RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/colonel-richard-kemp-on-the-idfs-achievements/

Colonel Richard Kemp, who led British troops in Afghanistan and has fought in another half-dozen campaigns, has long been a defender of the IDF, which he has described as “the most moral army in the world.” He looked at what Israel achieved in the first four days of Operation Shield and Arrow and come away with a heightened appreciation for the Israeli military. More on his observations on the campaign can be found here: “‘A grave slur against IDF’: UN plays right into Islamic Jihad’s hands,” by Colonel Richard Kemp, Ynet News, May 11, 2023:

Operation Shield and Arrow has been carried out to date with breathtaking effectiveness. The shield of Iron Dome and David’s Sling have prevented major loss of life among the civilian population, although so far one man has been tragically killed and some have been injured, despite a barrage of 547 deadly rockets fired at Israel at the time of writing [as of Friday, May 12, that number had increased to 937].

Israel managed to decapitate Palestinian Islamic Jihad, taking out by the fourth day of battle six of its senior commanders, including both the head, and the deputy head, of the PIJ’s rocket program. The IAF struck 197 targets in Gaza, including PIJ weapons storehouses, weapons fabrication plants, training centers, rocket launchers, and underground tunnels.

The arrows of targeting intelligence, air strikes and missile attacks have decimated the Gaza terrorist leadership and destroyed many of their weapons. No other military is capable of defending its people with the ferocity and precision the IDF has been showing.

How precise was Israel? It managed to locate the precise apartments where PIJ commanders had been hiding, and hit exactly those targets, sparing all but a handful of civilians – mostly, the wives and children of the commanders, though in the initial attack on May 9, three civilians living in an apartment adjacent to the one the IAF had targeted, also died. It managed to follow, from the skies, PIJ leaders as they moved from one apartment to another. In one case, the Israeli pilot held his fire while a PIJ leader was still with his family in an apartment, waiting until he had left them and gone, alone, to another hiding place, where he assumed he would never be found. And at that point, the Israeli pilot proved him wrong.

*Challenged by a unique environment – top heavy on terrorism and war, but low on natural resources and rainfall – Israel has bolstered its do-or-die state of mind, with defiance of odds, risk-taking, frontier, pioneering, optimism, patriotism, can-do and out-of-the-box mentality. This has yielded a robust flow of game-changing commercial, defense and dual-use technologies.

*These game-changing technologies include the world’s smallest (0.99mm) pill-size video medical camera, MobilEye AI car safety, Waze navigation, the Pressure Bandage, the “Iron Dome” and “David Sling” missile defense systems. Also, the cherry tomato, drip irrigation system, SupPlant autonomous irrigation system, solar water heaters, Intel’s microprocessors, Microsoft’s anti-virus and Windows XP and NT, the USB flash drive Disk-on-Key, Firewall against malware and the ICQ instant messenger. In addition, there are the Israeli developed Watergen water from thin air, GrainPro Cocoons for African grain farmers, biological pest control, Laser keyboard, Voice-over Internet protocol, Face ID, Babylon computer translation, WeCU airport security, Rewalk for paraplegics, OrCam for the visually-impaired, etc.

*These Israeli developed technologies have been shared with the US, in particular, and the world, in general, enhancing global standard of living, communications, medicine, health, agriculture, irrigation, software technologies, cyber security, national security and homeland security.

*Israel is one of the leading global high-tech hubs along with the Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, Raleigh, Durham, Bangalore, Stockholm, Helsinki and London.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19671/threat-al-aqsa-mosque

f anyone has been desecrating al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Muslims who have been rioting and using rocks and fireworks to attack police officers and Jewish visitors. Muslim rioters — not peaceful Jewish visitors — are the real threat to the sanctity of the mosque.

Israeli authorities have clarified that the route of the “flag parade” absolutely does not include entry into any mosque.

Assurances by the Israeli authorities, however, have not stopped Palestinians and other Muslims from spreading fake news and libels against Jews.

Iran’s terror proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have also used the celebrations in Jerusalem to spread the libel that Jews are planning to “desecrate” al-Aqsa Mosque.

As far as Hamas and other Palestinians are concerned, the very presence of Jews at their holy site and in Israel is supposedly a “provocation.”

