RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19589/some-americans-support-terrorism

[F]ourteen Democratic members of the US Congress have joined the Jihad (holy war) against Israelis by urging the Biden administration to reconsider US military aid to Israel.

The Congressmen’s letter ignores the dramatic increase in terror attacks against Israelis and makes no reference to the scores of innocent civilians murdered over the past year by Palestinian terrorists. The letter further ignores that Israel’s counterterrorism measures, which aim to save the lives of Israelis and Palestinians alike, are a legitimate act of self-defense.

The Israeli measures, including raids on the homes of terrorists and confiscation of weapons and ammunition, are the direct result of a 300% increase in terror attacks over the past year… When there is no terrorism, there is no need for Israel to launch counterterrorism operations.

By stating that the US should halt military aid to Israel, the signatories of the letter signatories of the letter are in fact saying that Israel has no right to defend itself against those who are openly calling for the elimination of Israel and engaged in daily attempts to murder Jews.

When Israel uses weapons, it is with the purpose of combating terrorism and protecting the lives of its people. When Palestinians use weapons, it is always with the aim of murdering Jews.

As far as the Palestinians are concerned, all Israeli Jews are “settlers” living in one big illegitimate settlement, Israel, which needs to be replaced by a 57th Muslim state…

They outspokenly consider construction everywhere in Israel a “settlement project” and all Israeli Jews “settlers.”

Hamas and its patrons in Iran are openly opposed to Jews building homes not only in the West Bank and Jerusalem, but anywhere in Israel. The reason? The mullahs in Tehran — and their proxies in Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah — believe that the entire country of Israel has no right to exist and state that Israel should be eradicated, primarily through Jihad (holy war).

The Iranian regime and its friends want to see no country supporting Israel — not politically, not financially, not militarily. They want to see a weak Israel that they can then rip to shreds, as they have done, and are still doing, to Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

“The U.S. State Department reports that Iran provides some $100 million a year to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” multiple news outlets reported last week.

Iran and its proxy terror groups are already encircling Israel. They are sitting on its southern border, in the Gaza Strip, from where Hamas and PIJ continue to fire rockets regularly at Israel. They are sitting on Israel’s northern border, in Lebanon and Syria, from where Hezbollah also has a strong political and military presence.

The Congressmen’s letter, however, does not make any reference to these existential threats that Israel continues to face from Iran and Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups.

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

The proponents of thinly disguised anti-Semitism, and the slander and defamation of Israel in the media recently had a hey-day with baleful headlines about anti-government protests in Israel. Never mind that behind the doors in government facilities, foreign visitors of every race, color and religion from every continent convened in safety and peaceful purpose. Never mind that Israeli medicine, agronomics, water technology, conservation, and business start-ups enrich the lives of billions throughout the world. Michael Ordman’s exhaustive catalogs detail the foregoing which eludes the polemicists and bigots. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

HBOT is effective for fibromyalgia. Tel Aviv University researchers have found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is more effective than medication in reducing fibromyalgia pain caused by a traumatic head injury. 40% of the HBOT group were cured of fibromyalgia, compared to none receiving standard medication.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282406

Health monitor is a lifesaver. (TY Hazel) Israel’s BioBeat (see here previously) has just completed a study of its wearable chest monitor in use on 521 patients. It reported a 77% success rate for detecting those at high risk of deterioration. This compared with 20% monitored using current alternative methods.

https://nocamels.com/2023/03/wireless-device-monitors-patients-vital-signs/ 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2023.1138647/full

AI emergency system saves more lives. A unique, artificial intelligence-based system is helping paramedics in Israel save lives by transcribing poor-quality emergency phone calls to save precious time. The technology was developed by Israel’s AudioCodes (see here previously) and is now installed at MDA’s 101 dispatch center.

https://www.mdais.org/en/news/230923   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTi3v_AHfdw

https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-735640

US approval for PTSD brain modulator. Israel’s GrayMatters Health (see here previously) has received US FDA clearance to market its Prism system, for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The patient wears Prism’s cap fitted with special electrodes. Software plus an audio-visual interface then helps calm emotions.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/fda-okays-israel-developed-brain-modulation-device-to-treat-ptsd/

