RUTHFULLY YOURS

From Hollywood back-biting to North Korean terrorist threats against American movie-goers, the hacking-of-Sony saga by now includes so many stupefying elements that it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s focus on President Obama’s remarks at his end-of-year press conference [1] Friday, when he criticized Sony Pictures Entertainment for canceling its planned Christmas Day nation-wide release of The Interview, the movie that incurred the wrath of Pyongyang by making fun of one of the 21st century’s most ludicrous tyrants, Kim Jong Un.

A reporter asked Obama if Sony had made a mistake in pulling the movie. Obama summarized part of the background: “Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage. There were threats against its employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced.”

Having staked out his ground as a sympathetic observer, he hit the punch line: “Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake.”

There was a flurry of pro-Palestinian-state international activity this week. It basically happened in dizzying succession in the space of one day—Wednesday.

This was also a week in which two Islamic terrorist incidents, one in Australia and one in Pakistan, got some airplay. Seemingly the fact that the leading Palestinian movement is currently Hamas, an Islamic terrorist organization, should put a damper on pro-Palestinian-state activity. But it doesn’t—in the least.

So, on Wednesday, the European Parliament voted in favor of Palestinian statehood [2], the European Union’s second-highest court voted to remove Hamas from a terrorism blacklist [3], the Geneva Convention voted that no Israeli Jews should live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem [4] (where it believes the Palestinian state should be), and Jordan, representing the Palestinians, submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council [5] for a total Israeli withdrawal and a Palestinian state by the end of 2017.

In each of these cases there were mitigating factors.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israeli MRI detects brain damage earlier. Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University’s Brain Imaging Research Center have developed a method that can detect damage to the brain much earlier than previously thought. Detection, soon after a trauma, means that the damage might still be reversible.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4597206,00.html

Generic blood pressure treatment. Israel’s Teva has launched a generic version of Exforge HCT – a popular treatment of high blood pressure. Teva’s generic products save money for patients and health services.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-teva-launches-generic-high-blood-pressure-treatment-1000990435

Life expectancy rises again. In Israel in 2013, men had an average life expectancy of 80.3 years while women had 83.9 – an increase of nearly five months for men and three months for women in comparison to 2012.
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/51887-141122-israelis-life-expectancy-shoots-up

50,000 wear Israeli remedial shoes. Israel’s AposTherapy has developed a treatment for knee and back pain using unique individually calibrated shoes. AposTherapy currently treats 50,000 patients and has just raised $15 million to help expand its business in the US market.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-knee-treatment-co-apostherapy-raises-15m-1000989010

New test for foreign matter in lungs. (Thanks to San Diego Jewish World) Scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed a new technique for detecting hazardous particles in the lungs. The test can be used in emergencies such as fire rescues or as a warning of high pollution levels.
http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2014/12/11/israeli-device-measures-foreign-matter-lungs/

New cancer center is a communal success. (Thanks to Stuart) The Emek Medical Center in Afula, Israel is one of many successful stories showing how ethnic groups in Israel can successfully work side by side. Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze raised funds together for a new cancer center, via an inspiring radio campaign.
http://haifadiarist.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/working-together-achieves-dream.html

Recuperating from the week’s latest disasters authored by Obama, New York Mayor de Blasio, John Boehner, and others of that ilk, I had a very odd dream.
Or, My Global Banning

Last night, in my dreams, I took an imaginary junket around the world with every expectation that I would return alive and in one piece. Or at least not wake up screaming and in a cold sweat. I have recorded this adventure for the amusement of readers.

Actually, I didn’t travel with my late (but not late enough) biological aunt, although

Rockland County Legislator Aron Wieder said he’s been looking over his shoulder since receiving a threatening picture in which his face is superimposed on an ISIS prisoner about to be beheaded.

A Rockland County legislator who received a threatening picture earlier this week said Friday the message of violence and intimidation will not deter him from serving his constituents.

Legislator Aron Wieder, D-Spring Valley, said the chilling color image, in which his face is superimposed on the body of an ISIS prisoner about to be beheaded, was sent in an envelope postmarked from Monsey to his county office. He opened it while the Legislature was in session Monday, he said.

“I opened the letter and I was completely shocked. I literally had shivers running down my spine,” Wieder said.

