Until US election day, that
is.
I know some of my readers may be
awaiting the megastorm Sandy and others may be into it already. I wish all
of you an easy time, without personal injury or damage to property and
with uninterrupted electrical service. You'll catch this when you
can.
In the meantime, I want to begin
by sharing a piece of mine that just went up on Frontpage Magazine.
It is election-oriented. Former head of Mossad, Ephraim Halevy wrote a
strange piece in the NYTimes, attempting to show that Obama is good for
Israel by demonstrating that Republicans are not. This line of thinking
fails abysmally. In my article, I comment on his approach, and
offer facts demonstrating that, in fact, Obama is the worst of
presidents for Israel.
Please, read it and share it:
~~~~~~~~~~
I think my closing paragraph is particularly
noteworthy, as it has garnered little attention:
"Who would have imagined, four years ago, that President
Obama would establish the Global Counterterrorism Forum in 2011, and then, in
June of this year, actively block participation by Israel – the world’s
greatest expert on terrorism – when the Forum had its first meeting in
Istanbul?"
This fact alone serves well in making the case that the
president is not a friend of Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
My Frontpage piece is a response to a NYTimes
op-ed, and here I want to mention something else that came out of the
Times recently.
During the recent barrage of rockets launched at southern
Israel (and I'll get to that momentarily), an Israeli international lawyer
and journalist, Arsen Ostrovsky, wrote a piece in the Huffington
Post entitled, "My Country is Under Attack. Do You Care?" in which he
expressed his outrage at the response of the world to what was
happening.
It's an excellent piece and I recommend it:
~~~~~~~~~~
Ostrovsky wrote that he was infuriated, among other things,
by the fact that:
"newspapers like the New York Times, lead their stories
about the rocket attacks with such headlines as "Four Palestinian Militants
Killed in Israeli Airstrikes," and not "Palestinian Terrorists Rain Down Over 80
Rockets against one million Israelis."
Well, that set me back. I checked -- Ostrovsky's
piece provided a link -- and sure enough, the Times article
on terrorists launching rockets at innocent Israelis had been provided
with the headline precisely as he described. And there's more.
The accompanying photo, right under the article, showed Palestinian Arabs
mourning because of relatives (who most assuredly were not innocents) killed by
Israel, rather than Israelis dealing with the rocket attacks.
The bias here is breathtaking. Nothing, but nothing
reported by the Times with regard to Israel should be accepted at face
value. While the editors of this vaunted newspaper ought hang their heads
in shame.
~~~~~~~~~~
As to those rockets. Yesterday, three Grad
katyusha rockets landed on the outskirts of Beersheva, prompting the mayor
to close schools. Today at least 18 rockets have been launched from Gaza.
The military wing of Hamas continues to claim credit, saying this is in response
to the "continuous Zionist bombing and terrorizing of peaceful
citizens."
~~~~~~~~~~
I do not intend to offer details of the political goings-on
here pre-election. It would spin the heads of too many readers. Hey!
It spins my head, but I stick with it. There are battles over the
formations of party lists, questions of mergers, people leaving one party to
join another, and more.
But I do report that the merger of Likud and Yisrael
Beitenu is now official, having been approved by the Likud Central
Committee.
This merger, Netanyahu has noted, is not a merger of the
parties, but of their lists. There will still be two separate factions in
the Knesset.
There were Likud Knesset members who were discontented
with the prospect of a shared list, at least in part because it may threaten
their places on that list -- which now has to be shared with members of Yisrael
Beitenu. (Names on the list will be in proportion to the current strength
of each party -- roughly two members of Likud for every member of Yisrael
Beitenu.) But they were overruled by the Central Committee, voting in
large proportion in favor of this move.
~~~~~~~~~~
When asked if this was a move to establish an
"inheritance," that is, to ensure that Lieberman would follow him in governing
the nation, Netanyahu replied in the negative. He intends to lead the
country for many years to come, he declared.
~~~~~~~~~~
Today, less than a week after a Sudanese munitions factory
-- which is suspected to have had Iranian ties -- was bombed, two Iranian ships
have docked in a Sudanese port, obviously in a show of strength and to provide
support to Sudan. Ostensibly, they are there to "convey a message of peace
and friendship to the region's countries and to provide safety at sea in light
of maritime terrorism." This is via the official Iranian news agency,
IRNA.
~~~~~~~~~~
And some good news from Israel:
University of Haifa researcher Yifat Segev has discovered a
link between Alzheimer's and the activity level of a protein called
eIF2alpha. Prof. Kobi Rosenblum has
said that altering the protein's activity level via medication could
provide treatment for this terrible, progressive disease.
__________________________
In the 1990s the
marbled duck was in danger of extinction because of pollution in the Kishon
River. Only four were believed to be alive at one point (although this seems to
have been a modest underestimate). Now, with the river cleaned up, 72 of
these ducks were found living in one reservoir alone.
Credit: animalphotos.deviantart
_____________________________
"The idea took shape when Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon got to talking with South Sudan’s Minister of Agriculture, Betty Ogwaro, at the Agritech 2012 expo in Tel Aviv last May."
_____________________________
"Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in
Rehovot, Israel, have discovered a new physics trick. While it’s not exactly
Superman vision –– yet — the camera developed by Ori Katz, Eran Small and Prof.
Yaron Silberberg sees through objects using a simple light bulb, a standard
digital camera and the basic technology found in everyday digital
projectors.
"Their camera can see through nearly
opaque surfaces such as skin or frosted glass — even around a corner into
another room if the door is open."Other scientists around the world have produced similar results, but only when using laser technology and not in real time.
"While the applications are far down the road, the new discovery points the way to non-invasive cancer diagnostics."
http://israel21c.org/technology/camera-sees-through-skin-around-corners/
~~~~~~~~~~
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Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner,
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