RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/president-isaac-herzogs-grand-entrance-opinion-673280

It wasn’t surprising when Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy asserted on Wednesday that Israel’s societal discord was worse than the Iranian threat. Nor was the fact that he made the claim during the swearing-in ceremony of Isaac Herzog as the country’s 11th president.

It has become par for the so-called “Center-Left” to bemoan the condition of the country in this fashion. Invoking the terrorist regime in Tehran when talking about internal strife in the Jewish state that it vows to wipe off the map has a twofold purpose.

One is to accuse the Right, led by former prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, of causing the political rift that’s supposedly chipping away at Israeli democracy. The other is to minimize the real and present danger posed by the Islamic Republic and its proxies – or at least to imply that Netanyahu has been exaggerating it for decades in order to keep himself in power.

During most of his seven-year tenure as president, Reuven Rivlin honed the art of expressing this view through the use of flowery language to issue heartfelt warnings about the soul of the nation.

It’s a neat trick to admonish the public, while simultaneously professing to love and serve all of its sectors, regardless of political affiliation or ethnic background. It’s the president’s job, after all, to remain above the fray that besets Knesset debates and committee meetings. And Rivlin pretended to perform with aplomb this almost impossible feat in a country filled with a “stiff-necked people,” about whom it is quipped, “Two Jews, three opinions.”

But he hasn’t always been delicate when voicing his criticism. At the opening of the Knesset’s winter session in October, for instance, he announced, “It appears to me as if we have lost the moral compass that was with us from the state’s independence until today – the compass of fundamental principles and values that we are committed to uphold.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17533/palestinian-leaders-inciting-violence

Less than three hours after Banat, 42, was taken into custody, the PA announced that he had “died after his health deteriorated during the arrest.”

Banat’s family has called for a neutral international committee to investigate….

The Palestinian government, which is responsible for the killing of Banat and assaults on journalists, political activists, and social media users, is now supposedly trying to beautify its image by joining a UN treaty against torture.

If the PA were really serious about human rights, it would stop arresting, torturing, harassing and intimidating its critics and political rivals. The PA talk about joining the anti-torture treaty is solely aimed at deceiving the international community into believing that Abbas and his government actually care about reforms and human rights.

Senior Fatah official Ahmed Bahar said that any Palestinian who protests against the Palestinian leadership, and not Israel, is a “traitor.”

This is the same Palestinian leadership that has told the new US administration that it is keen on resuming the peace process with Israel. While Abbas and senior Palestinian officials are talking about the resumption of the peace process with Israel, they are at the same time urging their people to forget about the killing of the anti-corruption activist and continual attacks on their own citizens, and instead engage in violent confrontations with Israelis.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), facing growing criticism over the death of Palestinian anti-corruption political activist Nizar Banat, is trying to redirect the anger on the Palestinian street toward Israel.

Although Israel had nothing to do with the brutal killing of Banat, steering anger toward it is an old tactic used by Palestinian leaders for many years; whenever your people are angry with your corruption and repressive measures, you tell them that it is all Israel’s fault.

Banat was killed on June 24, shortly after more than twenty Palestinian security officers raided the home where he was staying in the West Bank city of Hebron. Banat’s family said that even before taking him into custody, the officers beat him with metal clubs and rifle butts.

Less than three hours after Banat, 42, was taken into custody, the PA announced that he had “died after his health deteriorated during the arrest.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/palestinian-analyst-bassem-eid-invites-squad-visit-hugh-fitzgerald/

Bassem Eid is a Palestinian analyst and human-rights campaigner who chooses to live in Jerusalem, under Israeli rule, rather than in those parts of the West Bank where Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority hold sway. He’s not fond either of the PA, or of Hamas, and he’s horrified that those claiming to champion the Palestinians fail to realize how cruelly treated they are by their own corrupt leaders. Bassem Eid’s scolding of the Squad — Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Pressley — is here: “Palestinian Activist: It’s Time Ilhan Omar and ‘The Squad’ Learned the Truth About Israel and Hamas,” by Bassem Eid, Algemeiner, July 1, 2021:

US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Tuesday, and was asked by host Jake Tapper about her long record of virulently anti-Israel comments (which included her comparison earlier this month of Israel to Hamas) and why some of her Jewish Congressional colleagues had called her out for again issuing antisemitic tropes….

“I’ve welcomed any time my colleagues asked to have a conversation to learn from them [and] for them to learn from me,” she said. “I think it’s really important for these members to realize that they haven’t been partners in justice.”

Bassem Eid had ready his reply:

I’m a Palestinian who grew up in a UNWRA refugee camp outside of Jerusalem, and have been a human rights activist all my life. Let me say this as directly as I can: Rep. Omar does not know what she is talking about….

Politicians like Omar, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spend a considerable amount of time attacking Israel for the supposed harm it inflicts on Palestinians.

But if they truly care about the well-being of Palestinians, they ought to focus their attention elsewhere. These days, the vast majority of suffering Palestinians experience is the direct result of the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and the influence of the terrorist group Hamas.

