RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19916/lebanon-iran-hezbollah-war

Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of the Hezbollah terror group, recently threatened to send Israel back “to the Stone Age” if it goes to war with Lebanon — meaning defend itself against an Iranian-Lebanese attack.

While Nasrallah’s threat to destroy Israel is not new, he surely knows a thing or two about sending countries back to the Stone Age. His Iran-backed group, which functions as a state-within-a-state in Lebanon, is responsible for turning the Arab country into a failed state.

Two days after Nasrallah made his latest threat against Israel, Lebanon witnessed widespread blackouts, forcing Beirut Airport to run on electric generators.

“On the other side of the spectrum is the understanding that Lebanon was coerced into collapse by Hezbollah and its regional broker, Iran.” — Fadi Nassar, assistant professor in political science and international affairs, Lebanese American University; Saleh El Machnouk, lecturer in political science, Saint-Joseph University, Beirut; mei.edu, March 24, 2023.

“Lebanon has been hit by a debilitating new wave of hyperinflation, the imposition of its judiciary over the local investigation into the Port of Beirut blast, and a European investigation into the Central Bank.” — Fadi Nassar and Saleh El Machnouk; mei.edu, March 24, 2023.

“Hezbollah and [former Lebanese president Michel] Aoun have destroyed everything that made Lebanon great. The Arab world’s banking capital is bankrupt. Tourists don’t frequent destabilized states run by terrorists. Former regional partners refuse to have anything to do with us. Our celebrated culture is trampled underfoot by barbarian theocrats. Beirut no longer has a viable port.” — Baria Alamuddin, award-winning Lebanese journalist and broadcaster, arabnews.com, September 27, 2020.

Since the explosion at the Port of Beirut [which killed more than 200 people, injured thousands more, and displaced half of Lebanon’s capital city], Hezbollah has been trying to obstruct the investigation into the incident by the Lebanese authorities.

“All indications, signs, and collected evidence of weapons and explosives, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Hezbollah, backed by the mullahs in Iran, have turned Lebanon into a massive arms and explosives warehouse.” — Mohammed al Shaikh, Saudi political analyst, alarabiya.net, September 29, 2020.

“Hezbollah’s militia, as was publicly and boldly recognized by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, is trying to convert Lebanon into an Iranian mullah’s province, from which he receives his arms and all the funds and equipment he requires. Hence, the crimes committed by Hezbollah, including the Beirut explosion, are in fact an extension of Tehran’s orders… Although they cannot be publicly vocal about it, all the Lebanese hold Hezbollah responsible for the port bombing. People know that if they do express their opinion, physical liquidation awaits them….” — Mohammed al Shaikh, alarabiya.net, September 29, 2020.

Nasrallah and his masters in Iran care nothing about the suffering of the Lebanese people. What they care about is power, spreading their control to other Arab countries, and fulfilling their ambition to destroy the only successful and democratic country in the Middle East: Israel. Besides Lebanon, Iran’s terror proxies have also wreaked havoc in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. How ironic that Nasrallah, the terrorist leader who has decimated his own country, is now, with the backing of Iran, threatening to take another state back to the Stone Age.

https://www.jns.org/jns/idf/23/8/20/311744/

Anti-judicial reform protesters have turned the Israeli army into a political tool, and if the military doesn’t put a stop to it it risks losing the national consensus, says Brig. Gen. (res.) Ari Singer, former commander of the Israel Defense Forces reserves (2017-2021).

Protest leaders are conducting a “propaganda and influence operation” to topple the government, and appear willing to sacrifice the army’s reputation to do it, according to Singer. “It’s called psychological operations, or psyops, and it’s being carried out brilliantly by those leading the protests. It’s like they read the 101 manual on subversion,” he said.

The army doesn’t appear to recognize what’s happening, he continued, which is why it hasn’t adequately confronted the threat. “The army has to emphasize that it’s not a political tool. Once the army was taken hostage by the demonstrators, it should have reacted.”

Reservists opposed to judicial reform threaten to stop reporting for duty. Protest leaders have used those threats as ammunition against the government, claiming its pursuit of judicial reform risks national security.

Refusing to serve is generally regarded as unethical by Israelis, but former high-ranking officers have provided cover by issuing statements supporting “all protest actions—including the immediate suspension of volunteering.” Those threatening to stop reporting for duty also enjoy favorable media coverage, noted Singer.

