RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/ramadan-goes-out-with-a-bang/

Tens of thousands took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities and villages on the last Friday of Ramadan to participate in the Islamic Republic’s annual Quds [Jerusalem] Day rallies.

After a two-year hiatus in the yearly hate-fest against Israel and America—due to the COVID-19 pandemic—attendees were especially itching to spew vitriol on the one hand and champion the Palestinians on the other.
“The [events] are a symbol of the unity of the Islamic ummah [nation], and God willing it will lead to the destruction of the Zionist regime,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in an interview with his state-run television station.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Hossein Salami expressed a similar sentiment about the fate of the State of Israel.

Orating at the main Quds Day happening in the capital, he pointed out that the Quds Force—the international arm of the IRCG—was established by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to “expand the Islamic revolution in other Islamic countries, with the aim of pressuring the Zionist regime … and in the near future, the regime’s elimination from the world’s political geography.”

The Palestinians and their Arab-Israeli brethren who’ve been rioting for the past month on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have the same goal in mind. Their lie about Israel trying to “storm” the Al-Aqsa mosque and take it over is simply an excuse to justify their rage at the existence of the Jewish state.

Waving Hamas flags and burning Israeli ones—when they should have been praying solemnly at their cherished house of worship—these angry activists hurled rocks at Jews peacefully gathered at the Western Wall below. If there was any doubt about their true intentions, it was dispelled on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day last week, when they chanted “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, jaish Muhammad, sa yahud.” (“Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.”)

This is a reference to the Muslim slaughter in 628 C.E. of all the Jews of the town of Khaybar in northwestern Arabia. After the massacre, Muhammad and others took surviving Jewish women as slave-wives. So much for the belief that a political gripe about a lack of independent statehood is behind Palestinian “disgruntlement.”

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

In the decolonization era commencing in 1945 three dozen new states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or outright independence from their European colonial rulers. Among them, Israel declared its independence and sovereignty on May 4th, 1948. No other nation achieved what Israel did subsequently with its epic rescue of shattered survivors of the Holocaust; creation of a model democracy in spite of wars and daily threats of enemies within and without; outsize and dazzling contributions to medicine, technology, science and cultural and philanthropic institutions that enhance the lives of billions; the creation of a state-of-the-art military-drafting men and women to defend the state with advanced ordnance on land, air and sea. Michael Ordman catalogs it all.

The national anthem of Israel is Ha-Tikvah- the “Hope”. Israel is the answer and reality! May you grow and thrive in peace.  rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

A good place. The latest Coronavirus wave is over as far as Israel is concerned. Experts say the reasons include immunity from the previous Omicron wave, plus behavioral factors such as protecting the elderly. If there are no significant variants on the horizon, Israel is in a good place (and is a good place to visit!)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wave-that-never-was-did-israelis-common-sense-help-stop-a-new-covid-spike/

Protection against Covid-19. Experts from Tel Aviv University have shown that common dietary supplements can help protect us against the Covid virus as well as several common winter illnesses. They include Zinc and Copper, combined with flavonoids – polyphenolic compounds found in vegetables such as pumpkins & peas.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325628 https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/15/3/377/htm

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-made-dietary-supplement-fights-off-viruses-in-lab-tests-scientists-say/

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/15/3/377/htm

Smart sensors to ensure vaccine safety. Tel Aviv University researchers used smart sensors from Israel’s BioBeat to measure physiological reactions of 160 subjects to the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. They showed that side effects increased over a 48-hour period, often contradicting reports of the patients themselves.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-703840

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-022-00090-y

Severed ear reconstructed. Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center saved the severed ear of a carpenter who suffered a serious work accident. To prevent rejection, they used tissue from his scalp and leg to create an artificial cartilage mold of the severed part of the ear and grafted it onto the remaining part.

https://worldisraelnews.com/miracle-surgery-israeli-doctors-save-mans-severed-ear/

