RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/biden-delivers/

Seeing the region through the lens of the “Palestinian-Israeli peace process,” President Joe Biden and the U.S. State Department are backing the Palestinian Authority under oppressive octogenarian Mahmoud Abbas—in the 17th year of his four year term as president—as America’s partner.

Abbas canceled the announced Palestinian election scheduled in May, understanding that years of his corruption and heavy hand might actually cause him to lose. Since then, P.A. critic Nizar Banat died in custody after his arrest by P.A. “police,” dozens of activists have been arrested and social-media accounts by those who posted the “wrong thing” keep disappearing. But the administration appears to believe that the P.A. needs only some enticement from the United States and concession from Israel to show its true—if hidden—liberal, Western, political credentials.

So off the administration delivers.

In early April, the administration rolled out a pledge to deliver $75 million to Palestinian areas; plus $40 million for security assistance; $150 million to UNRWA; and $15 million for COVID assistance (one might assume that money will not be delivered, as the P.A. rejected 700,000 vaccine doses from Israel); and $10 million for Palestinian-Israeli people-to-people programs.

OK, you say, but they’re not Hamas. True enough, but a month before the launching of more than 4,000 Hamas rockets, official P.A. media was openly inciting violence. Abbas’s religious affairs adviser told PA-TV viewers, “Islam does not want you to be submissive to others,” and “If you die fighting, you go to paradise; if you kill the enemies, they go to hell.” Did that spark the shooting of three Israeli students, including the murder of 19-year-old Yehuda Guetta?

Images of Palestinians beating Orthodox Jews were posted to the social media site TikTok seeking “likes” and “approvals,” and engendering the name “TikTok Intifada” for the activity; Abbas called to “defend the mosque”—a historic call for violence against Jews in Jerusalem; and the ever-popular song on PA-TV, “I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts. … My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.”

But never mind.

References to Palestinian incitement to violence against Jews and Israelis over the past seven months have been deleted from the State Department’s mandated report to Congress on Palestinian violence.

This week’s newsletter title reflects Israeli work to provide clean water to Africa, America and the River Jordan. But it is even more refreshing to see Israelis continue to produce a torrent of breakthrough medical and scientific developments to save lives and allow future generations to flourish. 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

In the 11th July 21 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include: 
 

Israeli breakthroughs in transplantation and medical device technology.
Israel provides running water to Tanzanians and Native Americans.
Israel’s Technion is Europe’s top institute for Artificial Intelligence.
Israel has begun producing pure water from the Jordan River.
A face-recognition tech startup is Israel’s latest $1 billion company.
Israelis won medals at informatics and acrobatics.
Stunning discoveries revealed during excavations in Jerusalem.

 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Transplant breakthrough. (TY UWI) Researchers at Israel’s Beilinson Hospital have discovered how animal organs can be used in human transplant surgery. The main reason for rejection is the foreign blood vessels that need to be connected to the human body. Coating them with human placenta cells makes a “friendly” interface.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-doctors-develop-pig-human-hybrid-organ-for-transplant-672861
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG8-8z-X3Ck
 
Electrifying the human body. A Tel Aviv University-led international team including Weizmann Institute researchers have developed a nano-film that can generate electricity from any body movement. The non-toxic material could power tiny pacemakers with no need for batteries. It could also power non-medical devices.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-nanotech-may-use-bodys-energy-to-generate-power-for-pacemakers-and-more/   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22895-6
 
Safer keyhole hysterectomies. Laparoscopic (keyhole) removal of the uterus risks spreading possibly cancerous tissue, to other parts of the body. But the LapBox system from Israel’s Ark Surgical ensures secure organ retrieval.  
https://ark-surgical.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxS5hzcA2GI
 
Not to be sniffed at. Israel’s NanoVation (see here previously) has been awarded a 5 million Euro grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) on top of the 2.5 million Euro grant it received last year from Europe’s Horizon 2020 program. It will accelerate the development of NanoVation’s high accuracy respiratory monitor.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3911736,00.html
 
Affordable US healthcare. (TY UWI) Israel’s TailorMed (see here previously) helps financially at-risk patients access resources in the US such as co-pay assistance, replacement medicine programs, government subsidies, community funds, state or disease-specific foundations, and programs that help with living expenses.
https://www.israel21c.org/an-israeli-technology-helping-americans-afford-healthcare/  https://tailormed.co/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrEsgpNynU
 
Israel exchanges vaccines with South Korea. South Korea welcomed from Israel 700,000 of the coronavirus vaccines that the Palestinian Authority rejected. Israel will now receive additional Pfizer vaccines later in the year, possibly to use as immunity boosters for vulnerable citizens. Meanwhile serious infections are still low.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-palestinians-reject-deal-israel-to-send-700000-vaccines-to-south-korea/
https://worldisraelnews.com/pfizer-vaccine-stems-tide-on-hospitalization-as-delta-variant-surges/
https://www.jns.org/israel-and-south-korea-sign-vaccine-pact/
 
