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ISRAEL

The mirage of US guarantees and international peacekeepers Yoram Ettinger

http://bit.ly/3tIU2eV

The Gaza theatre!

*The track record of the Gaza Strip reveals that it lends itself to terrorism, as contended by the June 29, 1967 memorandum submitted by General Earl Wheeler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

*Gaza is contiguous to the largely lawless Sinai Peninsula, which has been a platform for
anti-US ISIS-supported and Iran-supported Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan, Egyptian terrorists and drug traffickers.

*The Gaza reality is impacted by the unpredictably volcanic Middle East, especially by Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic terror entities.  

*A postwar plan for the Gaza Strip must be based on exclusive Israeli military control, not on well-intentioned US guarantees and defense pacts, and not on non-Israeli peacekeepers, who would not be limited to observing compliance, but mostly to combatting terrorists. However, non-Israeli peacekeepers should not be expected to sacrifice their lives on the altar of Israel’s security.

*In 1983, Hezbollah terrorists car-bombed the US Marine barracks and US Embassy in Beirut, killing 260 Americans, prompting the withdrawal of US soldiers – who participated in the Multinational (peacekeeping) Force – from Lebanon.

US guarantees and defense pacts?

With Blinken in Tel Aviv, IDF mothers protest US interference in war By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/with-blinken-in-tel-aviv-idf-mothers-protest-us-interference-in-war/

A group composed of some 7,000 mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip held up huge posters depicting the children of senior U.S. officials as IDF recruits during a protest in front of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Tel Aviv hotel on Tuesday.

The message: What if it were your children fighting in the Gaza Strip? Would you continue to demand the resupply of the enemy?

The group behind the protest, Imahot HaLohamim (“Mothers of Combat Soldiers”) is demanding an end to U.S. pressure on Israel.

“Our message is very simple. Our soldiers’ lives have to come first and foremost, and be prioritized over those of enemy civilians,” Mirit Hoffman, the group’s spokesperson, told JNS.

Since the war’s start, the U.S. has insisted Israel permit humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip. President Joe Biden promised during an October visit to Israel that aid would cease if it was found that Hamas had diverted it for its purposes.

It’s a promise that has not been kept. The U.S. has instead doubled down, demanding that aid increase, including the entry of fuel, something that Israel at first categorically refused to allow.

“Every time Blinken comes, he brings more and more demands that endanger our soldiers,” said Hoffman, who has a son and a son-in-law fighting in Gaza.

“It’s a total double standard. The demands that the U.S. administration put on our soldiers goes far beyond what America practiced after 9/11, or Pearl Harbor,” she said, adding, “We know the supplies go to Hamas. Hamas is telling everybody that it goes to Hamas. It’s not even a secret.”

MORE HEADLINES ON ISRAEL FROM MOSHE PHILLIPS

Checkpoints in Israel face criticism, but checkpoints abroad don’t
THE JERUSALEM POST https://www.jpost.com/opinion/ article-780861

A Possible Future For Hamas Depends On One Thing
FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE https://www.frontpagemag.com/ a-possible-future-for-hamas- depends-on-one-thing/

Do you know who the oldest active IDF reservist is?
ARUTZ SHEVA https://www. israelnationalnews.com/news/ 382468

Jewish-studies head at Wake Forest University spreads anti-Israel conspiracies
JNS https://www.jns.org/ jewish-studies-head-at-wake- forest-university-spreads- anti-israel-conspiracies/

Veteran Labor Zionist calls for de-Nazifying Gaza
JNS https://www.jns.org/ veteran-labor-zionist-calls- for-de-nazifying-gaza/

Brandeis publishes author who claims Israel practices mass rape
JNS https://www.jns.org/ brandeis-publishes-author-who- claims-israel-practices-mass- rape/

Leftist Jewish magazine literally rewrites Israeli history
ARUTZ SHEVA https://www. israelnationalnews.com/news/ 381803

Lebanon Hosts Terrorists, Points Massive Arsenal at Israel, Then Complains When Israel Defends Itself by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20295/lebanon-hosts-terrorists

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah revealed in a speech that his terror militia had conducted around 670 armed attacks against Israel since October 8.