Corruption affects every aspect of life for Palestinians. It cripples our economy, which in turn makes government jobs among the most highly prized. However, those jobs are awarded based on connections rather than qualifications, which perpetuates the cycle of corruption. No announcements are posted for new government jobs. This lack of transparency is pervasive throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Successful trials of TB diagnosis patch. (TY Hazel) Six years ago (see here previously) Technion scientists began developing a sensing plaster to detect tuberculosis biomarkers on the skin. Now, trials of the A-Patch, in India and South Africa, have showed high effectiveness. TB affects around one third of the world’s population.
https://www.israel21c.org/a-skin-sticker-that-can-diagnose-tuberculosis/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLS5hvwxspo  https://apatch.technion.ac.il/a-patch-project/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202100235
 
GPS therapy for inflammatory diseases. Professor Dan Peer of Tel Aviv University (see here previously) has extended the effectiveness of his nanoparticle therapies. He has taken the RNA technology used in coronavirus vaccines to target only the specific T-cells and genes responsible for inflammatory diseases.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-new-gps-nano-drug-busts-inflammation-touted-as-antibody-replacement/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-021-00928-x  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZvlC7i9PQk
 
The world’s smartest hospitals. (TY Atid-EDI) Newsweek’s “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals” ranked Sheba (Tel Hashomer) at 13, Sourasky (Ichilov) at 84, Hadassah Ein Kerem, Jerusalem at 196 and Rabin (Beilinson) at 215. The criteria was robotic surgery, digital imaging, AI, telemedicine, and electronic medicine.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-4-israeli-hospitals-ranked-in-newsweeks-world-best-smart-hospitals-1001374071
 
Personalized AI medication platform. Israel’s MDI Health Technologies (see here previously) has launched its end-to-end AI platform for personalized medication. Trials at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital showed that the platform presented up to 40% more life-saving patient insights than the clinical pharmacists had identified.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3911335,00.html   https://www.mdihealth.com/
 
AI powered ultrasonic heart imaging. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s DiA Imaging is partnering Canada’s Circle Cardiovascular Imaging (CCI). DiA’s AI Ultrasound imaging analysis systems will be integrated into CCI’s cardiovascular imaging equipment.  https://www.dia-analysis.com/post/circle-cardiovascular-imaging-announces-partnership-with-dia-to-deliver-ai-based-imaging-solutions
 
Nine tests using home telemedicine device. (TY Hazel) The N9 portable home device from Israel’s Nonagon (previously MyHomeDoc reported here) now includes stethoscope (lung, heart etc. sounds); otoscope (ears); oximeter (pulse and oxygen) and thermometer. It also uses patient’s smartphone camera (throat & skin tests).
https://www.israel21c.org/new-telehealth-device-makes-home-visits-a-virtual-snap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnlI0E6x4s
 
Rapid diagnosis of blood cancer. Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital is piloting the diagnosis of blood cancer using cutting-edge AI technology from Israel’s Sight Diagnostics (see here previously). Data and images from Sight’s OLO device, plus patient data can identify malignant lymphocytes and spot early hematological cancer.
https://nocamels.com/2021/07/shaare-zedek-pilots-ai-olo-sight-diagnostics/
 
Go with the gut. A great summary of the work that Weizmann scientists have been conducting on the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) that led to the founding of startup DayTwo. Diabetics can now have their gut microbiome analyzed and receive a personalized nutrition plan. (2016 video still relevant – 3 million views)
https://nocamels.com/2021/06/gut-israeli-research-microbiome-personalized-diets/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4  https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSystems.00665-20
 
Brain profiler to go into space. (TY UWI) Israel’s Montfort (see here previously) has launched a new version of its smartphone app, called “Brain Profiler” to diagnose psychosis, depression and anxiety. It will be sent to the International Space Station in 2022 to test and monitor Israel’s Eytan Stibbe and his fellow astronauts.
https://www.israel21c.org/a-smartphone-technology-to-diagnose-psychiatric-diseases/  https://mon4t.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PlTXt-OUiI
 
150 new ambucycles. United Hatzalah held a dedication ceremony for its new Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Ambucycle Unit. Dr Miriam donated 150 ambucycles (motorcycle ambulances), in the memory of Sheldon, to join the 1,000 existing vehicles used in their emergency paramedic work.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/miriam-adelson-donates-150-life-saving-ambucycles-to-united-hatzalah/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQNTxj0n5M
 

https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/how-thomas-jefferson-and-a-conservative?tok

Why is God not mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence? Does it have to do with the passionate ideological secularism of most of Israel’s founders? For those familiar with America’s Declaration, God’s absence from Israel’s feels all the more peculiar, given how often “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “Supreme Judge” are found in the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

There’s an urban legend of sorts which claims that God isn’t entirely absent from Israel’s Declaration, and that the final paragraph is, in fact, a nod in God’s direction. According to this tale, the secularists, the Bible-loving-but-God-rejecting David Ben-Gurion chief among them, were adamantly opposed to including in the Declaration a God they were certain did not exist (but Who, they nonetheless believed, had given the Land of Israel to the People of Israel). But religious Zionists, it is said, wouldn’t cave on that point, so a compromise was reached. The Declaration would include the phrase “Rock of Israel”, taken from the morning [shacharit] liturgy. The secularists could interpret “Rock of Israel” as the strong arm of the Haganah, the vital spirit of the state-builders or however they wished, while the religious signers could be comforted by the fact that just as “Rock of Israel” means “God” in the liturgy, so too, it (for them) meant God here, too.