Program to address mental health. A poignant article about the founding of the Israeli branch of the organization Mental Health First Aid (MHFA). The first running of MHFA’s Israel Youth Course provided 17 participants with the skills to become certified mental-health first-responders and help teens in crisis.
https://www.jns.org/loss-becomes-life-saver-new-program-in-israel-addresses-mental-health-head-on/
 
Monitoring care for the vulnerable. A detailed review of Israel’s Sensi.ai (see here previously) – the AI monitor that aims to protect the elderly from inappropriate, negligent care or abuse.
https://www.israel21c.org/an-ai-monitor-that-aims-to-take-care-of-our-elderly-relatives/
 
Better connected care. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BioT has developed a cloud-based platform for medical device manufacturers, that instantly connects patients with caregivers to ensure a seamless continuum of care. Secure, private, promotes patient adherence, compliant with international regulations and allows customization.
https://www.biot-med.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENx-FTa2ubc

https://bit.ly/3yCv4uC

Why is Arab demography Westernizing?
 
In defiance of Israel’s critics and conventional wisdom, the highest-ever Arab population growth rate in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) occurred during Israel’s full control of the area (1967-1992). 
 
Thus, from the end of 1967 (586,000 people) until the end of 1992 (1,050,000 people), the Arab population of Judea and Samaria expanded by 79%, compared to a mere 0.9% growth during the 1950-1967 Jordanian rule.
 
The unprecedented Arab population growth rate was the outcome of the unprecedented Israeli development of health, medical, transportation, education and employment infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, following the stagnation during the Jordanian occupation of the area. In addition, Israel offered employment opportunities, in its pre-1967 core, to Judea and Samaria Arabs, who preferred working in Israel to the far away Arab Gulf states, West Africa or Latin America.
 
As a result of the enhanced infrastructure (especially health and medical), Arab infant mortality was drastically reduced – and life expectancy surged – almost to the Israeli level. Furthermore, emigration was substantially curtailed due to new opportunities of employment and higher education.
 
Hence, while net-emigration during the 17 years of Jordan’s control (1950-1967) was 28,000 annually, it subsided to 7,000 annually during the 25 years of Israel’s full-control (1967-1992).
 
The exceptionally high Arab population growth rate, during Israel’s full-control of Judea and Samaria, was highlighted by the 170% growth of the 25-34 age group, which is the bulk of emigration. That they stayed attested to the unprecedent development of employment opportunities for Arabs by Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-colombian-telenovela-star-now-an-orthodox-jew-in-israel/

Sarah Mintz, who was born Maritza Rodríguez, was a hugely famous TV personality who gave up her career to move to the Jewish state and live a religious lifestyle.

A Colombian telenovela star who converted from Catholicism to Judaism before getting married is now living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel.

Sarah Mintz, who was born Maritza Rodríguez, married her husband, the Emmy Award-winning Mexican TV producer Joshua Mintz, in 2005. In 2014 she gave birth to twin boys, Akiva and Yehuda. And in April of this year, the family relocated to Jerusalem after years of moving toward religious observance.

“For more than 25 years I had a career as a TV host, actress, model, in the theater on the red carpets — what didn’t I do,” Mintz told Channel 13 news in a recent interview. “But none of it compares to what I have today.”

Mintz, who has 1.6 million followers on Instagram, now describes herself in her bio as a “Jewish Orthodox Fashion & Lifestyle Influencer.” The former actress, who now wears a wig and full-coverage clothing, posts regularly about modest fashion and her love for Judaism and Israel.

https://jewishlink.news/features/44860-is-israel-a-colonial-state

The Arab success in framing the Palestinian Arab/Israeli conflict by making Israel the aggressor, has forced Israel to counter the fabrications, defend her actions and even justify her own raison d’être. Historian Joel Fishman calls this manipulation of language an “inversion of truth and reality … an assault on empirical and rational thought, the foundations of modern culture.” There is a pressing need to debunk the myths that have become such an integral element in the media war against Israel and to discredit those who disseminate them. One of the most ubiquitous lies is that Zionists are a “tool of imperialism.”

The San Remo Conference

At the San Remo Conference in San Remo, Italy, in April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers—Britain, France, Italy and Japan—met to define the precise boundaries of the lands they had conquered at the end of World War I. As part of a peace agreement, Turkey yielded jurisdiction over the land it had ruled from 1517 to 1917, including the Holy Land.

Israel and two dozen other countries were created from the states of the former Ottoman Caliphate. For Christians, even those who spoke Arabic, the Holy Land was “Palestine,” which, as Allen Hertz (formerly senior adviser in the Privy Council Office serving Canada’s Prime Minister and the federal cabinet) points out, was “for centuries nothing more than an historical reference, i.e., a fond memory of the early 7th century CE, when Palestine was still a province of the Roman-Byzantine Empire, where Christianity was then the official faith.”

It is important to note that the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration only state that the “civil and religious” rights of the inhabitants of Palestine are to be protected. There is no mention of the national rights of the Arab people (or, for that matter, any other people).

Palestine: Never a Separate Country

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/president-isaac-herzogs-grand-entrance-opinion-673280

It wasn’t surprising when Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy asserted on Wednesday that Israel’s societal discord was worse than the Iranian threat. Nor was the fact that he made the claim during the swearing-in ceremony of Isaac Herzog as the country’s 11th president.