Instead of blaming Hamas and Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into another war, the Lebanese government is rushing to accuse Israel of killing a Hamas fugitive and violating Lebanese airspace to attack Syria.

Instead of criticizing Israel for defending its citizens against the Hezbollah and Hamas attacks, the Lebanese government should enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, according to which Hezbollah was supposed to withdraw all its terrorists north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon has been in flagrant violation of Resolution 1701 since 2006, of course with no consequences. Similarly, the UN has never enforced its own Article 2(4) under which member states are not permitted to threaten each other. The UN, it would seem, is actually an instigator and conservator of war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken should be addressing Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations about their accountability, concessions and compromises; not Israel.

It is high time for the UN and all its agencies, including the Security Council, to toss out anti-Israel complaints, including the latest one from Lebanon. Failing to do so will just once again expose the double standards — really, no standards — of the UN and once again throw the Middle East and the US into further violence and bloodshed.

In the past few decades, Lebanon has allowed the Hezbollah terror militia and several Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, to use its territory to plan and launch attacks against Israel. Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – the three major officially-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations operating in Lebanon – are all armed and funded by Iran.

Gaza War: It isn’t Over Until it is Over by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20277/gaza-not-over

The usual suspects in the Middle East peacemaking industry are already beginning to recycle their old and discredited ideas. President Joe Biden, sounding like a dummy for the ventriloquist Barack Obama, is talking of “a two-state solution: one for the Israelis and one for the Palestinians.”

The optimists forget that what turned Gaza into the hell-hole it has become wasn’t economic hardship. Before October 7, Gaza had a lower unemployment rate than the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt. In the first two quarters of 2023, the Gaza economy grew by four percent while that of the West Bank remained almost static.

One Iranian IRGC analyst, writing in the force’s Fars News site last week, indicates that Tehran does not expect a Hamas victory but wants it to “continue fighting as long as possible” so that more and more Israelis see that the best option is to leave.

Tehran also promises to throw more of its regional assets, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis and various outfits in Iraq and Syria into the fray, albeit in small doses so that Iran not be dragged into the war itself.

What turned Gaza into the hell-hole it has become wasn’t economic hardship. Thanks to international aid and donations, Gaza ranked ahead of Iran as percentage of GDP allocated to health and education. At the same time, Hamas did not need to fund its military and the tunnels it dug through taxation, as Tehran covered much of the cost.

As the war in Gaza enters its third month, the short-attention span syndrome that characterizes our age swings in full gear to reduce it to a version of background noise. You might have noticed that the war is bowing out of front pages and dropped down several slots in TV news bulletins.

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

While the “river to the sea” thugs harass diners and shop owners and disturb traffic on bridges and airports, and spoil holiday traditions here in America, in Israel, as Michael Ordman catalogs, research and developments in medicine, science and technology proceed beyond the sirens and screeching headlines of an ongoing war. rsk

“Several welcome potential cures were undergoing human trials last week. A stent for blocked leg arteries; Nitric Oxide for cancer; and a device to prevent delirium in immobile hospital patients.  New Israeli technology includes a system that welcomes you and then parks your car automatically. And now that welcome rains have arrived, a solar farm’s systems redirect the water to irrigate crops efficiently. “ Michael Ordman

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
More heroes of Oct 7. (TY UWI) Brothers Daniel and Neria Sharabi, saved dozens of lives at the Supernova music festival on Oct 7 by providing fire cover for escapees with weapons they found in a tank, while receiving instructions over the phone from an IDF officer. They also treated the wounded who were hiding with them.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/brothers-saved-dozens-at-nova-fighting-terrorists-with-commanders-phoned-in-advice/
 
Operation Hug. Some very emotional scenes as Nefesh b’Nefesh flies out parents to Israel to greet their lone soldier children serving in combat units. There is no guarantee that the IDF will release the soldiers to meet up with their parents but just see the reaction when they do! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw8T6_lfvTk   
https://www.nbn.org.il/operation-hug/  https://twitter.com/i/status/1740680579639882126
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-french-lone-soldier-reunites-with-family-after-9-months/
 