Recently, the Hebrew press has been flooded with stories about potential damage to IDF readiness. The alarm prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold a meeting last week with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and other top officers on the army’s “fitness and cohesion.” Military fitness was also the topic of a confidential Aug. 16 Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting.

The army’s reluctance to speak out forcibly risks its reputation within Israeli society, according to Singer. By seeming to tolerate those threatening refusal, it appears to be taking sides in the debate, he said, adding that the Air Force has already suffered a blow to its prestige. The army has so far focused on operational fitness, saying it’s ready for battle. But Singer says that’s too narrow a view. “We’re talking about long-term motivation, or trust. Do I trust the army? You can build trust for years but lose it in days,” he said.

Singer, who began his military career in the armored corps, served 40 years in the reserves, eventually commanding it.

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

In the 20th Aug 23 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

Three Israeli medical breakthroughs to combat diseases in the heart, lungs, and brain.

Israeli firefighters helped extinguish forest fires in Greece and Cyprus.

An Israeli innovation boosts production of hydrogen from water.

Israeli robots can protect fish stocks or teach English.

New Israeli trade agreements with Vietnam and Ivory Coast.

“Beautiful” debut Israeli concert by Christina Aguilera.

Record number of twins born in 24 hours at Jerusalem hospital.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

A miniature human heart, grown from stem cells. (TY WIN) Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Israel’s Technion Institute have created a tiny functioning human heart, smaller than a grain of rice. It will help scientists study the heart and develop new treatments for cardio-vascular diseases.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-researchers-grow-miniature-beating-model-of-a-human-heart/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-eKR6AQPZQ  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-023-01071-9

Short-circuiting the lung cancer gene. (TY JNS & Israel21c) Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have found that Erbitux – a therapy for colon and neck / head cancer – can also cure lung cancer in non-smokers with a mutated EGFR gene. They have also identified a biomarker to identify those patients.

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/select-group-study-may-bring-improved-therapy-preselected-lung-cancer-patients  https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/pdf/S2666-3791(23)00295-1.pdf

Busting the protein link to Alzheimer’s. Israeli biotech MemoryPlus has developed a peptide to block the interaction of proteins PTEN & PSD-95, that causes memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients. The disease makes excessive PTEN, which attacks PSD-95, weakening the brain’s synapses. The peptide also lowers PTEN levels.

https://nocamels.com/2023/08/protein-busting-drug-could-be-new-era-for-alzheimers-therapy/

https://shiraknafo.com/   https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/memoryplus

The power of enzymes. (TY Yehoshua) Israel’s Enzymit is developing enzymes to enable some life-changing chemical reactions (see videos). First, though, it has synthesized hyaluronic acid – a natural biopolymer used to heal eyes, wounds, inflammation, and more. This avoids the use of animal tissue or costly alternate processes.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/technology-science/1690889148-israeli-startup-enzymit-achieves-breakthrough-in-hyaluronic-acid-production   https://enzymit.com/   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pdvpoyaaw  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnPgbJu_sG4

Making science fiction a reality. Israeli-founded Bionaut Labs (see here previously) has safety-tested its micro robot containing a magnet, that can travel via spinal fluid, directly to the brain, to deliver therapy or perform surgery. It can also navigate to any part of the body. Bionaut plans to begin human trials in late 2024.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/400m-apple-face-id-inventors-create-tiny-robot-to-treat-brain-disease/

https://www.ourcrowd.com/companies/bionaut-labs  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PrPbevTDqE

Heart diagnosis AI that any doctor can use. Doctors at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center have developed AISAP POCAD (AI Point of Care Assisted Diagnosis) to diagnose a patient’s cardiac problem As Soon As Possible. The AI system uses any manufacturer’s supplied combination of handheld ultrasound probe and digital tablet.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/sheba-startup-uses-ai-to-help-doctors-image-and-diagnose-cardiac-issues-in-minutes/   https://www.aisap.ai/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JdoIQXNPz8

European grant for preemie formula. Israel’s ELGAN (see here previously) has been awarded a $2.5 million grant by the European Innovation Council (EIC). It will help ELGAN clinically test its ELGN-GI oral formula for the treatment of intestinal malabsorption that prevents preterm infants from absorbing nutrients.