Hamas and several terror groups in the Gaza Strip, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also repeated the lie that “al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger.”

When the terror groups talk about “resistance,” they are referring to the need for terrorism against Israel, including firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, and attacks by stabbing, shooting and car-ramming.

“The people of Palestine have no historical rights to Palestine. They have no right that dates back 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000 years. The right of the Canaanites to Palestine is equal to the pharaohs’ right to Egypt. Is it conceivable that any Muslim in Egypt would say: ‘I am Pharaonic and proud of it?’ Well, it is the same if a Muslim in Palestine said, ‘I am a Canaanite and proud of it.’ To hell with your Canaanite identity and to his Pharaonic identity. People, our history is simple and it is not ancient. It must not be said that the Palestinians have Canaanite roots. Our history dates back only 1,440 years…. The only thing you are allowed to say is: Oh Palestinians, you are Muslims.” — Issam Amira, Palestinian Islamic scholar, al-Aqsa Mosque, April14, 2023

The revival of the “al-Aqsa is in danger” libel is part of an ongoing effort by Palestinians and other Muslims to delegitimize and eliminate Israel. Palestinian leaders and Muslim “scholars” spread lies about Israel and Jews to encourage and justify terrorism.

The real threat to the mosque and other holy sites in Jerusalem is posed those Palestinians and Muslims who use battle cries to incite violence, terrorism and Jew-hate.

Incomprehensibly, much of the international community, the media, and even prominent self-declared “human rights” organizations persist in defaming Israel and ignoring this fabricated, toxic incitement by Palestinian and Muslim leaders.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

As Michael Ordman who catalogs this dazzling list from Israel reminds us every week and 24/7: “Israelis have been revealing more innovations and activities to benefit humanity.”

In medicine, from A (Alzheimer’s) to Z (Zika virus) Israel researches and develops early detection and promising treatment options.

In computer technology, water saving and recycling, international rescue alerts and response, Israel provides outsize contributions to the entire world.

This week on May 25th the Jewish festival of Shavuot is celebrated with biblical heralding of the wheat harvest. How apposite to Israel’s outsize contributions to agriculture and food production to eradicate world hunger and famine.   rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Successful skin cancer treatment. (TY OurCrowd) A small trial of Alpha DaRT from Israel’s Alpha Tau (see here previously) was 100% successful in treating 10 patients with skin cancer. All were 100% clear at 12 weeks with no recurrence or toxicities in 24 weeks.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/05/11/2667240/0/en/Alpha-Tau-Announces-the-Publication-of-its-US-Multicenter-Pilot-Skin-Cancer-Trial-Results-in-JAMA-Network-Open.html  
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2804784
 
Proton cancer therapy trials. Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center has partnered Israel’s P-Cure (see here previously) and has begun trials of its focused proton radiation therapy for cancer patients. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center is to install proton radiation machines from Belgium’s IBA.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/proton-therapy-touted-as-cancer-killer-without-side-effects-set-for-israel-debut/
 
Preventing strokes from CAD. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s InspireMD (see here previously) has just completed the first in-human trial of its CGuard Prime stent that opens blocked Carotid Arteries and traps dangerous emboli released. Carotid Artery Disease (CAD) can stop blood flow to the brain and cause a stroke.
https://www.inspiremd.com/en/press-center/inspiremd-announces-successful-first-in-human-procedure-utilizing-cguard-prime-its-next-generation-carotid-artery-stent-cas-platform/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6xXfhcT4zs
 
Why female Alzheimer’s patients rapidly decline. Hebrew University researchers have discovered that women lose certain mitochondria (maternally inherited) RNA molecules in their brains much faster than men. This adversely affects the neurotransmitter that plays a role in memory, learning, attention, and more.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-study-reveals-molecular-basis-for-female-alzheimers-patients-rapid-decline/   https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/371219
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/alz.13095
 
Where does creativity come from? A study at Israel’s Beilinson hospital is looking at why many Parkinson’s patients develop an obsessive desire to take up art or creative writing for the first time. Researchers are investigating if the area of the brain affected by the disease is also responsible for creativity.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/mrkqcjrrt
 
Hospital testing goes virtual. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has partnered with Israel’s Mpcheck and Israel’s Teva to allow Teva’s employees to perform medical tests at their workplace or at home. Sheba Virtual Hospital’s “Beyond” tests include blood, urine, cervical cancer, hearing and more.                              
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-741898
https://mpcheck.co.il/
 
