RUTHFULLY YOURS

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

This week’s newsletter sees Israel valiantly advancing in its war to topple Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and its terror proxies. Meanwhile, Israel’s citizens have been awarded top national and international honors including as “Lions of Zion”, rocket scientists, sports champions, and religious leaders. These achievements are just some of the highlights of Israel’s continuing efforts to produce top innovations that benefit humanity. Michael Ordman

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
What to do with captured weapons? The IDF is examining the possibility of establishing anti-tank units using the huge number of weapons and missiles seized from the Hezbollah terrorist organization, including tens of thousands of Russian Kornet and Iranian Almas anti-tank missiles.
https://www.jns.org/idf-may-form-anti-tank-units-using-captured-hezbollah-materiel/  
 
IDF’s veteran unit. The IDF’s Har Zion 0710 Unit represents a unique phenomenon in modern military history: hundreds of Israelis aged over 45 years old, many decades past their military service, have voluntarily returned to uniform to defend their nation. The unit was spontaneously established overnight after Oct 7 2023.
https://www.jns.org/how-israels-veteran-civilians-returned-to-the-front-with-the-har-zion-unit/
 
Doing good on the Gaza border. For the past year, volunteers from all over the world have been running a 24×7 refreshment station for IDF soldiers entering and leaving the Gaza strip. The Shuva brothers’ refreshment stand has served half a million IDF soldiers. It also stocks all the supplies that soldiers need.
https://video.i24news.tv/en/9e44d596-82e6-4c4c-8a1c-96f84ae49bd5/content/6364563050112
 
Jewish Federations help Israeli nonprofits. (TY Nevet / ADL) Amitim is a pro bono mentoring program, which links former Jewish federation CEOs to the needs of the leadership of nonprofits in Israel and kibbutzim affected by Oct 7. It recognizes that US Jewish retired executives have skills and experience to benefit Israelis.
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/new-initiative-amitim-looks-to-bring-former-federation-ceos-experience-to-israeli-nonprofits/
 
28 Lions of Zion. 28 altruistic individuals and partnering organizations were honored in Gush Etzion at the Ari Fuld Project’s annual “Lion of Zion” awards ceremony, for their tireless support of Israeli soldiers during Israel’s current multifront military campaign. The awards are in memory of Ari Fuld z”l (see here previously).
https://www.jns.org/ari-fuld-project-awards-lion-of-zion-prizes/
 
Another amazing escape. One of many near misses, as a Hezbollah rocket landed between cars on an Israeli highway.  https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-rocket-miraculously-lands-in-between-drivers-on-highway/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Alpha radiation to treat lung cancer. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s Alpha Tau Medical (see here previously) has treated its first patient with recurrent lung cancer using its innovative Alpha DaRT® alpha-radiation cancer therapy. The WHO reports 2.5 million new lung cancer cases annually and the most cancer-related deaths.
https://www.ourcrowd.com/startup-news/alpha-tau-treats-first-patient-with-recurrent-lung-cancer
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05632913
 
US approval for heart repair device. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Pi-Cardia (see here previously) has received US-FDA approval for its ShortCut heart valve decalcification device. ShortCut is used to remove calcium from heart valves, making them more flexible, prior to heart valve replacement (e.g. TAVR or TMVR) procedures.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240928442730/en/Pi-Cardia-Receives-FDA-Market-Clearance-for-ShortCut%E2%84%A2
 
Alternative to heart valve replacement. Israel’s Innoventric has developed Trillium – a device to fix a leak in the tricuspid valve, one of four valves that regulate blood flow through the heart. But instead of replacing the valve, the prosthetic device is inserted into a large vein in a 10-minute procedure under conscious sedation.
https://www.israel21c.org/prosthetic-valve-to-revolutionize-common-heart-condition/ https://innoventric.com/   https://innoventric.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Innoventric-Trillium_01.05.24-1.mp4
https://innoventric.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Echo-video-for-the-website-clinical-evidence-1.mp4
 
HBOT treatment for PTSD. (TY Nevet & UWI) Researchers from Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Center in Beer Yaakov found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can significantly alleviate PTSD symptoms, particularly for patients unresponsive to traditional therapies or medications.
https://tps.co.il/articles/hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-may-be-game-changing-ptsd-treatment-say-researchers/
 
New target for Parkinson’s treatment. Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered a mutation of the TMEM16F protein secretes α-synuclein to enhance the spread of Parkinson’s pathology through nerve cells in the brain. Blocking or modulating TMEM16F activity may reduce α-synuclein and cure Parkinson’s disease.
https://tps.co.il/articles/researchers-identify-key-protein-in-parkinsons-disease-spread/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.14387
 