https://nocamels.com/2023/07/startup-treating-newborns-in-serious-condition-raises-2-5m/

World-first newborn surgery saves baby’s ovaries. (TY Israel21c & JNS) Surgeons at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem detected twisted fallopian tubes in a fetus during a routine ultrasound of the mother. They immediately delivered the baby and performed a complex operation to save her ovaries.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-753159

More heart ops for children from South Sudan. Israeli NGOs IsraAID and Save A Child’s heart returned to South Sudan to assess children who needed heart surgery (see here previously). They screened 74 children including 4-year-old Gladys who was in urgent need. Gladys was rushed to Israel for surgery.

https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-ngos-screen-south-sudan-kids-for-lifesaving-surgery/

https://saveachildsheart.org/children-in-israel

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-elite-revolt-against-democracy

In his New York Times opinion piece titled “The U.S. Reassessment of Netanyahu’s Government Has Begun,” Thomas Friedman wrote that he likes to say of his job that he is “a translator from English to English”: He takes complex things and renders them understandable. Israel, he explained, is turning its back on the shared values which have underpinned the friendship between the American superpower and the Jewish state. As Friedman explains it, the judicial reform proposed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition poses a grave threat to democracy because it would “change the long-established balance of power between the government and the Supreme Court, the only independent check on political power.”

It turns out that translating from English to English may not be the most useful skill when you need to understand something that is happening in Hebrew. Friedman is right that Israel’s democracy is in danger, but Netanyahu’s government is not the source of peril. The real danger comes from the court itself, which is now asserting a made-up “right” to remove a sitting prime minister—that is, to nullify the results of a legal election and eclipse Israel’s democratic politics and institutions through its own self-perpetuating fiat. The protest movement that arose to defend the court’s power (and its backers among the country’s economic and military elite) are together attempting to block the redemocratization of Israeli politics, as the reforms intended to do.

This is not some innovative hypothesis. If you read Hebrew, you can hear some protesters and their backers in the country’s establishments announcing their intentions more or less explicitly: Democracy is the very thing they are out to prevent. The movement’s ideologues are longtime staunch opponents of the democratic form of government who have devoted whole academic careers to opposing it; their political leaders in parliament and outside it use the term “democracy” in a deliberately deceptive way, as they sometimes admit; and their street-level ringleaders more or less openly confess disdain for the mass of enfranchised citizens. Most poignantly, when it comes to the rebelling IDF reservists—virtually all of them from elite unites, mostly in the air force—they don’t even bother with lip service to the idea of majoritarian decision-making. Rather, they express open contempt for the majority of Israel’s citizens, peppered with thinly veiled references to ethnicity, religiosity, and class.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israeli-settlements-are-not-illegal

Appeals to scientific or expert consensus have in recent years played a significant part of the debate on contentious issues. For laymen, even the nature of the alleged consensus may be difficult to evaluate. Is it a consensus arrived at by experts of varied prior beliefs critically and independently approaching an issue without regard for the public policy implications of their conclusions, or is it one that reflects the self-replicating and conformity-inducing tendencies of academia?

Appeals to authority and academic consensus feature prominently in professor Nathaniel Berman’s piece in these pages, “Israeli Settlements and International Law,” itself a response to Malkah Fleisher’s more personal reflections (“I Have a Right to Live in Judea and Samaria”) on the legitimacy of Jews living in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, to use two competing names for those areas of Mandatory Palestine ethnically cleansed of Jews by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1948.

Everyone knows that “Israeli settlements” are controversial, and here is where international law comes in. Many take the position that even though Jewish resettlement of these lands was made possible by Israel’s taking control of them in 1967, the Jewish state must nonetheless enforce a ban—a cordon sanitaire, a Pale of Non-Settlement—on Jewish residence perfectly congruent with the zone of Jordanian ethnic cleansing, and lasting until such places might come again under the control of an Arab government committed to “not a single Israeli.” Put in such terms, the anti-settlement argument may not have a broad moral appeal, which is why authors like Berman seek to cast it as an incidental application of neutral rules, applicable around the world. Yet he fails to mention where else these rules are applied, because the answer is nowhere.

https://www.jns.org/israel-news/idf/23/8/14/310395/

An interview with Israel Defense and Security Forum CEO IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi.