AI finds source of mystery heart problem. Israeli Meidan Schwartzman faced life-altering surgery to trace a mystery heart arrhythmia. Then he read about Dr. Itzik Biton, a senior cardiologist at Hadassah’s Heart Institute who subsequently used Artificial Intelligence to locate and fix the problem in the sinus area of Meidan’s heart.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325140

Getting under the skin of an autoimmune disease. Researchers from Weizmann, Hadassah and Rambam medical centers have discovered a significant drop in a specific type of fibroblast (cell scaffold) occurs with the onset of scleroderma – a rare autoimmune disease. The research can shed light on the origin of other diseases.

https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/getting-under-the-skin-of-an-autoimmune-disorder/

Stethoscope detects sounds that no human can hear. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Sanolla (see here previously) has received US FDA approval for its VoqX, the first and only stethoscope that can listen to infrasound – acoustic sound waves (3 to 40 Hz) that aren’t detectable by the human ear but provide important diagnostic information.

https://nocamels.com/2022/04/sanolla-fda-infrasound-stethoscope/ https://sanolla.com/

US approval for steerable microcatheter. The Bendit21 microcatheter from Israel’s Bendit Technologies (see here previously) has just received US FDA approval. The device has already been used to save two lives in the US and is described as a game-changer in endovascular medicine.

https://nocamels.com/2022/04/bendit-microcatheter-fda/

No more blood shortages. Israel’s RedC Biotech is developing a process for mass-production of red blood cells for transfusions. Working with Accellta, a spin-off startup from Israel’s Technion Institute, they use stem cells from O-negative donors to mass-produce red blood cells for most humans, even without testing.

https://www.israel21c.org/the-startup-aiming-to-make-blood-donations-a-thing-of-the-past/

https://www.redcbiotech.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DChkGXSFVbA

Relief for swollen legs. The Robotic stocking from Israel’s ElastiMed (see here previously) for treating lymphatic and venous leg diseases is being tested in a clinical study at Sheba Medical Center. It already shows a 5-fold improvement in leg volume reduction, compared to the hospital’s standard compression bandages.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rjjz4csec

Field hospital uses VR to treat refugees. Medics at Israel’s Kohav Meir field hospital brought Virtual Reality goggles and telehealth devices when they visited a refugee camp for Ukrainians. They used the VR goggles to diagnose patients remotely. And the goggles also provided relief for the trauma-affected refugee children.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skbbgulnc

Physician cure thyself. Six years ago, Israel’s ex-Chief Scientist Dr. Orna Berry was diagnosed with cervical, ovarian, and thyroid cancer with six-months to live. Israeli startup Curesponse used genome sequencing to find her best treatment. Dr Berry is now cancer free and at the age of 72 is Google Cloud’s Director of Technology.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sk7fwvbv5 https://www.curesponse.com/

A very good spot. (TY UWI) 15-year-old MDA volunteer Ido spotted a bus strangely stopped in the middle of the road. He then noticed that the bus driver was clutching his chest. Ido immediately alerted his colleagues who spent 20 minutes administering CPR and 11 defibrillator shocks until the driver regained consciousness.

https://www.israel21c.org/teen-emts-quick-action-helps-save-tel-aviv-bus-driver/

ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL

Upgrading properties to house refugees. The Israeli government is offering cities and regional councils grant money to upgrade housing projects for immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, and other countries in the region. Some 10,000 new immigrants have arrived in Israel in recent weeks, of which two-thirds are from Ukraine.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/cities-offered-money-for-renovating-buildings-to-house-ukrainian-migrants/

Israelis host Iftar meals for Muslim Arabs. (TY Hazel) Some 200 guests attended Israel’s President Herzog’s annual Iftar dinner, the traditional meal to break the Ramadan fast, at his official residence. And Yossi Dagan, Chairman of the Samaria Regional Council, hosted local Palestinian Arab leaders for the Iftar break-fast.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ramadan-meal-brings-together-unlikely-group-of-jewish-settlers-and-palestinians/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/politics-and-security-mar-the-festivities-at-herzogs-iftar-meal/