One number to call them all. Israel is to unify the emergency medical hotline number. Currently, each medical emergency service has its own number – 101 for Magen David Adom, 1221 for United Hatzalah etc. Subject to Knesset approval, the public will just call 101, which all services can respond to.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-742420
 
Biomed Israel 2023. One of the sessions at Biomed 2023 is personal nutrition. It is a field of technology based on multidisciplinary research that utilizes AI and machine learning to tailor unique nutrition recommendations.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-742081
https://kenes-exhibitions.com/biomed/
 
Speak to an AI expert anytime. Israel’s Wolfson Medical Center in Holon is using artificial intelligence to monitor female cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in partnership with Israel’s XOLTAR ai. Patients receive personal, round-the-clock support tailored to their individual needs based on AI analyzed data.
https://nocamels.com/2023/05/cancer-patients-get-revolutionary-ai-carers/
https://xoltar.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flYMdOfz7pQ
 
 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-nakba-and-how-it-grew/

Along with “apartheid” used as an adjective – as in “Israel is an apartheid state” – haters of Israel have taken to referring to the “Nakba,” the Arabic word for “catastrophe.” The “Nakba” is the word the Arabs now use to describe the failure in the 1948 war of five Arab armies to destroy the Jews of Israel, by expelling or killing every last one. That, of course, is not how the Arabs put it to the Western world: they claim the “Nakba” refers to the defeat of the Arabs who had intervened only to help their Palestinian brothers hold onto the land that had been theirs for centuries, land that the “Zionist entity” was stealing for itself. More on the history of the “Nakba” can be found here: “The Nakba Narrative: A History of Deception,” by Chaim Lax, Honest Reporting, May 8, 2023:

“The Nakba” is repeatedly invoked in the media, academic literature, politics, and popular culture surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its appearance is so ubiquitous at this point, that it seems like it has always been part of the general lexicon.

However, that is not the case.

Here, we’ll look at the significance of the term “Nakba,” the history of the term from 1948 until the present, how this Arabic term gained popularity around the world, and the new adoption of the term to refer to anti-Jewish persecution by the Arab and Muslim worlds.

In Arabic, the term “al-Nakba” means “the catastrophe.” In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the catastrophe that the “Nakba” is referring to is the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, and the disintegration of Palestinian Arab life in Israel.

For those who adopt this narrative, the Zionist movement and Israel are solely responsible for the displacement of Palestinian Arabs between 1947 and 1949, while the Arabs themselves are the exclusive victims of the conflict.

By failing to take into account the Palestinian and Arab refusal to accept a two-state solution in 1947 and the subsequent military attempt to destroy the Jewish state, the Nakba narrative advances the claim of perpetual Palestinian victimhood and serves as a historical basis for the Palestinian “right of return.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19651/palestinians-jihad-against-israel

The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and punish them for speaking out against, or combatting, terrorism.

Instead of demanding that ICC punish the terrorists — who are intentionally firing rockets at Israeli civilians — the PA is asking the court to prosecute Israelis for launching operations to counter terrorism.

The PA… according to the Oslo Accords is officially supposed to be Israel’s peace partner and to prevent terrorism and violence….

At the heart of the PA’s campaign against Israel is the argument that Israel has no right to target terrorists… involved in terrorism against Jews. Instead, Israel should agreeably allow its citizens to be killed.

Mahmoud Abbas and his associates, instead of denouncing the terrorists for indiscriminately firing rockets at Israeli civilians, is actually supporting the terrorists — both financially in a pay-for-slay “jobs program,” as well as verbally. In this regard, the PA is not only abrogating its commitments under the Oslo Accords and international law, but is acting as an enemy of Israel — not a peace partner.

The Palestinian Authority has proven that it cares more about the terrorists than about the civilians they injure and kill.

Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas… described the airstrike that killed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commanders — who had instigated the attacks against Israel — as a “crime” … His complaint, in other words, is that “It all started when he hit me back.”

Abu Rudaineh, however, “forgot” to mention that the Israeli airstrikes had come in response to more than 100 rockets that terrorists had fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel a few days earlier. He also “forgot” to mention that the three commanders belonged to PIJ, a group that rejects Israel’s right to exist and is opposed to any peace process.

