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ISRAEL

Israeli benefits to the US exceed US foreign aid to Israel Yoram Ettinger Video

https://bit.ly/3IzbK7q

*The US does not extend foreign aid to Israel. Rather, the US makes an annual investment in Israel, which yields to the American taxpayer an annual R-O-I (Return-On-Investment) of several hundred percent.

*Israel serves as the battle-tested, cost-effective laboratory of the US defense and aerospace industries and the US armed forces.

*Over 200 US high tech giants have established research and development centers in Israel, leveraging Israel’s brainpower.

*The US would have to establish five CIAs in order to procure the intelligence provided by Israel.

*Israel is the largest US aircraft carrier, which does not require American soldiers on board, sparing the US $15bn annually.
 

Europe’s Palestinian blind spot: Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-712133

Nine European countries declared on Tuesday that they would continue backing the Palestinian NGOs designated by Israel last year as terrorist organizations. In a joint statement, the foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden argued that Israel hadn’t provided “substantial information… that would justify reviewing [their] policy” towards the “civil society” groups in question.

Referring to the area in which the said organizations operate as the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) – rather than the PA (Palestinian Authority) – these EU members said that “should evidence be made available to the contrary, we would act accordingly.”

This was after professing to take “accusations of terrorism or links to terrorist groups… with the utmost seriousness.” All well and good, if one’s definition of the deadly phenomenon is open to interpretation.

“A free and strong civil society is indispensable for promoting democratic values and for the two-state solution,” the countries concluded, to give grounds for their continuing to fund the NGOs on Israel’s list of outlaws. This sentence alone is proof of Western Europe’s willful blindness when it comes to all things Palestinian.

In the first place, there is nothing “free” about the PA, which is controlled by corrupt and evil leaders. Secondly, no “democratic values” are promoted by the honchos in Gaza and Ramallah. Nor do the rulers of either push for a “two-state solution.”

FROM A SAUDI MAGAZINE — “Today, the IDF represents the whole nation, ‘the people’s army,’ in which Israeli Jews, Druze, Muslims, Arabs, Bedouins and Christians all are brothers in arms.” — | Majalla

DPS Note: Thanks to Alex S we have the English language version of the Saudi magazine which had that picture of the Israeli Arab IDF soldiers on the cover.

https://eng.majalla.com/node/237956/politicsexclusive-idf-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98our-mission-enlist-many-israeli-arabs-we-can%E2%80%99

By Suzan Quitaz 

08 July , 2022

It is early morning in the Negev desert, a battalion of soldiers crawls across the desert sand with assault rifles cocked. It’s a routine military exercise, but these are no ordinary combatants – they are Arabs who have voluntarily chosen to fight and even sacrifice their lives in order to protect the State of Israel. These young men, and some women too, are proud to be part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). One of these young men is sergeant Emad, who proudly says “It’s an honor, to hold in one arm the assault rifle and on the other arm the holy Koran, to defend my homeland, Israel”

There is a massive misconception in the mainstream media about the Israeli Army. Most people believe it’s predominately Jewish, and it was at its early inception. When Israel’s independence was declared, there were a number of armed Jewish defense organizations like the Haganah, Palmach, Lehi and Irgun. Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, decided to establish a single, and unified armed force loyal to the government of the State of Israel: The Israel Defense Forces was created on 26 of May 1948.

The IDF is unique amongst the militaries of the world due to its being a conscript army. Since its formation, mandatory military draft applies to both Jewish men and women. Today, it is one of the largest and most influential institutions in Israeli society due to its influence on the country’s economy, culture, and political scene. But one noticeable change that should not be overlooked, is the IDF has changed greatly in the decades since it was born. Today, the IDF represents the whole nation, ‘the people’s army,’ in which Israeli Jews, Druze, Muslims, Arabs, Bedouins and Christians all are brothers in arms.

‘Anonymous’ U.S. leaks divulging Israel’s secrets to Iran By Bob Unruh

https://thejewishvoice.com/2022/07/anonymous-u-s-leaks-divulging-israels-secrets-to-iran/

Someone in the Biden administration may be “leaking” details about Israel’s covert operations in order to try to persuade Iranian leaders to return to the failed Iran nuclear deal created – at a cost of billions of dollars – by Barack Obama.

President Donald Trump withdrew America from the deal, which purported to prevent the rogue regime in Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons but actually only delayed that, when he determined there was no benefit to the United States. Joe Biden has been trying to resurrect it.

Now Just the News is reporting just as Biden is preparing to travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia next week, that “anonymous U.S. officials” are “leaking information to the media details about alleged covert Israeli operations against Iran, from targeted killings to explosions at nuclear sites.”

Those leaks could, in fact, generate a number of complications, from retaliation by Iran to failed efforts to take out Iran’s threats.

“It’s a sign of extraordinary incompetence and unprofessionalism from Biden and his foreign policy team,” Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst who also served as a senior staffer on both the House Intelligence Committee and the National Security Council, told Just the News.

“It’s outrageous they would leak this kind of information.”

The “anonymous” reports have included those made recently to CNN about Israel increasing its covert attacks in Iran, the report said.

Why Arabs Are Fed up With the Palestinians by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18694/arabs-fed-up-with-palestinians

The Palestinians can only blame themselves for antagonizing their Arab brothers and consequently losing the Arab money. The Palestinians have been spitting in the face of the Arab countries, while at the same time expecting these countries to continue funding them.

The Arabs are clearly not as naïve as the Americans and Europeans, who are continuing to pour millions of dollars annually on the Palestinians without conditions and without demanding accountability.