Shortening the healing time for dental implants. (TY Israel21c) The implant activation device, Active+ from Israel’s Nova Plasma gives dental implants a 30-sec deep-cleaning cold plasma bath immediately before they go into the patient’s mouth. Clinical results show a 50% improvement in integration and healing time.

https://novaplasma.com/using-cold-plasma-to-improve-the-outcome-of-dental-implants/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s85eOmG-vKY  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34907458/

mRNA vaccine center for Jerusalem. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion has announced that the German company BioNTech intends to open a factory in Jerusalem where mRNA vaccines will be developed and produced. BioNTech partnered Pfizer in developing its mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369031

Grant for autism research. Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Haitham Amal has received a $400k grant from the Philadelphia Eagles Autism Foundation to develop treatments based on his nitric oxide research for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Amal is the first researcher outside the US to be awarded the grant.

https://www.jns.org/wire/hebrew-university-autism-researcher-receives-prestigious-grant-from-the-eagles-autism-foundation/

102-year-old receives pacemaker. Doctors at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya implanted a cardiac pacemaker in Rachel Kafri who was born in Tel Aviv under the British Mandate 102 years ago. Rachel said. “I have been through so much in my life, but I am probably not ready to say goodbye to the world yet.”

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-738807

Is there a doctor on the plane? On a flight from Tel Aviv to Chicago? – of course there is! A pediatric doctor from Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, and a United Hatzalah EMT, treated a 60-year-old man who fainted and fell over. Then they were called to stabilize a woman suffering from dehydration. All in a day’s work!

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369535

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369983

A group of 14 Democratic lawmakers on Thursday urged the Biden administration to undertake a foundational shift in its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict.

Spearheaded by Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the letter, quoted in Haaretz, urges US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “undertake a shift in US policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights. Only by protecting democracy, human rights, and self-determination for all Palestinians and Israelis can we achieve a lasting peace.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, Betty McCollum, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Raul Grijalva, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Delia Ramirez.

The lawmakers are further urging the Biden administration to ensure US taxpayer funds are not supporting “Israeli settlements projects”, and to determine whether US military aid is in violation of the Arms Export Control Act or the so-called “Leahy Law.” The Arms Export and Controls Act stipulates that US weapons are sold only for legitimate self-defense, while the Leahy Law prohibits US funding from being used to equip or train foreign military forces suspected of human rights abuses or war crimes.

“Furthermore, we call on your administration to ensure that all future foreign assistance to Israel, including weapons and equipment, is not used in support of gross violations of human rights, including by strengthening end-use monitoring and financial tracking. We ask that you respond with a detailed plan as to how the administration plans to achieve that goal,” the letter says.

The lawmakers wrote that they are “deeply concerned by Israeli government moves that demonstrate that illegal de facto and de jure annexation of the occupied West Bank is well underway,” stressing that “this Israeli government’s anti-democratic mission to dismantle the rule of law is a threat to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

“We know your administration has met repeatedly with Israeli officials to reiterate US support for ‘equal measures of freedom, dignity, security and prosperity’ for both Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, these good faith entreaties have had no effect,” they note.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-occupation-myth-is-the-engine-of-antisemitic-terror/?utm_source=sendinblue&utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%2004-14-2023&utm_medium=email

Anger at the U.N.’s “Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories” Francesca Albanese for her outrageous slanders of Israel is more than justified. So is frustration and outrage about biased coverage of the Middle East in leading corporate media outlets like CNN and The New York Times of a string of deadly Palestinian terror attacks as well as recent events on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

The never-ending series of egregious comments from Albanese provides plenty of fodder for critics of the United Nations and the international “human rights” community. Similarly, news reports that treat terrorist attacks on Jews with indifference while hyping the shootings of Palestinian terror suspects by the Israel Defense Forces or even attempts to restore order on the Temple Mount after the mosques there were commandeered by rioters into grave violations of human rights are flagged by the vital groups that monitor anti-Israel media bias.

These awful examples of how both international groups and the media misreport and falsely characterize events in Israel are, by themselves, important and deserve vigorous pushback. But such statements and media coverage that might well be termed more a form of disinformation or propaganda than journalism are just the tip of the iceberg that those who care about the campaign against Israel must confront. And, as important, even essential, as it is to call out each and every such instance of lies and prejudice may be, the confluence of so many egregious incidents should serve as a reminder that the problem goes much deeper.