100,000+ Muslims pray on Temple Mount. (TY Hazel) Over 100,000 Muslim worshipers took part in mass prayers on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif / Al-Aqsa complex) in Jerusalem on the night of Apr 27, for Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Destiny) during Ramadan. https://www.timesofisrael.com/over-100000-muslim-worshippers-gather-on-temple-mount-for-nighttime-prayers/

Yoseph stuns Irish Parliament. Israeli Arab Yoseph Haddad made a brilliant speech to the Irish Parliament. Members of the Oireachtas were stunned by Haddad’s eloquence and rhetoric. His talk included his childhood, army service, freedom of religion and speech, Israeli Arab leaders, democracy, the judicial system, and the PA.

https://vinnews.com/2022/03/01/yoseph-haddads-brilliant-defense-of-israel-in-the-irish-parliament/

Abraham Accords brings global benefits. An international delegation visited the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel to see how the Abraham Accords model can spread economic benefits far and wide. They include new ties between the UAE and both Paraguay and Liberia. And between Bahrain and the Central African Republic.

https://www.jns.org/international-delegation-visits-israel-to-take-abraham-accords-to-next-level/

Mission to aid Ethiopia. (TY JNS) Most of the world has forgotten the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia. Not Israel, though, which has sent a medical team to Gondar and Addis Ababa to create a program where Israeli hospitals will adopt, train, equip, and support hospitals near the 2-year ongoing Ethiopian civil war zone.

https://www.israel21c.org/israelis-fly-to-ethiopia-to-alleviate-humanitarian-crisis/

MDA responds. Israel’s Magen David Adom has responded to the Ukrainian crisis with six more ambulances to add to the four it had already donated (see here previously). MDA has also set up an emergency field clinic in Moldova. https://mdauk.org/mda-responds-to-humaintarian-crisis-in-ukraine/

Ukrainian boy brought to Israel to save his eyesight. Corridor – Israel Aid for Ukraine has brought 7-year-old Mykhailo from Ukraine to Sheba Medical Center, together with his mother and twin brother. Mykhailo suffers from an aggressive form of retinopathy and Israeli doctors will try to save his eyesight.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-evacuates-ukrainian-boy-for-eyesight-saving-treatment/

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Four medals at Math Olympiad. Israel’s four competitors in the 2022 European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) in Hungary won a gold medal and three bronze medals. Overall, the Israeli team came nineth out of 56 countries. Gold medalist Nogah Friedman is now ranked third in the world.

https://www.jns.org/israel-takes-home-four-medals-in-mathematics-competition/

Addionics wins ecology award. Israeli smart battery developer Addionics (see here previously) has won a BloombergNEF award (see here previously) for pioneering technology for a low carbon economy. Addionics was one of 12 winners from 270 applicants from 27 countries. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-maker-of-smart-3d-battery-tech-among-12-winners-of-bloombergnef-award/

Lightening up Tel Aviv. Visitors to Tel Aviv’s Atidim hi-tech park will benefit from the innovative Lumiweave fabric created by Israel’s Anai Green (see here previously). The environmentally friendly system will provide shade during the day and serve as a lighting installation once the sun sets.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-pilots-shade-giving-solar-powered-fabric-that-lights-up-at-night/

Saving the bee and its honey. Israel’s Bee-IO (see here previously) makes bee-free honey in the lab, removing the bee from industrialized honey production. The busy creatures can now focus on pollinating plants so that humans can continue to eat the real “fruits” of their labor. This Nas video has over 4.4 million Facebook views.

https://nocamels.com/2022/04/bee-honey-cultivated-startup/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6uC8pEQKag

Smart transportation. Interesting short video featuring some of the Israeli startups that are revolutionizing the transportation arena. Plus, the Navon railway station and the new Jerusalem to Modiin line have turned Jerusalem into a transportation hub that provides access to the whole country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzyr3WzUEbY

https://betelfriends.blogspot.com/2022/04/new-train-puts-jerusalem-in-center.html?m=1