The goals of PIJ are: “The liberation of the whole of Palestine and the liquidation of the Israeli entity, and the establishment of Islamic rule on the land of Palestine which guarantees the achievement of justice, freedom, and equality.”

PIJ aims to “inspire and mobilize the masses of the Islamic nation everywhere and urge them to fight the decisive battle with the Israeli entity.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh also joined the chorus of senior Palestinian officials who chose to blame Israel for the fighting rather than the terrorists who had begun the conflict by firing more than 100 rockets at Israeli towns and cities the week before.

Shtayyeh, too, “forgot” to mention that the Israeli operation was directed not at civilians, as the Palestinian operation had been, but specifically against commanders of an Iranian-backed, designated terror group, PIJ.

Abu Rudaineh and Shtayyeh then called on the “international community,” the United Nations and the Biden administration to hold Israel to account as a rogue state in the international arena for being so inconsiderate as to defend itself against the rocket attacks of PIJ and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

It is no surprise that the UN, which has a long record of bias against Israel, would hold an event that calls the establishment of Israel a “catastrophe.”

By hosting Abbas and organizing such an event, the UN is essentially complicit in the Palestinian Authority’s war on Israel.

So is the European Union, which came out against the Israeli military operation that was countering the terrorists in the Gaza Strip, and described Israel’s actions as “intolerable.” Instead of calling on the Palestinian terrorists to stop targeting Israeli civilians, the EU urged the two parties to “exercise maximum restraint.”

The EU actually tried to put a democratic country, Israel, and Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip, on equal footing.

Iran and its Palestinian terror proxies, meanwhile, proclaim that Israel should be destroyed – through a nuclear bomb, or Jihad, or rockets, or other forms of terrorism, such as suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings and car-rammings.

The latest round of fighting shows that the terrorists in the Gaza Strip have not even remotely relinquished their dream of eliminating Israel and killing Jews. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority – Israel’s “peace partners” – are working to achieve the same goal through legal and diplomatic warfare and incitement against Israel.

It is time for the Biden administration and the international community to wake up and see that there is no real difference between PIJ, Hamas, Hezbollah – and the Palestinian Authority. They all share the same aspiration of seeing Israel wiped off the map. They only differ regarding the best means to accomplish that. Iran’s terror militias are convinced this goal can be achieved through terrorism and rockets, while the Biden administration’s friends in the PA believe that with the help of the UN, EU, ICC and other international parties, they can finally exterminate Israel by delegitimizing it through the legal and diplomatic route.

The latest attempt by Iran and its Palestinian terror proxies to kill as many Jews as possible just ended with another “ceasefire” between Israel and the Palestinians that was brokered by Egypt. During the five days of fighting, the Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip, in particular Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), fired more than 1,200 rockets at Israel — a country the size of New Jersey — killing two people and damaging several homes and other buildings.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-at-75-is-threatened-but-strong-america-alliance-oil-mid-east-russia-china-e4bf6321?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

It’s been 75 years since the Jewish community in British Palestine rejected a last-minute plea from the Truman administration and declared independence as the last British forces left the embattled land. It wasn’t the most auspicious moment. One day earlier, the strategically located Gush Etzion bloc of Jewish agricultural settlements fell to Arab assailants following a bitter siege.

Disregarding Truman’s pleas and warnings from Western military leaders that they faced certain defeat, the Jews of Palestine voted for independence. They went on to win the War of Independence, thanks largely to an influx of Soviet-bloc weapons from Czechoslovakia, but 75 years later questions about its future still swirl around the Jewish state.

In recent weeks we’ve seen rocket attacks from Gaza, reports that Russia will deliver advanced fighter jets to Iran, and the readmission of Syria to the Arab League. A few months ago, Israelis were speculating over the likelihood that Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords. Today, they are working to understand the ramifications of the China-brokered Saudi-Iranian thaw.