Had the Palestinians welcomed the many peace accords between Israel and the Arab states instead of condemning them and bad-mouthing the Arab leaders, they would have been in a much better situation today. They would have continued to receive financial aid from the Arabs and been able to use this money to build a better future for their children

The Arab countries have more urgent issues to deal with than the corrupt, thankless Palestinian leaders do. You can start with the welfare of their own people. The Palestinian leadership, by contrast, is happy to fail its people by indoctrinating generation after generation with bloodlust for Jews. When Palestinian society finds itself left in the global dust of progress, it can thank its leaders for bringing them to that sorry pass.

The Palestinians are disappointed: their Arab brothers have stopped providing them with financial aid. The truth is that most of the Arab countries long ago turned their backs on the Palestinians. They can only blame themselves for ruining their relations with the rest of the Arab world.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL

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

Why is the Flawed Palestinian Cause So Prominent on the Hard Left? by Alan M. Dershowitz

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.

BDS at Harvard The university’s treatment of Israel raises questions about the quality of its education. eye on the news BDS at Harvard The university’s treatment of Israel raises questions about the quality of its education. J. J. Kimche Angelique Talmor

https://www.city-journal.org/bds-at-harvard

Harvard University provides its students with unparalleled knowledge, skills, and experiences. Yet, as we Jewish students have witnessed, the routine vilification of the State of Israel—both inside and outside the classroom—indicates that something in the contemporary Harvard education has gone seriously awry. In the latest example of this trend, the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson endorsed the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) the Jewish state in an April 29 editorial. BDS represents the economic arm of a global effort—spearheaded militarily by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran—to destroy the Jewish state.

That a majority of the Crimson’s 87-member editorial board believes this movement to be part of the global struggle for social justice has significance both for Harvard and American society more broadly. The hostility toward Israel that has permeated our campus—which often involves the endorsement of anti-Semitic attitudes, assumptions, and activities—is symptomatic of larger trends: a retreat from robust critical thinking and a surrender to the most hysterical, least rigorous elements of campus activism. Such trends at Harvard are regrettable not merely because BDS is fundamentally anti-Semitic but also because its advocacy rests upon several falsehoods. The most pernicious is the idea that Jews don’t belong in Israel, that their presence constitutes an act of colonialism against the native Palestinian population. Such a position betrays an often-contrived ignorance of the millennia-long connection between the land of Israel and the Jewish people. It is also a denial of the right of self-defense for history’s most persecuted minority.

Yet this view has become de rigueur in a contemporary Harvard education. The Chan School of Public Health hosts courses such as “The Settler Colonial Determinants of Health,” which focuses on demonstrating how Israel’s “settler colonial” society undermines the health of “indigenous people.” Harvard Divinity School’s program of Religion and Public Life has hosted a year-long series of anti-Israel seminars, platforming numerous speakers who advocate for the “decolonization” and even the “de-Judaisation” of Israel. It is hard to imagine that any other national entity would be subject to seminar after seminar informing them that their own national aspirations are uniquely illegitimate.

This makes Harvard less welcoming for Jewish students. Those who wish to enter the classes of Amos Yadlin, a retired Israeli general and politician, at Harvard Kennedy School have had to walk through a gauntlet of protesters accusing them of complicity in genocide. Jewish students have had to walk next to the “apartheid wall” constructed in Harvard Yard during Passover, which employs Holocaust imagery to depict Israel’s behavior toward Palestinians and declares that “Zionism = Racism.” Inside many classrooms, Jewish students are too intimidated to speak out against the new intellectual and social orthodoxy that deems Israel to be the world’s worst human-rights violator. Having witnessed this process repeat itself across the university, we can’t avoid the suspicion that such hatred of the world’s largest Jewish collective is a smokescreen for something darker.

Human Rights Watch Accuses Palestinian Authority and Hamas of Torture Having made one “fair and balanced” condemnation, will the HRW now go back to what it loves to do best? Hugh Fitzgerald

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.

ZIONIST UNDERGROUND POET COMES ALIVE IN NEW BOOK BY MOSHE PHILLIPS

https://www.israel365news.com/271107/zionist-underground-poet-comes-alive-in-new-book-opinion/

It’s not too often that the release of a new book of poems that are over 80 years old can be seen as a transformative moment in the American Jewish community. It can be argued that this happened in June. The Complete and Translated Poetic Works of Avraham Stern published by Yishai Edberg is the first book of English translations of history’s key Zionist revolutionary.

For decades Israel’s left-leaning academic establishment, as well as Jewish educators in the United States, successfully fought to minimize the impact the Stern’s LEHI group, and the Irgun underground Stern had originally fought in, had on London’s decision to end the British Mandate. It’s only in the last 20 years or so that English speaking readers have been able to really learn the details about LEHI’s story.

Avraham Stern (Yair)  was the founder and leader of the Stern Group (maligned by the British as the Stern Gang). After Stern’s 1942 assassination by British detectives In Tel Aviv his soldiers later formed the LEHI (Fighters For the Freedom of Israel.)

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was a member of the LEHI’s three man high command after Stern’s assassination. In 1998 Stern wrote in Haaretz about Stern stating:

“Those who revere his memory know a great deal about Yair Avraham Stern, who in the 1940s established the underground LEHI movement to fight against the British regime in Palestine. Yair –as his friends knew him– believed that only the expulsion of the British from the Land of Israel would enable the Jewish People to establish an independent Jewish state, and he foresaw that this goal could only be achieved by force. However, his admirers knew little about the “other” Yair: Yair the poet.

Edberg’s translation brings Stern’s distinctive poetic voice to English. No easy task.