The bile and lies tweeted by Albanese as well as most of the media coverage of what’s been happening on the Temple Mount as well as in attacks, such as the tragic slaying of 48-year-old Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, when Palestinian terrorist fired on their car, is infuriating. But it’s not merely the product of indifference to Jewish suffering and rights or even antisemitism, though all of it can be easily observed in such cases.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-739190

In a 2004 Israel TV interview on their newly published book about the Second Intifada, co-authors Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel recounted the purpose of the joint endeavor and what their research uncovered. Expressing amazement at their findings, show host Meni Pe’er (who died a decade later) pointed in particular to their research on suicide bombings.

“Yes,” said Issacharoff. “In The Seventh War: How We Won and Why We Lost the War with the Palestinians, we tried to examine the thinking of Hamas, not merely that of the Palestinian mainstream.”

To do this, the two Israeli correspondents and commentators on Arab and Middle East affairs spoke to senior Hamas officials. Among these was Sheikh Hassan Yousef.

Yousef, a co-founder and spiritual leader of the terrorist organization, spent several stints in Israeli prisons. Today, he is in charge of the group’s West Bank (Judea and Samaria) operations.

According to Issacharoff, Yousef explained that one of Hamas’s goals in its overall pursuit of the Jewish state’s ultimate destruction had been to foment and enhance internecine Israeli strife. Evidence of a schism on which the organization could build, Yousef told the authors, lay in calls on the part of the Israeli Left for a complete withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and for IDF soldiers and reservists to refuse to serve in those territories. 

It was the latter, above all, he said, that buoyed Hamas to keep up its suicide attacks on Israelis.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19579/jerusalem-holy-sites

[T]ens of thousands of Muslims from Israel and the West Bank were able to attend prayers at the mosque, especially on Fridays, in the first two weeks of Ramadan. That is until a group of extremist Muslims decided to turn the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound into a scene of anarchy and lawlessness, violating the sanctity of the holy site and endangering the lives of the remaining peaceful worshippers who came to the holy site with the sole purpose of praying and not engaging in any acts of violence.

These extremists, some wearing masks, seemingly did not come to pray. They came, on the face of it, with the aim of rioting and causing disorder. They came with stones, fireworks, wood planks and iron rods. That is not what Muslim worshippers usually bring to a mosque. They prevented worshippers from leaving the mosque. Their intention was, to all appearances, to create a violent riot against Jewish visitors and the police. In addition, they desecrated the mosque by smuggling fireworks, clubs and stones into the mosque and barricading themselves inside it using iron rods and furniture among other objects.

When the Israeli police moved to evict the agitators, Israel found itself under attack from a number of countries, as well as many in the Western mainstream media, for “assaulting peaceful worshippers” and sending its troops to “storm” one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Ironically, Israel is being accused of “obstructing” Muslims’ access to the mosque at a time when — thanks to Israel’s hundreds of cost-free coaches that bus Muslims to Jerusalem during Ramadan from all over Israel — a record number of 200,000 worshippers attended the most recent Friday prayer.

These figures were not provided by the Israeli authorities, but by the Jordanian-controlled Islamic Waqf Department, which oversees the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.

The latest tensions began when a few hundred extremists barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque after evening prayers. The instigators claimed that they had decided to spend the night inside the mosque to prevent Jews from “storming” the compound. This claim was totally false: no Jew was planning to set foot inside the mosque.

Jews have, for the past few years, been conducting peaceful outdoor tours of the Temple Mount compound, which is also the holiest site for Jews.

There is no law prohibiting non-Muslims, including Jews, from touring the site. In fact, the Islamic religious authorities have long welcomed non-Muslims as visitors at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

[Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas and other Muslim figures, such as his prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, continue to deny any Jewish religious and historical connection to Jerusalem in particular and Israel in general, despite massive archeological and archival evidence to the contrary. This includes the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus Flavius, and even the Qur’an, which mentions the presence of the Jews and Moses in the “Holy Land” multiple times (eg: 17:104; 2:47-48; 9:30; 2:83; 3:110; 3:199; 7:159; 2:62; 22:40; 5:5; 7:145).

