By Michael Ordman, VGNI

There has been so much more happening in Israel recently.  A higher number Israeli startups than ever were on display at CES Las Vegas, which handed out more CES awards to Israeli innovators. There was more European funding for Israeli agricultural technology; and another Israeli satellite was successfully launched. In the health arena, Israeli doctors have again been treating patients in Africa; a further 1000 Europeans and Israelis can walk without pain thanks to Israeli knee implants; and a UAE sheikh was more than happy with the medical treatment he received in an Israeli hospital.

Elsewhere, Israel sent another hundred power generators to Ukraine and even more are on their way; more Israeli women are being encouraged to pursue careers in hi-tech; and $2 billion of extra funds were raised for Israel’s zero emissions target.  Finally, additional archaeological discoveries are further evidence of Jewish links to the Land of Israel. I’m sure that’s more than enough for this introduction.

In the 15th Jan 23 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
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By Daniel Greenfield, 14 Jan

The decision by Hamline University to purge a minority art teacher for showing a Shiite painting of Mohammed has traveled from the outskirts of a few blogs, and a student paper of the small private college in St. Paul, to art sites, a PEN condemnation and finally the New York Times.

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Erika Lopez Prater, an adjunct at Hamline, showed a Persian painting of Mohammed to her class. Aram Wedatalla, a president of the Muslim Student Association, objected. The MSA rallied to denounce her, along with its advisor, Nur Mood: the college’s Assistant Director of Social Justice Programs. The Latina professor was dumped and condemned as an Islamophobe. Jaylani Hussein, CAIR-Minnesota’s director came in to hold a session on Islamophobia. The MSA and CAIR have both been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
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By Amir Taheri, GATESTONE  •  January 15, 2023

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

• The visit to Pyongyang was Khamenei’s the Road to Damascus moment. The lesson he learned was simple: Let others idolize you and, if things turn badly, blame those who idolize you. And, if you are in a position of weakness, just appear as a nobody or play village idiot until the tide turns in your favor.
• [W]hen Khamenei was forced to enter center stage last week, it was clear that his usual tactics hadn’t worked.
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by Pete Hoekstra, GATESTONE  •  January 15, 2023

Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele arrives at the High Court in London on July 24, 2020, to attend a defamation trial brought against him by Russian entrepreneur Alexej Gubarev in connection with the “Steele dossier”. (Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

• Just last week it was revealed that the FBI again withheld pertinent information from the American public, for past two months, until after the November 8, 2022 federal election.
• The combination of a politically weaponized Intelligence Community, operating hand-in-hand with organizations that are main gateways for information to millions of Americans, is a serious threat to American democracy and the integrity of our elections.
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T. Belman. This is very odd. I can’t imagine Abdullah or Hamas agreeing to it let alone backing it. This trial balloon would only be acceptable to the Saudis if Mudar had replaced Abdullah as leader and Hamas was banned.

I have spoken to a very knowledgeable source in the intelligence community and he tells me that I have it partially wrong. The Saudis have nothing to do with this plan. This new version comes from certain elements in Abdullah’s office who are trying to avoid his replacement by showing he has softened his approach. But don’t believe it. Abdullah has always kept the Palestinians in Jordan suppressed and he intends to do likewise if he takes over lands to the west of the Jordan river. Under his control they would have fewer rights than they have now.

This plan is not being considered by either Israel or the Saudis.

Bottom line, ignore it.

There are major changes to the original version of the Saudi Plan in a revised version that has not yet been published. Op-ed.

By David Singer, INN    15.1.23

Dry Bones – The 3 godfathersY. Kirschen

The Saudi-based Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine plan (Saudi Plan) – initially published in Al Arabiya News on 8 June 2022 – has been revised in a later document containing amendments that appear to have been made at the request of and agreed to by Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas – the three parties most affected if the Saudi Plan is successfully implemented.

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Dr. Peter McCullough

BREAKING: Dr Peter McCullough shows us that pre-COVID, myocarditis ran about 4 cases per million. Post-vaccine, Myocarditis is now running at 25,000 per million and rising. 