Brain stabilizer discovered. The brain’s NMDA receptor (NMDAR) is known to be vital for learning and memory. Now Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that it also maintains stable brain function during environment and physiological changes. The discovery may lead to new treatments for brain diseases.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-researchers-identify-key-role-of-nmda-receptors-in-brain-function/
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(24)00735-9
 
An antibody against aging. (TY UWI) Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have uncovered how aging cells evade the immune system. The protein PD-L1 stops the immune system from recognizing and destroying aging (senescent / “zombie”) cells. Antibodies to PD-L1 reduced inflammation and numbers of senescent cells.
https://tps.co.il/articles/zombie-cells-exposed-new-research-could-transform-age-related-therapies/
 
An Israeli genetic database. Psifas is the Israeli Genome project. With a budget of NIS 250 million, it aims to create a genetic database of 100,000 Israel’s citizens. The information collected from patients of the Clalit health company, already provides information that will make it possible to treat life-threatening diseases.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/8l45gkhby
 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-797390

Based on the Torah, the Jewish people and Judaism are defined by two concepts: (1) Following God’s commandments and the belief in one God, ethical monotheism; (2) Establishing a society based on Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. Israeli sovereignty, the basis for its national existence as a Jewish state, the homeland of the Jewish people, is defined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948. It incorporated much of UN Resolution 181, passed in 1947, including the rights of its non-Jewish residents. Following the war in 1948-9, Israel was accepted as a member state of the United Nations.

The result of the war was inconclusive. Israel and the Arab countries that had attacked Israel agreed to a ceasefire, and an armistice was signed based on temporary – de facto, not de jure – “borders.” The area that was conquered by Jordan became known as “the West Bank.” However, local Arab terrorists and those from neighboring countries continued to attack Jews.

Since the beginning of its existence as a state, therefore, Israel was faced with a problem: What to do with Arabs who lived under its jurisdiction and did not accept Israeli sovereignty. Many, if not most, still do not. For them, Israel’s survival and victory in the war of 1948-49 was a nakba (catastrophe) – the essence of the Palestinian narrative, and its ideology, Palestinianism.

As a result of the War of Independence, many Arabs fled to other countries, especially to Jordan. Nearly a million became “refugees,” most of whom were cared for by UNRWA, and about 156, 000 who remained in Israel and became Israeli citizens. In addition, as a result of the war, Israel acquired abandoned Arab villages and property, and areas which had not been assigned to Israel in 1948, especially in the Galilee, the Negev, and western Jerusalem – which Israel declared as its capital – with their Arab populations. Arabs still consider these areas as “disputed,” and they oppose any form of Israeli sovereignty.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/11/israel_is_a_true_american_ally_by_every_metric.html

Americans should be grateful that Israel had the courage and resolve to strike hard against the enemies of civilization. All free world democracies must salute Israel’s initiative when erstwhile allied media and politicians cautioned Jewish state leaders to de-escalate operations and refrain from actions that could lead to a wider war. Sunni Arab countries, especially those on the Arabian Peninsula who are targets for destruction by the Shia regime of revolutionary Iran and its allies, also have reason to be thankful.

While Israel acted resolutely in its own interest by launching crippling blows against Hezbollah’s military assets and political leadership, the beneficent results reverberate around the globe. Israel’s government, aware that Hezbollah was planning an imminent Hamas-style attack against northern Israel (like what took place on 7 October last year), struck first in what could be described as a pre-emptive retaliatory attack. 

Americans particularly owe a debt of gratitude to Israel for the targeted killing of the world’s leading terrorist mastermind, Hassan Nasrallah. The theological and political leader of Hezbollah was responsible for decisions that murdered countless innocents. Hezbollah was directly responsible for killing hundreds of American servicemen in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 by dispatching a suicide bomber via a truck bomb that destroyed their barracks.

It’s to be hoped that US Department of Justice (DOJ) bureaucrats wiill notify their Israeli counterparts of their satisfaction that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also eliminated Hezbollah General Faud Shukr, who was the liaison from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Lebanon-based terrorist group. Skukr was responsible for killing many US soldiers in Iraq and was on the DOJ’s wanted list.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21114/israel-the-way-forward

Fortunately for Israel, former US President Donald J. Trump was just re-elected to serve a second term. Within hours, Hamas indicated that now might be a good time to talk about peace. Qatar, perhaps concerned that its days of double-dealing might be coming to an end, announced it would be “stalling” its role as a mediator between the US and Hamas. The landslide victory of Trump in the US election this week appears finally to be restoring deterrence.