Since Abbas’s false — actually, slanderous – accusation [“The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they (Jews) have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We salute every drop spilled for the sake of Jerusalem.”], dozens of Jews have been murdered in various terror attacks, including stabbings, car-rammings, shootings and bombings, under the pretext of defending the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Jewish “aggression.”

If there is any violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, it comes from Muslims who resort to verbal and physical abuse against the Jewish visitors and police officers accompanying them. The Muslims have even set up groups of men and women called Murabitun (“defenders of the faith”) as part of an effort to harass and intimidate Jews who visit the Temple Mount.

The full responsibility for the latest tensions between Israel and the Palestinians lies solely on the Muslims who hijacked Ramadan, evidently to incite violence and spew hatred against Israel and Jews.

By allowing these violent extremists to barricade themselves inside the mosque, the Islamic Waqf Department is acting against its own instructions. On March 21, the Islamic Waqf Department issued a directive in which it stated that Muslims should not stay overnight at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This was agreed to during the recent Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh summits between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as by Jordan and Egypt….

Those who are desecrating the mosque are the people hiding inside it and attacking police officers with fireworks and rocks. Those who are desecrating the mosque are the people who damaged the interior of the mosque by using fireworks as weapons.

By initiating the latest tensions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the Palestinian extremists are seeking to rally the world against Israel by depicting it as an oppressive state that has no respect for Islamic holy sites. These instigators are hoping to drag Israel into a military confrontation with other Arabs and Muslims, especially in neighboring Syria and Lebanon, from where Palestinians have fired rockets at Israel in the past few days.

These extremists do not hide their affiliation with Hamas and other Iran terror proxies such as Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran’s mullahs say they want to see Israel “wiped off the map.” So do Iran’s proxies in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

The Palestinians who are desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem are inspired and empowered by Iran’s mullahs. The Iranian regime does not care if the mosque is vandalized or burned down by Palestinian terrorists: it knows that many in the international community will continue to blame Israel, and exonerate those who declare Jihad (holy war) on Israel and the Jews.

The mainstream media in the West — who spout misinformation and outright lies about what is really taking place at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — are fully complicit in this naked Jihad to wipe out the Jews.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19575/intelligence-leaks-israel-coup

What the demonstrators are attempting is — despite their virtue-signaling about their devotion to democracy, and venting their fears about Netanyahu and his allies installing a dictatorship — nothing less than an anti-democratic coup of their own.

President Joe Biden is supporting their efforts for reasons of his own, which have to do with Washington’s desire for a weaker Israeli government that won’t make trouble about appeasing Iran.

The truth is that those… who are cheerleading for the protests, are not primarily interested in preserving the unchecked power of the judicial establishment that is essentially anti-democratic. What they want is to overturn the results of the last election, and somehow ensure that the nationalist and religious voters who gave Netanyahu a clear Knesset majority are essentially disenfranchised.

Israel’s liberal establishment fears that the leftist parties that represent its interests can never win another election, and so they have done everything they can to undermine Netanyahu with protests akin to the color revolutions that sought regime change in the former Soviet Union.

Having succeeded in creating chaos, they now have the chutzpah to blame Netanyahu for the dangers they have brought about that are undoubtedly harming Israel’s security as well as sowing dissension with its allies.

Having convinced themselves that the lies about Netanyahu threatening democracy are true, the Israeli left and its foreign enablers may have rendered themselves insensible to the potentially catastrophic repercussions of their efforts.

Israel’s government was doing damage control this past weekend and, for a change, it wasn’t about its losing battle to pass judicial reform, dissension over the surge in Palestinian terrorism or the threat from Iran. Or at least, not directly. Instead, it was put in the unenviable position of having to deny a report published in The New York Times and widely reported elsewhere about leaks from secret Pentagon documents detailing the U.S. intelligence activity.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19574/palestinians-israel-peace-talks

Once a Palestinian leader makes such a serious (and false) allegation against Jews [such as “violent storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque”], he is telling the Arabs and Muslims that the Jews… should therefore be fought against, not welcomed as peace partners.

If you tell your people (again, falsely) that the Israelis are perpetrating “war crimes,” “desecrating mosques” and “stealing land,” what will the Palestinians think of you when they see you sitting with an Israeli? They will denounce you as a “traitor” and call for your death.