Support for parents of IDF soldiers. Parents Beyachad is a worldwide group of parents of IDF soldiers. They have enlisted famous personalities to record 60+ video messages of support.
https://www.jns.org/wire/video-messages-provide-support-to-parents-of-idf-soldiers/
https://www.parentsbeyachad.org/
 
Word of the Year – Resilience. Israel21c’s Word of the Year for 2023 is Resilience. Israeli NGO Eran defines it as “the ability to enlist internal resources such as flexible thinking, creativity and a willingness to receive help, together with external resources, in order to overcome the challenges and obstacles that always face us.”
https://www.israel21c.org/israels-word-of-the-year-for-2023-is-resilience/  https://en.eran.org.il/
 
Showers, tailor, laundry, beds. Not a John le Carre book, but some of the innovative mobile services that Israelis have developed to provide IDF soldiers with basic necessities. Thanks to Brothers and Sisters for Israel, (see here) the NGO Restart (see here), Rabbi Shai Graucher (see here), and Bentov Ellipsis.
https://nocamels.com/2023/12/beds-baths-beyond-israelis-get-creative-to-support-the-troops/  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPIQpTKUg1k  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eTya3ufLZo
https://www.bentov.net/  https://vimeo.com/882815262
 
The spirit of wounded soldiers. These brave soldiers send out such positive inspirational messages.
https://www.jns.org/a-rare-glimpse-into-the-recovery-of-wounded-soldiers/
 
Just see what Israelis can recycle. IDF reservist Dan Levit is VP of R&D at Israel’s U-Tron Parking. He assembled a team to rehabilitate 24 decommissioned IDF tanks and then trained volunteers to operate them. The appropriately named “Phoenix” tank battalion is already seeing action in Gaza. And the IDF wants more.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/fixing-up-old-tanks-and-recruiting-old-reservists-a-tech-vp-creates-a-new-battalion/  
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Cure for Peripheral Artery Disease sounds good. Israel’s NovaPulse has developed a “virtual” stent that opens blocked arteries in the legs. The implant sits just under the skin on the leg; when the patient moves, they generate ultrasound waves that dilate the implant, allowing oxygenated blood to flow from the heart.
https://nocamels.com/2023/12/virtual-stent-uses-sound-waves-to-open-blocked-leg-arteries/
https://medxelerator.com/almeda-ventures-joins-medx-xelerator-and-israel-innovation-authority-in-vascular-medtech-startup-novapulse-investment/
 
Nitric Oxide for cancer. Israel’s Beyond Air (see here previously) has partnered with US-based Beyond Cancer to produce a form of immunotherapy for solid tumors known as ultra-high concentration nitric oxide (UNO). The ultra-high concentration of UNO is undergoing Phase 1 human trials.
https://nocamels.com/category/news-briefs/#post-126279
 
Restoring sanity in the ICU. Two Israeli hospitals (Beilinson and Assuta Ashdod) are trialing the innovative communication headset for locked-in patients developed by Israel’s EyeControl (see here previously). They want to see if it can reduce the incidences of delirium (nightmares & hallucinations) in ICU patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-med-tech-companys-innovative-headset-could-reduce-delirium-in-icu-patients/
 
Computer games can lift depression. Neuroscientist Prof. Moshe Bar co-founded Israel’s Hedonia and created the computer game Mood Bloom to reduce negative feelings. It is based on a therapy called Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP) in which mini games require the player to focus less on circular thoughts.  
https://nocamels.com/2023/12/hedonia-mood-bloomanxiety-depression-mobile-app/
 
Rehabilitating wounded soldiers. More on the Kemtai AI-powered virtual physiotherapist (see here previously) that Israel’s medical institutions and organizations are using to help get wounded IDF service people on the journey back to health.  https://vimeo.com/707320029
https://nocamels.com/2024/01/virtual-physio-helping-wounded-soldiers-on-road-to-recovery/
 
 
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
 
Guardian angels. (TY UWI) The all-female IDF Sky Rider unit operates the drones (UAVs) that protect troops on the ground.  Read here about a battle where they were the eyes in the sky for the 13th Battalion in one of the major battles of the ground incursion Gaza and helped the soldiers on the ground emerge unscathed.
https://www.jns.org/the-guardian-angels-of-golanis-13th-battalion-recall-dramatic-encounter/
 