Israel’s society is politically and ideologically split. On one side are Israelis who understandably want their relatives back, and have been hoping for a ceasefire. Sadly, they are probably unaware that Iran, Qatar and Hamas, are loath to relinquish the only bargaining chip they have, and will undoubtedly drag out releasing even one hostage as long as they can.

[A]fter 13 months of futile ceasefire negotiations, many Israelis appear to have trouble realizing that if Hamas and its backers, Iran and Qatar, so wished, the hostages would be home by now.

If the priority of Israeli progressives were to rescue the hostages, they would demand that Hamas release them. “The slogan for freeing the hostages,” wrote British journalist Douglas Murray, “… should never have been ‘Being them home.’ It should be ‘Give them back.’ Now.”

Murray has also noted that for years, the Biden administration has put all its efforts into trying to oust Netanyahu when it would probably have been better off putting all its efforts into ousting the Iranian regime.

Israel’s progressives would also have called on the international community to pressure Iran and Qatar, rather than hector their own prime minister. Sadly, these Israelis, some of them in desperation to see their loved ones again, are playing into the hands of Hamas. Its leaders must be delighted to see a divided Israel turn against itself. Painfully, Israeli activists are doing damage to both their country and the hostages.

Among Israel’s most vocal protestors are prominent Israeli politicians, backed — and some funded — by the Biden administration. The US appears to desire someone more malleable in Israel’s number-one spot: a person, one assumes, willing to do whatever the US dictates.

The Biden administration’s goal appears to be establishment of a terrorist Palestinian state on Israel’s border. In addition, Iran will soon be able to produce nuclear weapons with which to bomb Israel to oblivion. This monumentally destabilizing objective was proposed by the Obama administration in its illegitimate 2015 “Iran nuclear deal,” officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. (JCPOA)…

As American journalist Daniel Greenfield points out: “The appeasement lobby only has one big idea when it comes to Islamic terrorists and any other enemies: 1. Give them land…”

Evidence shows that, unfortunately, this strategy does not work. The failure of the Oslo Accords only emphasizes that fact. The “ceiling” of each offer becomes the “floor” of the next one, as each concession is pocketed in the expectation of more.

Meanwhile, in the USA, President-elect Donald J. Trump is already creating seismic global changes within days, long before his inauguration on January 20, 2025.

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Israel is at war on several fronts- a war against Hezbollah and Hamas and local terrorists and Iran’s proxies. This remarkable nation is also waging a 24/7 war against epidemics, cancer, drought, famine, crime and bigotry as Michael Ordman details below.  rsk

In the 10th Nov 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

At least five news articles featuring Israelis bravely responding to adversity.

A major Israeli medical discovery, trials and a new treatment for cancer.

Israel organizes vaccinations for over a million Gazan children.

9% of Time Magazine’s “Best inventions of 2024” are Israeli.

Israeli innovations are globally preventing accidents and catching criminals.

Thousands of Bedouin Arabs watch Israel’s first state-approved camel race.

Two vital new resources for teaching children about Israeli history.

 POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Standing tall again. (TY Hazel) Nati Ganon was seriously injured by Hamas terrorists at the Nova party on Oct 7 2023. After enduring nearly 400 grueling days of treatments and rehabilitation, Nati stands tall again and able to continue to raise his three children. See him dance with Israeli-Arab Zionist Yoseph Haddad (2nd link).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nova-survivor-who-lost-wife-on-oct-7-goes-home-after-almost-400-days-in-hospital/  https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-7/
 
Proud sisters. (TY Hazel) Despite losing their elder siblings at the hands of Hamas terrorists, Yael Eshel, sister of Sgt Roni Eshel, and Yuval Marciano, sister of Cpl Noa Marciano, have just begun their IDF service on the same day.  Their sisters were serving together on Oct 7 at the IDF’s Nahal Oz base near the Gaza border.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/younger-sisters-of-two-female-soldiers-killed-by-hamas-begin-their-idf-service/
 
From Sderot to the Technion, with nothing. Hila was planning to study at Israel’s Technion Institute on Oct 10, 2023. When Hamas attacked Sderot on Oct. 7, Hila had to evacuate her home, arriving at the Technion without any belongings. The Technion, however, made sure she had everything she needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WfhC77d6Hc
 
Farming under fire. Moshav Liman, just 1.3 miles from Lebanon, had a population of 850 before Oct 7.  Now, some 125 hardened Israelis continue to cultivate their small family farms. They include Kfir and Clarise who lived through bombardments in 1978, and the Lebanon wars of 1982 and 2006. They stayed then, as well.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/fortitude-under-fire-farmers-along-the-northern-border-stay-planted-despite-the-war/
 