VIDEO

By MARK SLEBODA

Since the openly West-backed Maidan Putsch in 2014, January 1st has been proclaimed a national holiday in Ukraine, celebrating the birthday of the genocidal WW2-era West Ukrainian fascist and antisemite ideologue, terrorist insurgent leader, Nazi collaborator, and Holocaust perpetrator, Stepan Bandera.

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By David Weinberger, AM THINKER

One of the most pervasive “isms” of our time is moral relativism, the idea that there is no standard of right and wrong independent of either our personal beliefs or our societal conventions. But in his book, A Refutation of Moral Relativism. Interviews With an Absolutist  (Ignatius Press), philosopher Peter Kreeft exposes not only the incoherence of this thinking, but where it comes from, and why it remains so seductive.

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M. Diamond. The latent effects of the policies we have followed, both in Canada and the US, are in part:

– we fear covid more than we should relative to its impact due to the campaign of our governments intended to create that outcome.

– we have spent trillions on covid,  the repayment of which will be next to impossible, and the debt payments on which will make it difficult to do any number of things in the future which will leave us lacking in our medical systems,  our educational systems, and our policing and defence.  It’s a zero sum game and we have dramatically overspent on a short term problem (which is becoming a long term reality) at the expense of so many other alternatives.

– the closing of businesses have wiped out many who will never recover.

– the closing of schools has created a whole new class of students, many of whom will never recover to the potential they had.

 This will ultimately weaken our productivity, and lead to a greater need for support for this group of young people who will, I predict, soon have a name….

– at a time when trust in government is needed more than ever, because there is so much to deal with both locally and internationally, trust  has reduced because we were lied to and/or manipulated for so long in the pursuit of some grand solution to the pandemic which was at best, possible, and at worst, illusory, even as we intentionally eliminated the ability of dissenters to share their views.

When you do that, you cannot be following the science because science requires constant testing, disagreement, dissent, debate.  That is its essence.  We have not followed the science, we have reduced its ability to help us and broken trust at the same time.

Getting sick sometimes is the price of returning to normal. Dr. Vinay Prasad thinks it’s more than worth it.

By VINAY PRASAD

For the last few weeks, the media has been filled with stories about what The New York Times has described as our latest “viral onslaught.” It’s been dubbed a “tripledemic”—a combination of Covid-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is being blamed for high rates of illness and an excess of hospitalizations, especially among children.

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Coalition agreement between Likud and Religious Zionism states it will advance the return of thousands of dunams of West Bank land as well as scores of buildings in Hebron to their pre-1948 Jewish owners

By Hagar Shezaf, HAARETZ

Hebron’s Jewish quarter in 2019. Parties are like commanding generals issuing military legislation that allow asset transfers.Credit: HAZEM BADER / AFP

A clause in the coalition agreement between Likud and Religious Zionism says the government will instruct the head of the army’s Central Command to enable assets currently held by the Civil Administration to be transferred to their pre-1948 Jewish owners. This move is expected to facilitate settlement expansion and allow Israel to gain control over Palestinian-leased buildings.

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by Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE  •  January 14, 2023

• The Obama-Biden administration had also kept the US Congress, the American people and US allies in the Middle East in the dark about what it was negotiating with the ruling mullahs of Iran. When Biden was vice president, the Obama administration made multiple secret deals with Iran’s mullahs.
• “[T]he JCPOA was designed as an instrument to break pro-Israel Democrats, who represent what Obama saw as the most powerful of the internal constituencies that might oppose his reordering of the Democratic Party. That is, the real realignment [ostensibly with Iran] isn’t in the Middle East, which America is leaving anyway, but inside Obama’s own party.” — Lee Smith, Tablet, March 10, 2021.

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Hatred of Jews is not only irrational, it is self-destructive, of nations as well as of individuals.

by Paul Johnson, COMMENTARY

The intensification of anti-Semitism in the Arab world over the last years and its reappearance in parts of Europe have occasioned a number of thoughtful reflections on the nature and consequences of this phenomenon, but also some misleading analyses based on doubtful premises. It is widely assumed, for example, that anti-Semitism is a form of racism or ethnic xenophobia. This is a legacy of the post-World War II period, when revelations about the horrifying scope of Hitler’s “final solution” caused widespread revulsion against all manifestations of group hatred. Since then, racism, in whatever guise it appears, has been identified as the evil to be fought.
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By Nisana Darshan-Leitner

