RUTHFULLY YOURS

It may be the start of the summer holidays, but the busy pace of Israel’s positive activities remains at the highest level. Israeli scientists and medics have been busy kick-starting the immune system, boosting the body’s repair system, and (yes still) healing Ukrainian refugees. Israelis have been feeding the poor, swimming the Kinneret, schlepping baby formula to the US, training farmers, installing water pumps for the thirsty, and eradicating plagues of locusts. Innovative Israel startups are busy removing CO2 from the atmosphere, powering vehicles efficiently, heating and cooling offices without energy, securing and speeding up construction work, making production smarter, and helping businesses search their data. Israeli trade with Arab states is at unprecedented levels, Israeli technology is making on-line business safer and can help busy airlines and airports get travelers to their destinations quicker. Finally, Israel is busy welcoming numbers of tourists and new immigrants not seen for years.    Michael Ordman

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Rebooting the immune system. Israel’s NeoTX (see here previously) is now conducting a Phase 2 trial of its naptumomab estafenatox (NAP) bacteria-coated, immunotherapy cancer treatment on 30 patients in the US. It is also enhancing an AstraZeneca checkpoint inhibitor. NeoTX has 3 Nobel prizewinners in its team.
https://www.israel21c.org/new-cancer-treatment-fools-the-immune-system-to-attack/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/neotx-announces-successful-first-stage-120000979.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntk8XsxVDi0  https://neotx.com/
 
How we fight fungal infections. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have made a vital discovery in how Candida infections are countered in healthy humans. Until the immune system’s TH17 T-Cell lymphocytes turn up, rare lymphoid cells (Aire-ILC3s) spring into action to hold back the potentially dangerous fungal infection.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/355598  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-022-01247-6
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/curbing-candida-cells-keep-fungal-infections-bay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu7Qj5quVwM
 
T-Time. Dr. Elad Jacoby – Head of cell therapy, Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center talks at Talpiot xmed 2022 about how they re-educate T-cells in the immune system to destroy cancers that used to take the lives of young children. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4oCvOtTgu4
 
Bacteria may help cancer patients. Israel’s Biomica (see here previously) has given 12 cancer patients, who had poor responses to immunotherapy, pills containing bacteria missing from their gut microbiome. In 2020, doctors at Sheba hospital used fecal bacteria to shrink the tumors of three cancer patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-company-to-test-if-fecal-bacteria-pills-boost-cancer-immunotherapy/
 
Smart fabric accelerates repair of nerves. Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute have developed an ultra-thin silicon-based membrane that speeds up the repair of damaged nerves. The material is wrapped around the nerve while the wound is open. When the wound is closed, the material is stimulated using near-infrared light.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-smart-fabric-uses-electricity-to-fast-track-repair-of-nerves/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01249-7
 
Diagnosing diseases in space. Scientists at Tel Aviv University and Israel’s Volcani Institute developed the kit that Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe tested on his mission on the International Space Station. It proved that even under zero gravity, diagnosis known as CRISPR-Cas can identify viruses and bacteria infecting crew members.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-experiment-uses-crispr-cas-to-successfully-diagnose-diseases-in-space/
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-scientists-invent-space-age-diagnosis-method/
 
Warning of patients at risk of hospitalization. Suboptimal polypharmacy is when medication for two or more chromic conditions clash. Israel’s FeelBetter has been deployed by Israel’s Leumit Healthcare and preliminary results show it can identify 70% of elderly patients at risk of hospitalization in the next 3 to 9 months.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-tech-works-to-avert-hospitalizations-by-flagging-problems-with-clashing-meds/   https://www.feelbetter.healthcare/
 
Joint medical research with UAE. Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services HMO and health organizations in the United Arab Emirates have signed several deals to promote joint medical research and tech innovation. They focus on advancing personalized medicine and includes building a genomic research registry for the UAE.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/all-news/article-710960

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18696/palestinian-cause-hard-left

Why does the Palestinian cause get so much attention, when there are much more compelling causes around the world such as those of the Kurds, Uyghurs, and other stateless and oppressed people? There are more demonstrations on university campuses against Israel than against Russia, China, Belarus and Iran. Why?

