Funny but True

Many readers say that they are amused by some of the articles in my positive weekly Israel newsletter featuring Israeli innovations, discoveries and humanitarian activities.  Here are a few recent examples.

Israel’s Amit Goffer invented the ReWalk exoskeleton that enables paraplegics to walk upright.  Unfortunately, Amit is a quadriplegic.  After explaining repeatedly that ReWalk couldn't help him, he went on to invent UPnRide which allows him (and other quadriplegics) to move around vertically.

Students in International Space University’s Space Studies Program at Israel’s Technion Institute had a group selfie photo taken. Nothing strange there, I hear you say, but they arranged for the photo to be taken from a height of 520 kilometers by the EROS-B satellite, built by Israel Aerospace Industries and operated by Israel’s ImageSat International.

Many people cannot bear to be without Wi-Fi for a moment – even whilst on holiday.  So Hornblower Niagara Cruises (the official Canadian Tour Boat operator in Niagara Falls) has deployed the FiberinMotion® mobility solution from Israel’s RADWIN to provide high-speed wireless connectivity onboard its boats.  So now you can “surf” (the Internet) from the edge of the most powerful waterfall in North America.

Israel’s Skitza Print has produced a concrete bench from a paper mold. Skitza used their Israeli Highcon Euclid digital cutting machine to produce a 4000-layer mold from recycled paper, making a spectacular two-meter bench (entitled Morpheus) using Israeli Eco-concrete.  The bench was exhibited in Taipei until mid-August.

Of course there are many bitter-sweet examples of Israeli humanitarian activities.  These include treating wounded Syrians (often by female Israeli medics) and repairing the hearts of children from Arab countries, Gaza and the Palestinian Authority.  But the real chutzpa is when relatives of Hamas terrorist leaders and PA “No co-operation with the Occupation” officials choose to have medical treatment in Israeli hospitals.

It gets little publicity, but contrary to the Arab boycott, Israel performs a vital function to Arab states in facilitating the importing of goods from Europe.  Israel has just built a railway line from Haifa to the Jordanian border to handle this trade - the previous route through Syria is no longer available for obvious reasons.  Trade between Israel and Jordan has increased by 65% since 2010.  Some say that even migratory birds may have changed their route to go via Israel after Saddam Hussain’s army set fire to the Kuwaiti oil wells and caused the largest oil spill in history!

On that subject, Israel's Wildlife Hospital has opened the first blood bank in the world for birds that arrive injured to the country during migration.  Hospital veterinarians realized that they could better treat the birds if they had a blood bank for them because, much like humans, birds have different blood types.

The international media enjoys attacking the Jewish State for not accepting more African Muslim migrants.  Yet hundreds of Eritrean asylum-seekers marched in Tel Aviv in support of a UN probe into the Eritrean regime, considered one of the world's most repressive.  One typical demonstrator said, "for a march like this one we would already be dead in Eritrea."

Whilst South Africa officially gives Israel the “cold shoulder”, in reality it has been enlisting Israel’s help with building four power plants, combating drought, purifying polluted water, detecting viruses in blood tests, saving trapped miners, installing Wi-Fi on buses, training farmers and medical teams and broadcasting the Africa Cup of Nations.  Imagine the amount of trade when they stop their “boycott”!

Some countries in the European Union have also not been overly friendly to Israel on the political front recently.  So it was a nice to hear that the Belgium city of Antwerp greeted Israeli President Reuven Rivlin with the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” (The Hope) played on the bells of the city cathedral.

Please take a look at the peppers sold in Europe’s supermarkets during January and February.  If they are marked “Dutch Peppers”, don’t believe the labels.  They will have actually been grown in greenhouses in the Arava desert beside the Dead Sea and then exported to Holland.  European peppers cannot be propagated commercially in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter due to the lack of sunshine.  Ironically, Yasser Arafat was offered part of the Arava desert in a land swap peace deal in 2000 but rejected it, saying that the land was unusable!

Finally, one particular amusing story is about Israel's Mapal Green that purifies the wastewater of nearly 50% of all the households in England.  It is even now used by Thames Water Authority, which once boycotted Israel products because it had "many and valued Arab clients".  So I tell all BDS supporters living in or visiting the UK that they must NEVER flush their toilet in case they inadvertently promote Israeli technology.  My wife wrote a letter about this in the Jerusalem Post.  The Letters' Editor decided to give it the title "Go with the flow"!

Keep smiling – Israel is making the world a happier place.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com and a searchable archive www.IsraelActive.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

Israel is the Key to Life

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/israel-key-life

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/4981

World leaders should let Israel concentrate on its mission of providing technology to save lives rather than trying to impose suicidal political deals on our tiny country.  Last week’s positive news from the Jewish State contained a record number of Israeli initiatives and innovations with the potential to save billions of lives.