On October 12, 2000, at the very start of the Second Intifada, two Israeli reservists were driving to their base near the Ofer Camp when they accidentally made a wrong turn and wound up in the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority.  The soldiers were immediately detained by the Palestinian security services who brought them to the police station in Ramallah. Quickly, the rumor was spread throughout the city that 2 IDF soldiers were being held in the local jail. Hundreds of Arab residents surrounded the police station demanding that the soldiers be turned over to the mob. Instead, the policemen themselves proceeded to brutally beat the 2 Jews to death and then threw the bodies from a second floor window to the crowd, which was chanting for Jewish blood. An infamous photo was snapped of one of the killers waving his bloody hands out the window.
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T. Belman.  This the way to go. Give families the option of after school classes.

JEWISH PRESS

There are four primary arguments in Israeli Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) society as to why they refuse to include the “Liba” or the government’s core curriculum education in their school systems. The core curriculum’s classes include mathematics, computers, science and English, basic subjects that make it easier to join the modern work force.

In no particular order, the first objection is that Haredi society is fundamentally opposed to outsiders, particularly when its government outsiders, deciding and imposing on them what their children will be learning. This opposition has deep historical roots in Jewish society.

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JEWISH PRESS

A survey taken by Direct Polls for Channel 14 and released on Thursday, shows overwhelming public support for most of the judicial reforms proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

Six Year Term Limits for the Supreme Court President and Deputies
Support: 67%
Against: 22%
Undecided: 11%

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T. Belman.  This is the definitive explanation of what Res 242 does. It is a classic. Thankfully it agrees with my understanding of it and adds to it .  I want to stress two things.

• The resolution is not binding because it isn’t a Chap VII resolution and
• the right to have “recognized boundaries” is not curtailed by the preamble.

It does not comment 0n Israel’s legal rights but it does make “secure boundaries” a prerequisite for peace. That’s good.

By Amb. Meir Rosenne,  JCPA

The United Nations Security Council in session, May 23, 2002

UN Security Council Resolution 242 has been the pivotal point of reference in all Arab-Israeli diplomacy since 1967. Every major Arab-Israeli agreement – from the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace through the 1993 Oslo Agreements – refers to Resolution 242. Significantly, Resolution 242 defined, for the first time, international expectations about the extent of any future Israeli withdrawal from the territories the Israel Defense Forces captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. It linked that withdrawal to the achievement of peace between the parties. Finally, it established the basis of Israel’s legal right to defensible borders.

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T. Belman. It is ironic that the anti-Bibi crowd are now appealing to him to restrain Smotrich and Ben Gvir. Not only is this government restoring democracy but it is also ending the era of appeasement whether of the Arabs or of the US and the EU. Let the good times roll.

The left’s hysterical talk about civil war is caused by the fear that their decades-old power grab is being undone. Op-ed.

By Caroline Glick, INN

(JNS) “For years now, Israel has seemed to me like a man sleepwalking toward a cliff. Now we’ve fallen from it.”

So proclaimed author Hillel Halkin in a hysterical requiem for Israel published last week in TheJewish Review of Books.

Halkin’s metaphorical cliff is the right-religious bloc’s electoral victory on Nov. 1, 2022 and the formation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government two weeks ago. Halkin explained to his concerned readers that it isn’t that Israel stopped being a democracy on Nov. 1. Far worse. On that day, Israel lost its soul.

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The Department of Homeland Security has internalized the Palestinian Arab big lie. It is all utter garbage. Op-ed.

By Melanie Phillips  Jan 12, 2023, 

(JNS) An ostensibly minor incident a few days ago has provided devastating evidence of the brainwashed malevolence within the Biden administration towards not just Israel but the Jewish people.

In a ceremony at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm delivered to the Palestinian Authority a 2,700-year-old spoon dating from the Assyrian empire.

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By Jack Phillips, EPOCH TIMES    12.1.23

The Arizona Court of Appeals agreed to expedite consideration of Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s lawsuit alleging that the 2022 election was flawed.

In a brief order, issued on Jan. 9 and made public the next day, the court ordered a reset of “the matter for conference on February 1, 2023,”  and agreed with Lake’s arguments that her challenge should be handled as a “special action petition.” The court date was reportedly scheduled for March.
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