A virtual model. Fashion designers work with Israel’s Styletech to showcase their designs using an AI virtual model. No need for stylist, makeup, hair, photographer, or location. Select from a database of 20,000+ AI models plus the appropriate gender, shape, age, height, weight, hair color, skin tone, and even expression.

https://nocamels.com/2022/04/alon-livne-virtual-model-fashion/ https://styletech.ai/

Speeding up blockchain transactions. Israel’s bloXroute increases the processing speed of blockchain transactions by a factor of one hundred. It solves the scalability issue that is preventing blockchain’s secure trading mechanism from being more widely adopted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEWU9CFv43E

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkuvolvvq https://bloxroute.com/

The story of Ariel University. Israel’s 8th and latest University began as a college in 1982. Its school of Architecture opened in 1995; the Particle Accelerator Center (1999); Wine Research Center (2010); University status (2012); School of Medicine (2019); Autonomous Vehicle Lab (2020) and Satellites launched (2022).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM7xI8YG97s

The oldest star ever seen. Ben-Gurion University Professor Adi Zitrin was a key member of the US-Israeli team that identified Earendel – the most distant star ever seen. Light from Earendel has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, via the Hubble space telescope.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israeli-scientists-document-oldest-star-ever-seen-13-billion-light-years-away/

Splashdown! (TY JNS) Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe and his Ax-1 colleagues safely landed off the Florida coast after an extended 17-day mission, including 15 days on the International Space Station. Read also about some of the Israeli Rakia Mission’s experiments and activities that he conducted and managed.

https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-astronaut-splashes-down-safely-from-17-day-mission/

https://www.eng.rakiamission.co.il/all-in-space https://www.eng.rakiamission.co.il/blog

https://www.eng.rakiamission.co.il/post/zero-gravity-hovering-eytan-stibbe

ECONOMY & BUSINESS

$5.6 billion raised in first quarter. Israeli tech companies raised $5.6 billion in 212 deals in the first quarter of 2022 – slightly more than the $5.4 billion raised in the same quarter last year. There were also 39 exits (including 7 IPOs) that raised nearly $9 billion. https://nocamels.com/2022/04/quater-funding-first-startups/

The skies are open. Over 50 countries participated in Tel Aviv’s 28th International Mediterranean Tourism Market. At the expo, Israel’s President Herzog declared, “Israel offers a truly unmatched experience of ancient holy sites, cities that never sleep, exquisite natural beauty, a mosaic of cultures, and an innovative society.”

https://www.jns.org/at-tourism-fair-in-tel-aviv-israeli-minister-announces-skies-are-open/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/324831

Lab-grown meat industry partnership. Israeli-based Tnuva is investing $7.5 million in partnering Israeli biotech Pluristem Therapeutics. They have formed a joint company NewCo to create meat and dairy products from animal cells, using sustainable technology.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-companies-at-nasdaq-want-to-bring-lab-grown-meat-to-the-masses/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tnuva-beefs-up-food-tech-operations-with-new-cultured-meat-venture/

Smart distribution partners. Israel’s largest supermarket chain Shufersal has partnered Israel’s Via to create an efficient digital distribution system. This is the first time that Via will move from smart (ridesharing) transportation into the logistics space. It will help Shufersal reduce cost, fuel use and air pollution.

https://nocamels.com/2022/04/via-supermarket-shufersal-distribution/

Amazon invests in Israeli robotic warehouse system. Israel’s BionicHIVE (see here previously) has received funding from the new Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, which invests in emerging technologies. Previously Elon Musk recommended BionicHIVE to his 42 million Twitter followers.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/r1qg2lkbq

General Atlantic to open in Israel. Leading US investment firm General Atlantic is opening a Tel Aviv office. General Atlantic manages some $84 billion of assets and has invested $750 million in eight Israeli tech companies since 2019. It says Israel “stands out as a hub of global entrepreneurship and digital transformation”.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/leading-us-investment-firm-general-atlantic-opens-tel-aviv-office/