Turning shelters into schoolrooms. (TY WIN) Kibbutz Yehiam near the Lebanese border, has converted its bomb shelters and protected rooms into classrooms. Now, over 110 students can locally learn instead of being driven on school buses to schools some half-an-hour away. When safe, children join from outside the kibbutz.
https://tps.co.il/articles/school-under-siege-kibbutz-yehiam-families-innovate-amid-daily-rocket-fire/
 
“Heros of Life”. Israeli emergency NGO United Hatzalah honored Oct 7 volunteers and victims at a “Heroes of Life” Memorial Ceremony in Jerusalem. The ceremony also paid tribute to United Hatzalah’s volunteers who played a pivotal role on Oct 7, and in the ensuing months, transporting wounded to hospitals while under fire.
https://israelrescue.org/en_GB/stories/united-hatzalah-honors-october-7th-volunteers-and-victims-at-heroes-of-life-memorial-ceremony/ 
 
Homeward bound. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Tekuma Administration – the government’s arm for rehabilitating the Gaza periphery – reveals that 87% (50,000 out of 64,000) of Gaza border residents have returned to their homes. 244 projects, totaling $1.7 billion, have been initiated, to rehabilitate the region.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/10/01/87-of-gaza-border-residents-have-returned-home-report-shows/
 
The first Haredi IDF combat brigade. The Tavetz training base in the Jordan Valley will serve as the training ground for the first cohort of ultra-Orthodox soldiers who will form part of a standard infantry brigade called “Hashmonayim”. It is also the first entirely new regular infantry brigade since the 1980s.
https://www.jns.org/idf-launches-first-ultra-orthodox-combat-brigade/
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-827522
 
Spurs fans sing for hostage. 70 fans of UK soccer team Tottenham Hotspur (“Spurs”) sang before their team’s match against Aston Villa, to publicize the plight of one of their own fans, Emily Damari. Emily was abducted by Hamas from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct 7 2023. She holds both British and Israeli citizenship.
https://www.jns.org/tottenham-hotspur-fans-sing-for-hamas-hostage/
 
US Jews support Israeli businesses. Since Oct 7 2023, American Jews have increased their purchases of Israeli Judaica by 134%. The study, conducted by business management students at the Jerusalem College of Technology, demonstrates American Jews’ solidarity with war-impacted Israeli businesses.
https://www.jns.org/study-u-s-jews-bought-134-more-israeli-judaica-since-oct-7/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Another antibody to combat cancer. Following last week’s Israeli cancer breakthrough (see here), now Weizmann Institute researchers have found an antibody (against CD84) that prevents tumors building molecular bridges from suppressing the immune system. Lab tests were successful at treating triple-negative breast cancer.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-antibody-treatment-targets-most-aggressive-breast-cancer/#:
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/burning-cancer%E2%80%99s-bridges
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(24)01271-3#fig1
 
Treatment for Esophageal cancer. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BeiGene has received Israeli Ministry of Health approval for its TEVIMBRA® to treat Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC) after chemotherapy.  It has also gone on sale in the USA.  https://ir.beigene.com/news/beigene-receives-israeli-ministry-of-health-approval-for-tevimbra-for-the-treatment-of-oesophageal-squamous/dc2e4d21-42f4-4545-af69-ba4e09a40194/ 
https://ir.beigene.com/news/beigene-announces-availability-of-tevimbra-in-u-s/1d4b131f-7226-4196-bbac-dc310930b1ad/   https://www.beigene.com/
 
Treatment for knee osteoarthritis. Denmark’s Medicines Agency has approved Allocetra cell therapy from Israel’s Enlivex (see here previously) for Phase II clinical trials on patients with osteoarthritis in the knee. 40% of men and 47% of women develop knee osteoarthritis in their lifetimes. Allocetra also treats Covid and cancer.
https://enlivex.com/investors/news-releases/enlivex-receives-authorization-from-the-danish-medicines-agency-to-initiate-the-phase-ii-stage-of-its-phase-i-ii-trial-of-allocetra-in-patients-with-moderate-to-severe-knee-osteoarthritis/
 
$17 million for autism research. (TY Yanky) Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Prof Haitham Amal (see here previously) is the only non-USA member of a new consortium focused on pioneering autism research. It has just been awarded a research grant of $17 million by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
https://international.huji.ac.il/news/hebrew-university%E2%80%99s-prof-haitham-amal-awarded-major-grant-pioneering-autism
 
Front-line soldier saves 3-year-old. (TY UWI) A three-year-old boy hospitalized in Jerusalem with a severe blood cancer got a new lease on life thanks to the selflessness of Matan Amir, a 21-year-old IDF soldier fighting in Gaza who was identified as a suitable bone marrow donor for the toddler.
https://tps.co.il/articles/gift-of-life-israeli-soldiers-selfless-bone-marrow-donation-saves-three-year-old/
 