Following the execution of two New York Police Department officers, a Brandeis University student leader wasted no time in making it clear that she did not care that they were murdered.

“i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today,” Khadijah Lynch, a junior and an Undergraduate Department Representative in the African and Afro-American Studies Department, wrote on Twitter.

Here’s what race baiting leads to. The blood of these police officers is on the hands of Bill de Blasio. It’s on the hands of Obama. It’s on Al Sharpton’s hands (but his hands are covered in blood from Crown Heights and Freddy’s) and they’re on the hands of a media that helped whip up the racist rants.

Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley announced on Instagram, They Take 1 Of Ours … Let’s Take 2 of Theirs. And murdered two police officers.

He apparently spoke Arabic and his Facebook page from March 17 included this screenshot of the Koran.

The most serious and crushing harm to those Muslims who respect their non-Muslim neighbors and detest the extremists is that many Western commentators appear utterly uninformed about the representatives of the moderate, non-extremist Muslims.

How long will it take before responsible Westerners perceive the struggle among Muslims between extremists and non-extremists, between the radicals and anti-radicals?

A Sunni Muslim funeral for the slain student Tuğçe Albayrak, a German-born 22-year old woman of Turkish descent, was attended on December 3 by 1,500 mourners in Wächtersbach, a town in the western German state of Hesse. Prayers for Albayrak began in the local mosque, which is controlled by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs [DİTİB], an official arm of the Turkish government that administers Sunni religious affairs in Germany. She was then buried in her hometown, Bad Soden-Salmünster, not far away.

It is anyone’s guess who will get a formal “recognition” from President Obama.

In 2013 it was Somalia….

By Karen DeYoung January 17, 2013

The United States formally recognized the government of Somalia on Thursday for the first time in more than two decades, marking what the Obama administration declared a major policy success in bringing that country back from near-collapse.“Today’s meeting has been a long time in the making,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said alongside Somali President Hassan Sheik Mohamud after the two met privately in Washington. “Four years ago, at the start of the Obama administration, Somalia was, in many ways, a different country than it is today,” she said.

As of September 2014 Al-Shabaab remains strong in Somalia exporting terror throughout Africa…

By – Associated Press – Saturday, September 6, 2014

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, named Abu Ubeid Ahmed Omar to be their new leader following the killing of previous leader by a U.S. airstrike, said a commander of the group.The Somali militants unanimously selected Omar on Saturday at a meeting in an undisclosed location in Somalia, said rebel commander Abu Mohammed. Omar is believed to be an assumed name, and the new leader’s real name is not known.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-state-sponsored-terrorism/5380222 REPORT: May 2, 2014

“The past several years have seen the emergence of a more aggressive set of AQ affiliates and likeminded groups, most notably in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Northwest Africa, and Somalia.”

WHAT NATION IS NEXT FOR FORMAL RECOGNITION? IRAN? NORTH KOREA?

Nick Gray is Director, Christian Middle East Watch, a British organisation dedicated to objective and factual discussion of Middle Eastern issues, especially of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Nick, who is a regular contributor to The Commentator, blogs at cmewonline.com

Fatah, like Hamas, would like Israel to somehow disappear, but (being “moderate”) they are prepared to wait a bit longer to see it happen. The EU is still no friend of Israel, but in its recent vote it gave Fatah and Abbas a well-deserved snub.

Yesterday’s long-awaited EU Parliament motion on recognition of a Palestinian state became a tussle between the trendy lefties of the EU and the moderate right wingers. To everyone’s advantage, the centre-right grouping of MEPs negotiated a revision that has brought some common sense to the ongoing debate.

The EU Parliament was originally asked to pass a motion that would have asked for unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state that does not yet exist, and may never do so if the Palestinian Authority does not stop inciting its people to hate and kill Israelis.

Unsurprisingly, this emphasis on unconditional recognition was pushed hard by the left-wing party grouping of MEPs, emulating Sweden’s recent official definitive recognition of “Palestine”. Two groups which together command a large majority in the Parliament (the European People’s Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) used their combined weight to foce a compromise motion.

The final motion that was voted on yesterday afternoon revived the tired concept of the “two-state solution”, saying that the Parliament “…supports in principle recognition of Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution, and believes these should go hand in hand with the development of peace talks, which should be advanced.”