New hotel in Tel Aviv. The David Kempinski luxury hotel has opened overlooking the beach on Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv. It is the 80th hotel in the Kempinski European hotel group, with 34 floors and 250 rooms. It includes 43 suites, massive, floor-to-ceiling windows in every room, to bring in the sea air and views.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-welcomes-latest-luxury-hotel-david-kempinski/

More startups ignited. Intel has selected another 10 Israeli startups for its sixth Intel Ignite Tel Aviv acceleration program. Redefine.dev, Verobotics, Xyte, Senser, Predicta Med, Kahoona, Volumez, PxE, Dual Bird Technologies, and Oligo Security. This is the first mention in this newsletter for all these startups.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sygls4bhc

Takeovers and mergers. Israel’s OpenWeb acquired France’s ADYOULIKE for $100 million;

Investment in Israeli startups to 1/5/22: bloXroute raised $70 million; Silverfort raised $65 million; FundGuard raised $40 million; Riverside.fm raised $35 million; Demostack raised $34 million; ARMO raised $30 million; RiseUp raised $30 million; Source Defense raised $27 million; Sentra raised $23 million; TULU raised $20 million; The Cultivated Meat Consortium received $18 million from the Israel Innovation Authority; Noogata raised $16 million; Loris.ai raised $12 million; Copyleaks raised $6 million; ElastiMed raised 0.85 million;

CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT`

Art with Israel as a model. Chaya Esther Ort opened the Kiyor Studio in Nachlaot, Jerusalem in 2019 to spread the beauty and light of Israel’s land and spirit into the world. She uses the clay of the land so that her customers can have a beautiful, useable, and meaningful piece of Israel with them, materially and spiritually.

https://www.jns.org/the-art-of-making-art-using-israel-as-a-model/

Celebrate Israel’s birthday in London. If you are in the UK and unable to get to Israel for Yom Ha’atzmaut, you may wish to join the Technion UK’s lunch event on 5th May. Click below to register.

https://technionuk.org/event/israel74/

One million hours of football. Israel’s Pixellot (see here previously) celebrated the milestone of broadcasting one million live hours of AI-automated football. The event featured retired Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho. Pixellot broadcasts 150,000+ games a month from 67 countries, without camera operators or production crew.

https://nocamels.com/2022/04/pixellot-ronaldinho-sports-tech/

Israeli gymnast wins gold in Cairo. (TY Nevet) Israeli Olympic gold-medal gymnast Artem Dolgopyat took home the gold in the floor routine at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Cairo. The win secures Dolgopyat’s place at October’s World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, England.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-gymnast-artem-dolgopyat-takes-gold-at-world-cup-in-cairo/

Israel’s team to the Deaflympics. Israel’s President Herzog hosted the Israeli delegation to the Deaflympics at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. The Deaflympics will take place in May in Brazil, with an Israeli delegation of deaf and hard-of-hearing athletes who have won medals in international sports tournaments.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325354

THE JEWISH STATE

Luxury imports by the first Jewish kingdom. Israeli archeologists have discovered remnants of vanilla spice in wine jars bearing the symbol of trade from the Kingdom of Judah during the 7th century BCE first Temple period. The exotic spice originated in the far East and was unknown in the West until the time of Columbus.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/6th-century-bce-jerusalemite-oenophiles-had-a-taste-for-exotic-vanilla-spice-wine/ https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/324890

The Haredi team protecting Iron Dome. (TY Algemeiner) Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has a special cyber division in Jerusalem that includes 55 ultra-Orthodox employees, some former yeshiva students, that help make sure no one penetrates the air defense system. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rylojgre9

Adelsons sponsor 500 Ukrainian refugees. Members of the Adelson family, children of Dr. Miriam Adelson and the late Sheldon Adelson, recently sponsored flights for more than 500 Jewish Ukrainian refugees to find sanctuary in Israel. The flights were part of United Hatzalah’s Operation Orange Wings.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325350