Friends despite the war. (TY Diana Bletter) Two Jews and two Muslims share an apartment run by Kivunim, an organization that helps young adults with disabilities. Despite Oct 7, the four flat mates get along just as before. Kivunim’s 45 apartments in Nahariya and Haifa house some 120 residents with disabilities.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-group-home-in-nahariya-bond-between-muslim-and-jewish-young-adults-survives-oct-7/   https://www.kvn.org.il/en/about/  
 
No cycle of violence here. (TY Diana Bletter) Zippy Schrager, a 56-year-old Rabbi’s daughter, manages a cycle repair shop in Mailiya, a Christian Arab village in the Western Galilee, just 12 miles from Lebanon. Zippy learned how to fix bikes from the shop co-owner Ron Boutillier who is currently on IDF reserve duty.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-gaza-war-a-us-born-jewish-woman-mans-a-christian-arab-towns-bike-shop/
 
Man of the Year. (TY UWI) Frontpage Magazine’s Man of the Year is the IDF Soldier. It writes, “In a year of defeatism and surrender, he is fighting back… The men on the front lines are not the politicians or the generals, they’re among the 360,000 reservists … who left behind their homes, families, and jobs to go and fight.”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/frontpage-magazines-man-of-the-year-the-idf-soldier/  
 
Zionist Leadership Academy. (TY Sharon) KKL-JNF and the WZO’s Zionist Leadership Academy is a 10-month program to develop young global leaders who will strengthen connections between their communities and Israeli institutions. Read about the recent mission to Israel of 18 program graduates from 14 countries.
https://baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=37&ARTICLE_ID=169222
https://www.wzo.org.il/department/pioneering-youth-and-future-generations/zionist-leadership-academy/en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh5xnJ5cnzk

Owen Jones, Palestinian Patsy Britain’s most famous media commentator is also one of its leading apologists for terror. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/owen-jones-palestinian-patsy/

I think it’s fair to say that few if any countries in the free world have a legacy media whose leading organs are more thoroughly corrupt than America’s – more devoted, that is, to obediently parroting the deep state’s mendacious left-wing narrative than to the nowadays quaint-sounding goal of uncovering and telling the truth without fear or favor. That said, however, Britain’s establishment news media do have their own distinct deficiencies. While they exhibit rather more ideological variation than their U.S. counterparts – few major U.S. dailies are as far apart politically as, say, the Telegraph is from the Guardian, or the Mail from the Morning Star – the British media possess a peculiarity all their own: to a perplexing extent, their most influential commentators are unusually callow and shallow.

The epitome of this type – and perhaps the single most influential journalist in the U.K. – is Owen Jones. He’s 39, but he looks 29, and – when holding forth on TV, which he often does when not scribbling his weekly column for the Guardian – he sounds barely 19. The son and grandson of card-carrying Communists, he was graduated from Oxford in 2007 and, within a frighteningly short period of time, became a big deal on Fleet Street – not because he’s deeply learned or preternaturally wise or possessed of an unusual felicity of expression, but because, good heavens, the lad can always be counted on to deliver precisely the kind of goods the Guardian and its readers want. (Prior to the Guardian, incidentally, Jones was with the Independent.) His prejudices are simple and clear: he hates capitalism, he hates America, he hates Israel. He buys the whole transgender ideology package; back in the day, he even supported Sinn Fein. He was six when Margaret Thatcher left office, but he has all the right opinions about her. And his sympathy for Muslims – who, in his view, are innocent victims of vile Western bigotry, period – is beyond measure, even though, as a gay man, he’d be subject to capital punishment in at least a half dozen Islamic countries.

Jones has been repeatedly confronted with this self-contradiction, and he’s repeatedly refused to address it honestly.  And while he’s quick to accuse his fellow Brits of “Islamophobia” and of “demonizing migrants” – and we’re talking here, mind you, about “migrants” who’ve abused the welfare system and sent crime rates skyrocketing, and who tell pollsters that they’d rather live under sharia than under democracy – he’s never used his pulpit (as far as I can determine) to draw attention to the mass extermination of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and, yes, apostate Muslims in the Islamic world. As for the Muslim “grooming gangs” that have raped tens of thousands of English girls over a period of decades, Jones has dismissed that entire vast reality as a Big Lie propounded by right-wing racists.