The answer has little to do with the Palestinians, and everything to do with Israel, as the nation state of the Jewish people. It is a political manifestation of international antisemitism. It is only because the nation accused of oppressing Palestinians is Israel.

It has little to do with the merits and everything to do with antisemitism. It calls itself anti-Zionism, but it is only a cover for anti-Jewish bigotry.

A recent example is the decision of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to boycott parts of Israel, while continuing to sell to countries in which far greater abuses occur. When asked why Ben and Jerry’s limits their boycott only to Israel, its founders admitted they had no idea.

Who is leading the crowd of antisemitic bigots? The movement to single out the nation state of Israel for boycott, known as BDS, was originated by a Palestinian radical named Omar Barghouti, who does not hide the fact that his goal is the destruction of Israel….

Do the Palestinians deserve a state? Yes, but no more so than the Kurds and other stateless people. Why no more so? Because the Palestinians have been offered statehood numerous times and have rejected it.

Palestinians were offered a state on the vast majority of arable land, as part of a United Nations proposed two state solution; the Jews were offered a state on a far smaller area of arable land. The Jews accepted the compromise two state solution. The Arabs rejected it and went to war against the new Jewish state seeking to destroy it. It was this act of unlawful military aggression that resulted in the Palestinian refugee situation, which they call the “Nakba” (“catastrophe”). But it was a self-induced catastrophe. And many current Palestinian leaders and followers fault their predecessors for not accepting the two-state solution offered by the United Nations 75 years ago.

The Palestinians could have had a state in 1948, 1967, 2000-2001, 2005 and 2008. They still preferred no Jewish state to a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. They can have a state now, if they would negotiate a compromise instead of fomenting terrorism.

I wonder how many of those who demonstrate against Israel have any idea of this history.

The anti-Israel claims of the Palestinians, though deeply flawed, have become a central part of hard left ideology, especially among those who adhere to so-called intersectionality.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/human-rights-watch-accuses-palestinian-authority-hugh-fitzgerald/
“Given how grotesquely one-sided Human Rights Watch has been, it was a welcome surprise to find it in late June condemning both Hamas and the PA for their mistreatment of Palestinians.”

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has made quite a name for itself for its incessant and virulent attacks on Israel. Here’s a sample of its many denunciations of the Jewish state:

Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

The Country Page of Israel/Palestine at the website of HRW repeats the same charge of “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” here. 

Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians. For over 54 years, Israel has occupied Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, relying routinely on forcible displacement and excessive force. In the West Bank, authorities have facilitated the transfer of over 700,000 Israeli settlers, a war crime, confiscated vast swaths of Palestinian land, and made it nearly impossible for Palestinians to build in much of the territory without risking demolition. Israel severely restricts the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza, with devastating humanitarian impact.

“Apartheid and persecution” – that’s how HRW sums up the sins of the  “colonial-settler state” of Israel. But at the same time, HRW has always minimized the misdeeds of the Palestinians. It has said nothing about the PA’s Pay-For-Slay program that rewards past, and minimizes future, acts of terrorism. It has said nothing about the Palestinian practice of honoring terrorists by naming schools, streets, squares, and sports competitions after them. It has said nothing about the Palestinian schoolbooks that inculcate violent antisemitism. It has said nothing about the Holocaust minimization and outright denial from PA leaders, beginning with Mahmoud Abbas. It has said nothing about Hamas’ practice in Gaza of hiding weapons inside and near civilian buildings such as schools, hospitals, apartment buildings. It has said nothing about Hamas’ holding two mentally defective Israeli citizens as prisoners.