By describing the Jews as “colonizers,” [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad] Shtayyeh is seeking to send a message that the Jews have no religious or historical connection to their homeland, Israel.

In the eyes of Shtayyeh and many Palestinians, all Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are “colonizers” and “settlers.” These Palestinians see no difference between a Jew living in a Jewish community in the West Bank and a Jew living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. For them, all Jews are foreigners who have no connection whatsoever to Israel and Jewish holy sites and no right ever to live there. Period.

Palestinian leaders such as Shtayyeh are straightforwardly saying that they see Israel as one big illegal settlement that must be eradicated… [and not] as a place for anyone other than Muslims.

[C]ontrary to the false claim made by Shtayyeh and other Palestinian leaders, the Jews who visit the holy site have never set foot inside the al-Aqsa Mosque.

One of those who have failed to call out the Palestinians for their antisemitism and lies is US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“Palestinians and Israelis alike are experiencing growing insecurity, growing fear in their homes, in their communities, in their places of worship,” Blinken argued.

If the Palestinians are “experiencing growing insecurity,” it is because they are enabling terrorists to operate freely against Israel within their own communities. If the Palestinians want to live in their homes in security and without fear, they could stop terrorists from planning and executing terror attacks against Israel. If the Palestinians want to feel safe in their worship places, they could stop attacking and harassing Jews….

The Israeli army does not send its soldiers to Palestinian cities for fun. The only reason Israeli troops enter Palestinian cities and towns is to arrest terrorists or foil terror attacks that are being planned.

The Israeli security forces are actually forced to launch these counterterrorism operations because the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are not fulfilling their obligations under the terms of their agreements with Israel to prevent and combat terrorism.

Instead, Abbas and the Palestinian leadership continue to glorify terrorists and to reward them and their families financially through the infamous “Pay-for-Slay” program. These are payments for killing Jews – like Murder, Inc.

In a place such as the West Bank that has lived off handouts from Europe, the US, Qatar and Iran, and where the Palestinian Authority never bothered to build any kind of industrial or self-sustaining economic base, paying people to murder Jews has, in a poor region, become a booming jobs program.

Every day, every Jew in Israel literally walks around with a bounty on his or her head. If you are a Jew in Israel, every day is “hunting season.”

In the world of Palestinian leaders, a terrorist is entitled to murder or wound Jews, but when the Jews manage to foil the attack or kill the terrorist, the Jews should be condemned for perpetrating “crimes” and “violating international law.”

What is more bizarre is that Blinken, who did not utter a word to refute the lies coming out of Abbas’s mouth, instead chose to praise the Palestinian leader: “I also appreciate, Mr. President, your consistent and resolute stance against terrorism.”

For the Biden Administration, a Palestinian leader who glorifies terrorists as “heroes and martyrs” and pays their families monthly salaries deserves praise for his “stance against terrorism.” If this US position was not so dangerous, it would be a sad joke.

If the Biden administration wants to understand why Palestinian leaders cannot resume any “peace process” with Israel, Blinken and the State Department would be advised to listen to the anti-Israel statements and lies of Abbas and Shtayyeh. These lies include charges that Israel is committing “war crimes,” “extra-judicial killings,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid.”

As long as Palestinian leaders continue to incite violence against Israel and Jews, these leaders will never return to any negotiating table with Israel.

Naïve Americans and gullible Europeans keep giving these leaders every incentive to continue their program of “Murder, Inc.” by rewarding them with “free” money for terrorism — with no strings attached. Under those terms, who wouldn’t continue killing Jews — or anyone? It is a gold mine.

Finally, these leaders might simply find it more comfortable to perpetuate the drama of the “cause” rather than the anonymous, less-than-heroic tedium of running a state. Unless, of course, that state could entail driving out the Jews.

As the Biden Administration continues to state its commitment to a “two-state negotiated solution” between the Palestinians and Israel, Palestinian leaders are pursuing their campaign to vilify Israel and demonize Jews. This campaign, which is manifest mostly in the rhetoric of the leaders and the Palestinian media, mosques and schools, has made it impossible – not to mention personally dangerous – for any Palestinian leader to seek a negotiated and peaceful settlement with Israel.