It has become par for the so-called “Center-Left” to bemoan the condition of the country in this fashion. Invoking the terrorist regime in Tehran when talking about internal strife in the Jewish state that it vows to wipe off the map has a twofold purpose.

One is to accuse the Right, led by former prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, of causing the political rift that’s supposedly chipping away at Israeli democracy. The other is to minimize the real and present danger posed by the Islamic Republic and its proxies – or at least to imply that Netanyahu has been exaggerating it for decades in order to keep himself in power.

During most of his seven-year tenure as president, Reuven Rivlin honed the art of expressing this view through the use of flowery language to issue heartfelt warnings about the soul of the nation.

It’s a neat trick to admonish the public, while simultaneously professing to love and serve all of its sectors, regardless of political affiliation or ethnic background. It’s the president’s job, after all, to remain above the fray that besets Knesset debates and committee meetings. And Rivlin pretended to perform with aplomb this almost impossible feat in a country filled with a “stiff-necked people,” about whom it is quipped, “Two Jews, three opinions.”

But he hasn’t always been delicate when voicing his criticism. At the opening of the Knesset’s winter session in October, for instance, he announced, “It appears to me as if we have lost the moral compass that was with us from the state’s independence until today – the compass of fundamental principles and values that we are committed to uphold.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17533/palestinian-leaders-inciting-violence

Less than three hours after Banat, 42, was taken into custody, the PA announced that he had “died after his health deteriorated during the arrest.”

Banat’s family has called for a neutral international committee to investigate….

The Palestinian government, which is responsible for the killing of Banat and assaults on journalists, political activists, and social media users, is now supposedly trying to beautify its image by joining a UN treaty against torture.

If the PA were really serious about human rights, it would stop arresting, torturing, harassing and intimidating its critics and political rivals. The PA talk about joining the anti-torture treaty is solely aimed at deceiving the international community into believing that Abbas and his government actually care about reforms and human rights.

Senior Fatah official Ahmed Bahar said that any Palestinian who protests against the Palestinian leadership, and not Israel, is a “traitor.”

This is the same Palestinian leadership that has told the new US administration that it is keen on resuming the peace process with Israel. While Abbas and senior Palestinian officials are talking about the resumption of the peace process with Israel, they are at the same time urging their people to forget about the killing of the anti-corruption activist and continual attacks on their own citizens, and instead engage in violent confrontations with Israelis.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), facing growing criticism over the death of Palestinian anti-corruption political activist Nizar Banat, is trying to redirect the anger on the Palestinian street toward Israel.

Although Israel had nothing to do with the brutal killing of Banat, steering anger toward it is an old tactic used by Palestinian leaders for many years; whenever your people are angry with your corruption and repressive measures, you tell them that it is all Israel’s fault.

Banat was killed on June 24, shortly after more than twenty Palestinian security officers raided the home where he was staying in the West Bank city of Hebron. Banat’s family said that even before taking him into custody, the officers beat him with metal clubs and rifle butts.

Less than three hours after Banat, 42, was taken into custody, the PA announced that he had “died after his health deteriorated during the arrest.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/palestinian-analyst-bassem-eid-invites-squad-visit-hugh-fitzgerald/

Bassem Eid is a Palestinian analyst and human-rights campaigner who chooses to live in Jerusalem, under Israeli rule, rather than in those parts of the West Bank where Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority hold sway. He’s not fond either of the PA, or of Hamas, and he’s horrified that those claiming to champion the Palestinians fail to realize how cruelly treated they are by their own corrupt leaders. Bassem Eid’s scolding of the Squad — Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Pressley — is here: “Palestinian Activist: It’s Time Ilhan Omar and ‘The Squad’ Learned the Truth About Israel and Hamas,” by Bassem Eid, Algemeiner, July 1, 2021:

US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Tuesday, and was asked by host Jake Tapper about her long record of virulently anti-Israel comments (which included her comparison earlier this month of Israel to Hamas) and why some of her Jewish Congressional colleagues had called her out for again issuing antisemitic tropes….

“I’ve welcomed any time my colleagues asked to have a conversation to learn from them [and] for them to learn from me,” she said. “I think it’s really important for these members to realize that they haven’t been partners in justice.”

Bassem Eid had ready his reply:

I’m a Palestinian who grew up in a UNWRA refugee camp outside of Jerusalem, and have been a human rights activist all my life. Let me say this as directly as I can: Rep. Omar does not know what she is talking about….

Politicians like Omar, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spend a considerable amount of time attacking Israel for the supposed harm it inflicts on Palestinians.

But if they truly care about the well-being of Palestinians, they ought to focus their attention elsewhere. These days, the vast majority of suffering Palestinians experience is the direct result of the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and the influence of the terrorist group Hamas.

Corruption affects every aspect of life for Palestinians. It cripples our economy, which in turn makes government jobs among the most highly prized. However, those jobs are awarded based on connections rather than qualifications, which perpetuates the cycle of corruption. No announcements are posted for new government jobs. This lack of transparency is pervasive throughout the West Bank and Gaza.