HRW has repeated every charge, no matter how ludicrous,  against Israel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boycotting-israel-isnt-free-speech-bds-antidiscrimination-unilever-eighth-circuit-aclu-arkansas-times-11657050421?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

June was a terrible month for the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. On June 22, in Arkansas Times v. Waldrip, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals broadly upheld the constitutionality of anti-BDS laws. A week later Unilever, the multinational parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, overruled the boycott of Israel that the ice-cream company announced a year ago, and it gave the Israel-based licensee permanent ownership of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream making in Israel and the West Bank. In a jab at the Vermont subsidiary’s leadership, Unilever noted it “repudiates unequivocally any form of discrimination or intolerance.”

Unilever had come under intense pressure over the boycott from consumers and state governments, many of which divested from it in their pension portfolios. As Gov. Ron DeSantis put it: “As a matter of law and principle, the State of Florida does not tolerate discrimination against . . . the Israeli people.” Florida is one of 35 states that enacted laws barring taxpayer money from being used to contract with or invest in companies that boycott Israel.

These laws are modeled on existing, and constitutionally uncontroversial, antidiscrimination laws that bar states from doing business with firms that boycott gays and other groups. But when the same logic was applied to protect Israelis, progressives denounced the anti-BDS laws as unconstitutional violations of free speech.

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a nationwide litigation campaign against the anti-BDS laws, claiming that the First Amendment protects companies’ right to boycott Israel. The Eighth Circuit held that while a company’s explanation of its boycott may be speech, the boycott itself is conduct. The ACLU says it will fight the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, although its legal arguments go against clear Supreme Court precedent.

Today is Independence Day in the United States, and the 46th anniversary of the Entebbe Rescue which coincided with the American Bicentennial of July 4th, 1976. On June 27, an Air France jet with 248 passengers had been hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine –and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells. At Entebbe, the terrorists freed the hostages who were not Jewish or Israeli. The 12-member Air France crew elected to stay with the remaining 105 Jewish and Israeli hostages. In a dazzling rescue, on July 3 Israel sent four Hercules C-130H cargo planes escorted by Phantom jet fighters on a mission of 2,500 miles from Israel to Uganda and rescued the hostages within an hour after landing. Yonatan Netanyahu, the heroic brother of the Benjamin Netanyahu was the lone Israeli soldier killed that day. The mission was later renamed “Operation Jonathan” in honor of Yonatan Netanyahu.

That day Israel entered the historic archives of epic missions of freedom. Michael Ordman catalogs weekly how Israel is also a major player in the archives of epic research and development which benefits the lives and aspirations of billions of persons throughout the globe. rsk

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

A platform to eliminate all viruses. Hebrew University startup ViroBlock has reported preliminary success of its platform for rapidly generating anti-viral therapies. Its channel blockers inhibit proteins expressed by current and emerging viruses, including COVID-19 and variants, influenza, Zika, West Nile, Hepatitis B and more.

https://www.pharmiweb.com/press-release/2022-06-27/viroblock-a-hebrew-university-startup-announces-preliminary-success-of-its-anti-viral-drug-platform-in-new-study

EU funding for cardiac implants. Israel’s Restore Medical (see here previously) been awarded a €2.5 million grant by the European Innovation Council (EIC). Restore Medical is conducting human trials of its ContraBand implant to treat Congestive heart failure. 1,093 global companies applied for EIC funds; only 74 received them.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rjejifvqq

New skin for old. Scientists at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus and Israel’s Technion Institute reversed the aging of skin cells by grafting aged human skin in lab tests. The skin rejuvenated – even generating new blood vessels and improving age-related biomarkers. It represents a breakthrough for research into aging.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-710319  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CyWiiR6cOc

Wake up and smell the coffee. (TY UWI) After last week’s article about dogs sniffing to detect cancer (see here) this article summarizes many of the Israeli innovations related to scents and odors.