It’s a great story, ubiquitously repeated almost anytime one discusses the Declaration of Independence. The only problem with it is that it’s totally false.

So, in honor of America’s celebration of its independence this weekend, here’s a brief and more accurate version of what happened, including the fascinating way in which Thomas Jefferson and a Conservative rabbi were actually responsible for the inclusion of “Rock of Israel” in Israel’s Declaration.¹

It turns out that the American declaration of independence was the subject of its own push-me-pull-you of secularism versus theology tension. Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the DoI, apparently wanted the declaration to read near its end, “And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Some of those early American theists, though, religious in some vague sense but not passionately theological, felt that God ought to make an appearance at the end, just as God, Creator and Judge appear earlier. So Jefferson added the phrase “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” into the phrase above, so that the version we have all inherited reads “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

One hundred and seventy-two years later, David Ben-Gurion was getting ready to do more or less what Thomas Jefferson and his compatriots had done. He was going to declare independence from the British and would found a country. The British were going to be leaving on May 14 and among many other decisions (including whether to declare a state, as we discussed in an earlier posting, “The National Liberation Movement of the Jewish People”) and preparations, a Declaration had to be written. The task was eventually passed down to one Mordechai Behm, who had formerly worked as a lawyer for the British Mandatory authorities, but had then left to join his father’s thriving law practice.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17519/israel-petitions-antisemitic

The bigots who promote these petitions, and the useful idiots who sign them, cannot possibly be motivated by a concern for universal human rights. If they were, they would focus on nations with really horrendous human rights records, such as Iran, which hangs gays, China, which imprisons Muslim dissidents, Russia, which murders dissenters, Saudi Arabia, which oppresses women, Syria, which gases its own people, as well as Palestinians, and many other nations that face no external threats.

Israel, on the other hand, faces existential threats, and acts in self-defense. It does more to protect innocent civilians than any country faced with comparable threats. Yet it is the only country that is subject to petitions by teachers unions, faculty senates, student bodies, and other groups….

“Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest.” — Thomas L. Friedman.

There is an old joke about a Hitler rally in which the Fuhrer shouts out a rhetorical question: “Who is to blame for all of Germany’s evils?” And before the crowd can shout “the Jews,” a man in the front row screams out: “The bicycle riders.” Hitler stops and turns to the man and asks him, “Why the bicycle riders?” To which the man responds, “Why the Jews?” …. There is no good response.

Therefore, let us stop pretending that these hateful, one sided and mendacious petitions are anything but what they are: anti-Semitic bigotry, pure and simple. History will judge the bigots behind them harshly. So should all decent people today.

Let there be no doubt that the recent spate of one-sided petitions singling out Israel for condemnation are motivated by hatred of Israel, precisely because it is the nation state of the Jewish people.

The bigots who promote these petitions, and the useful idiots who sign them, cannot possibly be motivated by a concern for universal human rights. If they were, they would focus on nations with really horrendous human rights records, such as Iran, which hangs gays, China, which imprisons Muslim dissidents, Russia, which murders dissenters, Saudi Arabia, which oppresses women, Syria, which gases its own people, as well as Palestinians, and many other nations that face no external threats. Israel, on the other hand, faces existential threats, and acts in self-defense. It does more to protect innocent civilians than any country faced with comparable threats. Yet it is the only country that is subject to petitions by teachers unions, faculty senates, student bodies, and other groups that seem to focus more on Israel than on their own mission to improve the lives of their members.

 Herut is everywhere in the media over the last week and before the July 4th holiday I wanted to share with you the below news links. 

BEFORE THE NEWS – Attached please find info on the Philadelphia area self-defense workshop sponsored by Herut later this month.

Dear American Jewish Mothers by Lisa Koenig (Lisa is the North East Director of Herut North America’s U.S. division)

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/06/25/dear-american-jewish-mothers/

This op-ed also appeared in the Jewish Voice in New York: https://thejewishvoice.com/2021/06/dear-american-jewish-moms/

Yoni Netanyahu Proved Himself a Hero Before Entebbe by Moshe Phillips

https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2021/06/29/yoni-netanyahu-proved-himself-a-hero-before-entebbe/

How the Biden administration funds Palestinian terrorists by Moshe Phillips

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/how-biden-funds-palestinian-terrorists/ (lead featured op-ed)
This op-ed awas also syndicated by JNS https://www.jns.org/opinion/how-biden-funds-palestinian-terrorists/  and also is online at The Jewish Press website:
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/how-biden-funds-palestinian-terrorists/2021/06/30/

Two-State Solution – A Bad Idea By Moshe Phillips

Letter in the July 2, 2021 issue of The Jewish Press