But the most important question facing Israelis today is the future of their relationship with the U.S. There is nothing written in the stars that guarantees its permanence. For the first 25 years of Israel’s independence, American presidents were more interested in cultivating Arab leaders and blocking the Israeli nuclear program than in aligning with Jerusalem. Only after Richard Nixon concluded that an Israeli defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War would empower the Soviet Union across the Middle East did Washington move toward a strategic relationship.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19645/who-wants-to-destroy-israel

It is the first time in Israel’s short history that a large-scale movement has been launched using undemocratic means to overthrow a democratically elected government.
The new government, in fact, is trying to restore democracy – by reforming Supreme Court practices that were adopted starting in the 1990s, which allow unelected, unaccountable Supreme Court justices to deliver rulings based on “reasonableness” rather than on written law – often meaning, “whatever I think is reasonable”. Israel’s Supreme Court is currently said have “virtually limitless power’: it asserts the right to veto both political appointments and military decisions; it has no mechanism for recourse, and no requirement for “standing” — meaning that the litigant need not be directly affected by the decision, such as having a personal wrong righted. On the contrary, anyone can directly petition the Supreme Court, anytime, about anything. The last provision has opened the floodgates for lawsuits by “concerned” non-governmental organizations dissatisfied with decisions Israel has taken. In addition, sitting Supreme Court justices – not the electorate and not the parliament – have the power to approve or veto any appointment of new justices, leading to a closed “club” in which no one is flustered by dissent.
The Biden Administration, staffed by many of the same people who were in the Obama Administration, has behaved as an enemy of Israel from day one. The Administration quickly restored US funding to the Palestinian Authority without asking it to stop supporting terrorism or even to stop inciting violence. The Biden Administration then opened a U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs and installed, as “special representative for Palestinian affairs”, Hady Amr who has admitted being “inspired by the Palestinian intifada”.
The Biden Administration has, to its credit, during the hundreds of recent missile attacks — 1,235 rockets over five days, launched at a country the size of New Jersey — said that “Israel has the right to protect itself and defend its people from indiscriminate rocket attacks launched by terrorist groups” — yet for the past two years, has done nothing to eliminate Israel’s most serious threat – Iran’s nuclear program – apart from seemingly trying to have Iran not use any nuclear weapons during the current administration’s term.
The Biden Administration has, additionally, considerably eroded America’s influence in the Middle Easy, thereby creating a situation of extreme peril for Israel and other erstwhile US allies in the Gulf. Biden, even during his 2020 presidential campaign, repeatedly vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah”… This rebuff was followed by the Biden Administration’s refusal to promise either that it would stop negotiating with Iran for a deal enabling the mullahs to have unlimited nuclear weapons, and fears that the US would not protect Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies in the Gulf from Iran.
Iran’s mullahs also can see that the United Arab Emirates in 2021, signed a contract with the Chinese company Huawei, now building a 5G network in the Gulf state – thereby making the UAE totally vulnerable to Chinese intelligence penetration. That contract was followed by the cancellation of a $23 billion arms purchase from the United States.
The seemingly unremitting desire of the Biden administration to reach an agreement with the Iranian regime at almost any price and to realign American foreign policy in the Middle East toward a policy led by Iran was evidently what led to Saudi Arabia’s restoration of ties with Iran. Biden’s eagerness to treat Saudi Arabia as “pariah” had turned an ally into a question mark. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime, more expansionist by the day — which the Saudi regime is not — reveals that despite the decidedly unsavory murder of Osama bin Laden’s friend and Muslim Brotherhood acolyte Jamal Khashoggi, the Iranian regime is, by light years, far more dangerous to the stability of the region and beyond, as well as even more hostile to human rights than Saudi Arabia ever was.
Moreover, the strategic cooperation agreement signed in March 2021 between Iran and China has deepened the ties between the mullahs and the Chinese Communist Party, geopolitically and economically, to the detriment of the United States. The means of payment on which they agreed will not be the world’s reserve currency for oil, the US dollar, but instead, China’s yuan.
A few weeks ago, when a key official in Israel’s defense ministry was in Washington to request more American support for Israel in case the Israeli government thinks necessary to attack Iran’s nuclear program, no answer was given.
“The land of Israel and the State of Israel are acquired through many trials and tribulations…. They will not overcome us; we will overcome them”. — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, April 24, 2023.
A terrorist carried out a car-ramming attack at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market a few hours earlier. Netanyahu was talking about terrorists, but his words could be addressed to all enemies of Israel and to all those who want to destroy it.