https://www.israel21c.org/why-scent-is-the-next-frontier-for-technology/

Breakthrough prostate cancer therapy. Israel’s Alpha Tau Medical (see here previously) has successfully treated a patient with aggressive prostate cancer using alpha-radiation – injecting a radioactive isotope into the tumor. Alpha DaRT (Diffusing Alpha-emitters Radiation Therapy) destroys a tumor by breaking its DNA.

https://nocamels.com/2022/06/israeli-researchers-use-breakthrough-tech-to-treat-prostate-cancer-for-first-time/

Ready for anything. Israeli emergency medical organization Magen David Adom has established a new center at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, designed to simulate real-world emergencies. 23 senior MDA paramedics recently received training there and there are plans to train 100 more over the next few months.

https://www.jns.org/mda-paramedics-gain-hands-on-experience-in-new-emergency-training-course/ 

Force for good. (TY UWI & I24 News) In Israeli hospitals, the Israel Outpost of the 501st Legion villains of “Star Wars” are actually a force for good, bringing joy to sick children.  They also perform at events to raise money for sick children. Watch them pay a visit to Safra Children’s Hospital in Israel’s Sheba Medical Center.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T3qBWmtrE4

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18680/the-two-state-solution-to-destroy-israel

The vast majority of the Palestinians, however, make it abundantly clear that they do not believe in the “two-state solution” and would rather see Hamas, the Iranian-backed terror group whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel, replace the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

According to the results of the poll, opposition to the concept of the “two-state solution” stands at 69%. Another 75% of respondents also expressed opposition to the idea of a one-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians would live together and enjoy equal rights. – Poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, June 28, 2022

Most Palestinians said [in the poll] that Hamas is the most deserving to represent and lead the Palestinian people.

Hamas’s rising popularity among the Palestinians means that the Palestinian state the Biden administration is seeking to establish next to Israel would soon be ruled by an Islamist group whose covenant states that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as Islam obliterated others before it.”

Hamas leaders have never been anything but clear and consistent about their intention to eliminate Israel and kill Jews.

Hamas and its supporters do not believe in Biden’s “two-state solution or any peace process with Israel. The only solution they want is one that would see Israel and the Jews vanish from this world. Sadly, a majority of the Palestinians (as evidenced by the latest poll) share the ideology of Hamas and want to see even more Jews killed.

The Biden administration needs to understand that, under the current circumstances, advancing the idea of a “two-state solution” is tantamount to advocating bloodshed and violence in the Middle East.

The administration also needs to understand that Abbas, the Palestinian leader it is endeavoring to engage and relying on to make peace, utterly lacks the backing of a majority of his people for any peace plan with Israel.

While the Biden administration continues to talk about its commitment to the “two-state solution,” a majority of the Palestinians are saying that they support the Islamist Hamas terror group and want to see more terrorist attacks against Jews.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-710928

Contrary to what many pundits have been suggesting in their eulogies for Israel’s collapsed government, the short-lived premiership of Naftali Bennett was not a successful experiment. Nor does it deserve accolades for surviving as long as it did.

The reason for this was twofold: a shared desire on the part of the coalition as a whole to prevent former prime minister and opposition leader Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu from remaining in or returning to the top job; and individual Knesset members’ fear of political exile in the event of another election.

Both provided the glue that kept the bloc of ideologically disparate factions in business. Until now, that is.

One thing that can be said of Bennett is that he managed, with a very small number of seats, not only to forge the ill-fated alliance but to reign over it. It was an unprecedented accomplishment that cannot be overstated.

Hopefully, however, it will be the last such foray into mish-mash minority rule. A majority of the public, on whatever side of the spectrum, should determine the general direction of the country.

This is easier said than done, of course, particularly with Israel’s electoral system and range of interest groups. It’s a tall order in any case, given all politicians’ penchant for campaign promises of the “read my lips” variety. You know, the kind that are as false as they ring.

Thus, purists of all sorts wind up disappointed in the officials they elect. Examples abound. Netanyahu, for instance, infuriated supporters who believed, or at least hoped, that he would honor his annexation vow.