Low blood sugar and green Med diet. An international study led by Israel’s Ben-Gurion University scientists showed controlling blood sugar levels is a significant key mechanism linking diet to slower brain aging. The 300-participant study was one of the longest and largest brain MRI trials in the world.
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/sygjvxrzje
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916524007457
 
Nobel prize winners’ Israel connection. The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA. Both men were awarded Israel’s Wolf Prize in 2014. Ruvkun, who is Jewish, won the Dan David Prize, headquartered at Tel Aviv University, in 2011.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/americans-victor-ambros-gary-ruvkun-win-nobel-prize-in-medicine-for-microrna-discovery/

I have always heard the residents of Judea/Samaria described as settlers. I just learned that “settlers” is an inappropriate translation of the word “mitnachalim.” It is Hebrew and is properly translated as “inheritors” in English; not settlers, as it is too often. Translating from one language to another is not easy all the time.

Too often Jewish people, today, are accused of occupying and settling “Muslim lands.” Jews are accused of being settlers; especially in Judea/Samaria. A gross mistranslation of mitnachalim: The Inheritors.

He is ever mindful of His covenant, the promise He gave for a thousand generations. Psalms 105:8

Now, there was a time when “settlers” was a positive word: people who come from one land to another and make a home on the land. At one time we used the word pioneer.  When I was growing up – during the time of the dinosaurs-there were movies and television shows, like Rawhide – my favourite – that extolled the virtues of the men, women and children who got into their covered wagons and made their way West to SETTLE the prairies. They were SETTLERS and they were considered brave.

But today, because of DEI, CRT and Woke “values,” settlers now carries a negative connotation.

Today, there are those who have decided that the meaning of settler is evil- an occupier of another’s land. A victimizer.

Words change meaning – in time (synchronic) and through time (diachronic).

Think of the word “gay.” In the 1920’s gay meant happy. Now it refers to a person who is a homosexual. This is a change of meaning through time. Diachronic.

Now, the word “fag.” Unless the meaning has recently changed in Britain, a fag is a cigarette. In America and Canada it is a derogatory word for homosexual. Same word. Different meaning. Synchronic.

Jews living in Israel, in JUDEA/SAMARIA, Biblical lands, are called settlers; which now means occupiers/victimizers; taken from the improper translation of mitnachalim. Why the mistranslation? A mistake, or an intentional error?

I keep asking how Jews can be settlers in and on the land they have been cultivating for more than 3000 years? Long before Christians or Muslims walked the earth. How did a people who built TWO Temples on the Temple Mount, the second destroyed in 70 CE long, long, long before Islam and the Dome of the Rock, become labeled as settlers, today?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-gaza-famine-hoax-cost-the-life-of-a-us-soldier/

Weeks after the brutal Hamas assault of Oct 7, Cindy McCain who heads the UN World Food Program, falsely claimed that Muslims in Gaza were “literally starving to death as we speak”.

But the only ones who actually died were the Americans delivering food to them.

Next month, McCain contended that “food and water are practically non-existent in Gaza” while CBS News reported the claim by a British NGO that “more than half a million people… ‘face death by starvation.’” In December, the UN WFP claimed 570,000 Muslims were “starving” in Gaza and at risk of “famine”. “It doesn’t get any worse,” the UN WFP’s Arif Hussein argued.

By the end of January, the UN claimed that “this is a population that is starving to death.”

And had been “starving to death” for four months. They had somehow stayed alive for four months even though food and water were “non-existent” but every Hamas terrorist appeared morbidly obese. CNN explained that Gaza Muslims had taken to “eating grass” to survive.

After no food or water for a year and a diet of only grass, they’re somehow all still here.

We were assured in March 2024 that “large-scale famine mortality” would soon begin. It did not. Kamala claimed that “people in Gaza were starving” and there were “families eating leaves”.

A few days later, Biden announced a $320 million floating aid pier to deliver food to Gaza. The pier was completely unnecessary because Israel was delivering plenty of supplies. Hamas was seizing those supplies or demanding a percentage of them and used them to pay its terrorists.

Over 1,000 military personnel were dispatched to build the pier. The United States military also began air dropping supplies into Gaza. Much of it was thrown away by the locals. Meanwhile, a stream of TikTok videos showed laughing Gazans gorging themselves, shopping at markets filled with food and feasting at the end of Ramadan.

By June, even the UN was forced to temporarily admit that it had no evidence of a famine.