The issue of Israel Defense Force reservists refusing to serve for political reasons again made headlines on Sunday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoning for an “urgent” meeting the heads of Israel’s security establishment for an overview of the military’s operational readiness.

The meeting was sparked by an earlier one on Friday led by Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, who told a group of pilots and officers that the damage the country’s political turmoil is doing to military preparedness will grow “deeper and deeper as time goes by.”

Those refusing to serve are protesting against the government’s judicial reform effort. They say the plan will turn Israel into a dictatorship and that they are therefore justified in taking extreme measures, including breaking a long held, unspoken rule that politics and the military don’t mix.

Opponents say the current political situation is no excuse for overturning that understanding and that doing so undermines military cohesiveness. Once politics enters the army, they warn, there will be constant friction as there always will be some group unhappy about one or another government policy.

Some say the IDF has treated the refusal phenomenon with kid gloves and have allowed it to gain momentum by not speaking loudly enough against it.

The Israel Defense and Security Forum, a group comprising thousands of former security officers, has pulled together former chiefs-of-staff from both sides of the political spectrum to condemn refusals.

IDSF’s CEO and founder Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi recently spoke with JNS.

Q: What is your message to the IDF?

A: We have been talking extensively to the army and the chief of staff. Everybody agrees: This phenomenon in which people don’t volunteer, carry out insubordination, even to a certain extent mutiny—at the end of the day, it endangers Israel. It endangers our deterrence. It endangers our readiness.

We asked a simple question. These people who are doing all of this: Who are they? Are they tragic heroes? Or are they people who’ve lost sight of basic values and are undermining the army? And we’re saying to the army: The way you’re handling this, it seems that these people are being portrayed as tragic heroes.

We think that the army should have been crystal clear: Somebody who undermines the army’s deterrence, the cohesiveness of the army—a hero he is not.

I would have expected the chief of staff from day one to say this is something we’re not willing to accept. It’s politicizing the army. Anyone who politicizes the army is doing harm. It goes completely against our values. It’s terrible and it’s hurting us.

Q: Why does the army seem to have such a hard time saying that?

A: Take a real-world example. There’s an Air Force guy who’s 61 years old. He’s been volunteering for two decades at Air Force headquarters. He’s extremely experienced. He’s somebody who has been there since the age of 18. He announces he won’t volunteer anymore. What do you say to him? The army can’t say ‘you have no values.’”

Q: Couldn’t the army show compassion one-on-one and still condemn the phenomenon in public?

A: When I was a young platoon commander taking my first steps as a leader, the first thing I learned is the difference between what happens when you stand in front of the whole platoon and what happens when you stand before one soldier. Before the group, you have to be strong and tough and clear. Before an individual, you really need to be able to speak heart-to-heart and connect. So what you’re saying is true. You can do both. You can be empathetic and show appreciation on a personal level. But you must be emphatic in front of the whole unit, or the public. You must be very clear about values.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-wests-long-demonization-of-israel/

Joe Biden recently spoke out on the terrorist violence afflicting Israel, particularly in the refugee camp in Jenin, currently controlled by Iranian surrogates. Sourcing the violence to vague “extremists”––the West’s go-to euphemism for hiding the widespread popularity of such attacks among Palestinian Arabs––our titular president then pulled out another duplicitous evasion by blaming Israel’s political “extremists” on the right. At the same time, he refused to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington until he was pressured to do so. These are just a small sampling of Biden’s hostility to Israel.

The implied moral equivalence between murderers and their victims has for decades been a sign of the West’s shameful moral idiocy and cowardice when it comes to Israel. Biden’s latest commentary follows his school-marmish scolding of Israel for its ruling party’s attempts to reform the overpowerful judiciary. This sort of intrusion into an ally’s domestic politics is common when it comes to Israel, but seldom expressed by the administration with the same rudeness when it comes to calling out our sworn enemies like Iran and China.

Once again, we see the wages of decades of a fossilized foreign policy with its stale narratives and serial failures. Only now the stakes for Israel and the region are much higher: Iran, an enemy sworn to “wiping Israel off the map,” is dangerously close to possessing nuclear weapons. In addition, they continue to transfer missiles and drones to Israel’s enemies like Hezbollah, hosted by hostile neighboring Lebanon.

