israel if. . . Israel responded one more time to those Hamas rocket attacks.

The point is this: we mostly lost the war to interpret the war.

Why?

I want to suggest that one important reason was that six myths about Hamas and Gaza took hold. These myths gave people a framework of understanding that hurt Israel, badly. Many people could not see Israel plainly. They could only see the evil caricature constructed by the six myths.

First Myth: The Israeli Blockade of Gaza Is Motiveless and Cruel, and It Is the Cause of the Hamas Rockets.