Coming home. Four years ago, Eliyahu emigrated from Ukraine to Israel, leaving his parents behind. Thanks to Chabad of Kyiv the family had a long-awaited, tearful reunion at Ben Gurion Airport. Also, just before Yom HaShoah, 21 Holocaust survivors were rescued from Ukraine and flown to Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/fleeing-a-war-yet-again-9-holocaust-survivors-touch-down-in-israel-on-rescue-flight/ https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/326540 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-703448

Can you light Shabbat candles in space? Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe gave fourth graders a lesson called “Lighting Shabbat Candles in Space – the Halacha and Science Challenge.” Scientists are still learning how fire behaves in zero-gravity and may use the knowledge to develop more efficient combustion engines.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-kids-test-shabbat-in-space-with-candle-experiment/

Freedom in Free-fall. Eytan Stibbe, the first Jew to celebrate Passover in space, reveals how he relates to children the meaning of the Exodus story in the current technological age.

https://www.eng.rakiamission.co.il/post/the-first-passover-in-space-eytan-stibbe.

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https://www.jns.org/writers/moshe-dann/

The defeat of the Nazis in World War II ended the Holocaust, but the war against the Jews continued. Muslims and the British administration in Palestine sought to prevent Israel’s establishment, and in 1948, five Arab armies invaded the newly established Jewish state with the intention of wiping it out. Egypt, Syria and other countries planned to attack again in 1967, but were stopped when Israel launched a preemptive strike. The war against the Jews still went on, however, led by the PLO and, more recently, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

Although the Nazis were defeated and condemned, their anti-Jewish ideology was adopted by Palestinian leaders, institutions and terrorists. It is explicit in the PLO Covenant and the Hamas Charter, broadcast daily by Palestinian media and taught in Palestinian schools.

Most people, however, don’t understand what Palestinianism is. They think it’s about the desire of a group of people for a homeland, a state and self-determination. It’s not. It’s about destroying Israel. Attempts to satisfy Palestinian demands and efforts to engage in a “peace process” inevitably fail when they confront this reality.

Palestinianism is based on the Palestinian narrative that Israel has no right to exist and that the Jews stole their homeland. In doing so, goes the narrative, the Jews expelled Palestinian Arabs during the war of 1948, most of whom moved to neighboring countries. These refugees have been cared for ever since as “refugees” by the U.N. agency UNRWA in order to perpetuate the Palestinian concept of the “the Nakba” (catastrophe)—that is, Israel’s existence. Over the ensuing decades, Arabs and their supporters have demanded that Israel withdraw to the 1949 Armistice lines, evacuate Jews from areas which the IDF acquired in 1967 and allow all Arabs who are considered refugees—and their descendants—to return to Israel and reclaim their property in what is called “the right of return.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/al-aqsa-not-now-and-never-was-under-threat-israel-hugh-fitzgerald/

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority all agree: Al-Aqsa Mosque has recently been “under threat” because those wild-eyed Israeli “settlers” – madmen all – were about to engage in the ritual slaughter of a lamb on top of the Temple Mount, as part of a diabolical effort to take over Al-Aqsa, bit by bit, and convert it to a synagogue. Those Palestinians, and especially the terrorists among them, have a rich fantasy life, what the British in the Middle East used to drily call “the vivid oriental imagination.”

A report by Nadav Shragai on the Palestinians exploiting the Temple Mount conflict as an excuse for another war with Israel can be found here: “Al-Aqsa Mosque is by no means under threat,” by Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom, April 17, 2022:

Hamas is trying—and may succeed—in dragging Israel into a conflict on multiple fronts, with the Temple Mount serving as the trigger, exactly as was the case in April 2021. This time, as on previous occasions, the cry is the modern blood libel that “Al-Aqsa is under threat.”For more than a week now, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have been spreading online stories about how a ritual Passover sacrifice will be carried out on the Temple Mount this year.