Groups That Support Hamas by John Wilson

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20275/groups-that-support-hamas

Surprisingly, by far the largest group supporting Hamas appears to be TikTok.

“Some have argued that there is a constitutional right to TikTok, that banning it would violate Americans’ rights under the First Amendment. But the First Amendment surely does not require us to allow social media apps controlled by foreign adversaries to dominate the U.S. market.” — US Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, The Free Press, November 2, 2023.

Other groups leading anti-Israel protests reportedly include….

There appears to be more moral rot around than is good for any nation. The US, the UK and countries in Europe that encourage racism and other ways of pitting groups against one another — which for many now is “Big Business” — would do well to get rid of all of it, the sooner the better.

Even before the bodies of roughly 1,200 people in Israel , including dozens of children, were cold after being tortured, raped and massacred on October 7 by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, not just Palestinians and Arabs, but people in the West could be seen demonstrating in support of the torturers, murderers and rapists. Even the otherwise outraged hashtag women’s groups have yet to be heard from, with at least one politician in the US, a woman, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), actually “downplaying” the atrocities and other members of the public denying that they had even happened.

Why The Palestinian Authority Is No Better than Hamas by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20274/palestinian-authority-hamas

The Biden administration has yet to spell out what it means when it talks about a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority.

If the Biden administration is hoping that the PA leadership will halt its ongoing campaign of incitement against Israel in the mosques, media and the rhetoric of Palestinian officials, it is living in a dream world. If the Biden administration believes that the PA, as part of a “revitalization” process, will cease its endless glorification of terrorists and systematically rewarding them with monthly stipends for murdering Israelis, it is also in for a rude awakening.

The Biden administration… can continue to dream about “revamping” the PA, but… every Palestinian child knows that this will never happen as long as Palestinian leaders continue to pay handsomely for the murder of Jews and call for the elimination of Israel.

As the Biden administration doubtless knows, replacing Hamas with the PA will change nothing in the Gaza Strip.

As the Biden administration continues to promote the idea of having a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority (PA) govern the Gaza Strip the day after the current Israel-Hamas war, PA leaders are again proving why they are not much different from the Iran-backed Islamist terrorists who want to destroy Israel and murder Jews.

After the January 2 assassination in Beirut, Lebanon, of Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas “political bureau,” who was behind countless terroir attacks against Israelis over the past decade, PA leaders were quick to praise him as a “martyr” and a “hero” and condemn Israel for allegedly killing the top Hamas terrorist. This glorification of an arch-terrorist is nothing less than a full endorsement of Hamas’s Jihad (holy war) on Israel, as outlined in its 1988 charter, which states that “Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.” (Article 8)

Israel wants UNRWA out of Gaza By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/israel-wants-unrwa-out-of-gaza/

 Israel’s Foreign Ministry has put together a classified report calling for the removal of UNRWA from the Gaza Strip in the long-term, noting that the U.N. relief agency works against Israel’s interests.

The report’s recommendations set out a three-stage process for shrinking and eventually eliminating UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, from the Strip: 1) Prepare a case detailing UNRWA’s cooperation with Hamas; 2) Reduce UNRWA’s field of activity and find replacement service providers; and 3) Transfer UNRWA’s responsibilities to another entity.

Channel 12, which revealed the existence of the secret report on Thursday, noted that Israel wants to move slowly, recognizing that the U.S. sees UNRWA as a positive player in humanitarian efforts in the Strip. The ministry hopes to gradually build the case for ousting the organization, linking that goal to discussions on “the day after” Hamas.

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), supports dislodging UNRWA, telling JNS that “UNRWA was born in sin and exists in sin, therefore, it should be dismantled.

“It was established because of pressure by the Arab world as a platform to leverage the interests of Arab leaders against the State of Israel using the Palestinian [refugee] issue,” Michael said.