Indeed, just a few days ago, Israel’s IDF estimated that Hezbollah could fire 6000 missiles in the first few days of a conflict, and even after Israel’s retaliation, could still rain down 1500 a day––existential risks facilitated by the Democrats’ feckless obsession with returning to Obama’s disastrous “nuclear deal” with the mullahs, and its danegeld they’ve used to finance these weapons.

But the failures of our foreign policy in the region go back to Israel’s violent birth in 1948, when Harry Truman had to override the foreign policy establishment–– “those stripe-pants boys, the boys with the Ha-vud accents,” as he sneered at the time–– in order to recognize the new state.

One of the biggest failed solutions, and the most thoroughly repudiated by history, has been the “two states living side-by-side in peace” diplomatic magical thinking.

Just give the Palestinians their own state, we’ve been told decade after decade, which would require removing the Israeli “settlers” (a sly slur evoking the Boers of apartheid South Africa) from historically Jewish Judea and Samaria, now camouflaged as the West Bank, and peace will bloom throughout the region. But extremists on both sides, the narrative goes, and especially Israeli policies are preventing this solution from being implemented.

This clichéd interpretation of the conflict and its solution is dangerously deluded. It assumes that a majority of the Palestinian Arabs really want a Palestinian state––something that could have been created before 1967, when the West Bank was illegally occupied by Jordan, or with the five subsequent offers of a state, all summarily rejected. And don’t forget, Israel evacuated Gaza and turned it over to the genocidal Hamas in 2005. Instead of peace, Israel reaped thousands of missiles attacking its civilians.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19888/palestinian-prime-minister-shtayyeh-lies

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has shown that he can include two lies in one short sentence.

During the meeting [with a US Democratic delegation], Shtayyeh blamed Israel for the fact that the Palestinians have not held general elections for nearly two decades. He also accused Israel of “attempting to combat the Palestinian democracy.” Shtayyeh’s remarks, reported by the Palestinians’ official news agency Wafa, show that Palestinian leaders apparently think that many foreigners, especially Americans, are stupid enough to believe anything that comes out of their mouths.

Shtayyeh lied both when he claimed that Israel was responsible for obstructing Palestinian elections and that Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy democracy.

“The truth is Abbas canceled the elections because all credible public opinion polls showed that this month’s legislative vote would have decimated the ruling clique of his Fatah party and ushered in a whole new politician configuration. This would have seen Abbas’s rivals Marwan Barghouti and Nasser Al-Qidwah emerge as the new leaders of Fatah. If this scenario were to occur, a whole class of millionaires who turned the Palestinian struggle into a lucrative industry, generously funded by ‘donor countries,’ was at risk of losing everything. …. There is nothing that Abbas can say or do at this point to restore the people’s confidence in his authority. Arguably, he never had their confidence in the first place. By canceling the elections, he has crossed a red line, thus placing himself and a few others around him as enemies of the Palestinian people, their democratic aspirations, and their hope for a better future.” — Ramzy Baroud, editor of The Palestine Chronicle and author of five books,, arabnews.com, May 3, 2021.

So, evidently Abbas’s decision to call off the elections really did have nothing to do with Israel. It was mainly the result of Abbas’s totally justified fear that his divided Fatah faction would once again be trounced by Hamas.

Yet, Shtayyeh seems unwilling to allow the facts to get in the way of his straight-faced lies. In the past two years, Shtayyeh has been repeating his lie, that the elections were canceled because of Israel, on almost a weekly basis. He has repeated this lie to virtually every foreign dignitary or delegation he meets with, including, recently, the US Democratic Congressional delegation.

About Shtayyeh’s other lie that he keeps repeating, that Palestinians have democracy, one does not need to be an expert on Palestinian affairs to know that unfortunately the Palestinians are actually controlled by two undemocratic, repressive regimes: the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Shtayyeh, it seems, also forgot to tell the Congressional members who came to see him… that the Palestinians do not have either a free and independent media or a functioning parliament.

Shtayyeh further forgot to tell his visitors that his own Palestinian Authority government was viciously cracking down on Palestinian journalists, human rights activists, political opponents and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the West Bank. The same holds true for the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has also been targeting human rights workers, peaceful protesters, journalists and political activists.

In the past few years, Palestinians have taken to the streets to protest Palestinian corruption and repression.