They’re knowingly lying now, just as they were in the past. They know the Temple Mount’s history over the last 55 years. They know that Israel has never allowed such a ritual to be performed. Moreover, via a number of channels, including Jordanian, Egyptian and American, the Palestinians—the radical Muslims among them—have received clarification that this year, too, no such ritual will be allowed to take place.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/between_the_scylla_of_the_pa_and_the_charybdis_of_hamas.html

Some months ago, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Ganz invited Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas to his home for dinner. Despite the fact that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Police work with Abbas’s police force on a regular basis, the vision of a meal in Ganz’s home was disconcerting; too personal, too cozy. Dinner with a man who regularly incites violence against Israeli citizens and pays for acts of terror seemed a step too far.

There were, apparently, no flies on the wall, and nothing appears to have leaked. But as violence in Israel increases, the Israeli government’s intention has become clear.  Sitting between the PA as Scylla and Hamas as Charybdis, Israel will choose Scylla.

Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, is waging war against both Israel and the more nationalist PA. Israel’s goal is to ensure that Hamas does not oust the PA from the West Bank, putting Islamist radicals on both sides of the Jewish state. It would have been easier had Abbas been less of a corrupt dictator and had he encouraged Palestinians to work with Israel in the 16 years since his first — and last — election. But he didn’t.

In a brief and bloody civil war, Hamas threw the PA out of Gaza in 2007 and established its own crushing and corrupt version of Palestinian governance.

https://bit.ly/3y0lHaO

In 2021, the number of Israel’s Jewish births was 141,250 – 76% higher than 1995 (80,400), compared to 43,806 Arab births – 20% higher than 1995 (36,500).

In 2021, Jewish births were 76% of total births, compared to 69% in 1995. The surge of Jewish births has taken place due to the unprecedented rise of births (since 1995) in the secular sector, simultaneously with a rising level of education, income and wedding age and expanded urbanization. Since 1995, Israel’s ultra-orthodox sector has experienced a mild decrease of fertility.In 1969: Israel’s Arab fertility rate (number of births per woman) was six births higher than the Jewish fertility rate. In 2020: Jewish fertility rate – 3; Israeli Arabs – 2.82; Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Arabs – 2.96.

Muslim fertility rate has been Westernized: Jordan – 3 births per woman, Iran – 1.93, Saudi Arabia – 1.95, Morocco – 2.29, Iraq – 3.32, Egypt – 3.23, Yemen – 3.1, United Arab Emirates – 1.65, etc. 
 
Israel’s growing Jewish fertility rate reflects optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, communal solidarity, frontier-mentality and less abortions. Arab demographic Westernization is attributed to sweeping urbanization, enhanced stature of women (education, employment, rising wedding age, shorter reproductive period) and the expanded use of contraceptives.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/palestinians-find-aid-cupboard-bare-hugh-fitzgerald/

The Palestinians were once the favored recipient of foreign aid, as billions of dollars were heaped upon them every year from so many the donors – the United States, Western European countries, and the Gulf Arab states. But since 2014, there has been a steady, precipitous drop in that aid, and now, so far in 2022, there has been no foreign aid coming in for the P.A at all. A report on the colossal drop in aid is here: “Foreign cash aid to Palestinian Authority so far this year: $0,” Elder of Ziyon, April 21, 2022:

Estephan Salameh, who is the advisor to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for aid coordination, says that no foreign countries have paid a red cent so far this year of their pledges to help the Palestinian budget.

He said, “We expect to receive 200 to 300 million dollars in international financial support for the Palestinian government treasury this year, but so far none of those financial pledges have arrived.”

Speaking to Voice of Palestine Radio, Salameh said that in 2021, the Palestinian Authority only received 10% of the amount it had gotten in 2013 and 2014. That was when the EU and Arab governments didn’t care about accountability or transparency.

In 2015, as the donor nations began to insist on an end to the colossal corruption in the PA, and made the momentous decision to cut their aid until “accountability and transparency” were instituted, they steadily turned down the spigot of aid until, with the PA still unable or unwilling to come clean about its finances, by 2021 the PA was receiving only 10% of what it had been getting just seven years before. And now, one-third of the way through 2021, the PA has received no aid from foreign donors.