Arik Dayan, CEO of Israel’s Amiad Water Systems, explained that Israel’s wastewater recycling expertise is essential in order to increase crop yields by 50% within two decades and feed the 8.3 billion people who will inhabit the world.  His exact words were “Filtration will ensure that life as we know it continues.”  

Two other Israeli companies were simultaneously contributing their vital efforts to achieve this goal.  Israeli drip-irrigation pioneer Netafim is leading the United Nations FIGARO project - an international consortium to develop new precision irrigation management technologies to increase water availability for Europe’s water-intensive crops. Meanwhile, several Dutch water and paper industry companies are about to test the groundbreaking wastewater recycling system from Israel’s Applied CleanTech, which is planned to be implemented across the Netherlands and provide huge environmental benefits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqTbxWXamY4

Europe’s recognition of Israeli water technology continued when the French Ministry of Agriculture awarded the National Order of Agricultural Merit to Professor Pedro Berliner of Ben Gurion University for his research into agro-hydrology in desert regions.  Then visitors came from around the world to Tel Aviv in order to see Israeli innovations first hand at The Water Technology and Environment Control (WATEC) Exhibition and Conference.  There was much interest in Israel’s Curapipe, which showcased its Trenchless Automated Leakage Repair (TALR) Solution.  No need anymore to dig up the street to mend a leaky mains water pipe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys5jj9TMYug

Israel reacts quickly, however, to disasters caused by too much water.  A lead IDF team has already left Israel for the Philippines, which was hit by a devastating typhoon over the weekend.  The IDF Home Front Command delegation included experts in the fields of search, rescue and medicine.  IsraAID is also sending a relief team.  The typhoon has also reached Vietnam, which will thank the timely agreement to establish a joint agriculture research and development fund and free-trade accord with the Jewish State.

Israel’s life-giving medical news last week was exceptional – yet again!  Two contrasting new Israeli medical devices will change the lives of patients and surgeons.  The most dangerous time for diabetics is when they are asleep as sudden drops in blood-sugar levels can lead to a life-threatening hypoglycemic event.  The non-invasive Hypo-Sense watch from Israel’s Night-Sense will wake the sleeper well in advance as it can detect problems with pulse and heart activity by analyzing subtle changes in the movement of the hand.  But “life as we know it, Mr Spock” will surely change forever thanks to the amazing 3-D medical holograms produced by Israel’s RealView Imaging. Its interactive visualization holographic system allows physicians to work with the patients’ true anatomy appearing as precise volumetric holograms floating in mid-air.  The system was demonstrated at the world’s largest cardiovascular conference TCT-25 in San Francisco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIj2xEd_z78

After that, just imagine what advances in Israeli medicine will emerge thanks to a $50 million donation from Nancy and Stephen Grand to Weizmann’s Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine.  The INCPM focuses on genomics, protein profiling, bioinformatics, and treatment discovery to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease.  But let’s not forget that Israeli medics save lives every day.  In one case last week, United Hatzalah volunteer medic Itzik Hillel rescued a one-month-old baby girl who had been left in a hot car. He used a device called ResQme that shatters the car window without causing any risk to the child. Miraculously, the device had been distributed to the Hatzalah medics only the night before.

There’s just enough space left to mention that one of the Syrians rushed to Israel’s Ziv Medical Center in Safed last week gave birth.  The 20-year-old woman was brought to the hospital in active labor by the IDF during the night from a village near Kuneitra, which was under Syrian military curfew with no access to a Syrian hospital.  The hospital also treated three Syrians with shrapnel wounds.  Meanwhile, Arab-Israeli Imad Younis relates how he founded Alpha Omega in Nazareth in 1993 thanks to funding from Israel’s Chief Scientist program.  Today Alpha Omega employs Moslems, Christians and Jews and ships its life-saving brain surgical guidance systems to 500 hospitals and laboratories across the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAvWODm3uaE 

Finally, one Israeli has even proved that there is life after death.  Five years ago, in an explosion in Gaza, newlywed Aharon Karov was momentarily declared dead. Now he’s raising money for OneFamily Fund, the organization that helped him get back on his feet. He has just completed the New York Marathon in 4hrs 14min 31sec.

Just one week in the “life” of the Jewish State.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
 

No Better Place

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/no-better-place

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/4613

My sadness at the collapse of Better Place - Israel’s all-electric car infrastructure company – was somewhat compensated by the knowledge that failure in the Start-up Nation is not the same as failure elsewhere in the world.  Some of Israel’s more radical innovations don’t succeed, but the entrepreneurs (and employees) usually get back on their feet quickly with another venture – all the better from having learned from their previous mistakes.  As a former director said, “The dream is not over. It’s only the beginning.”

Whereas Israelis are prepared to see the demise of an ailing business, they will move heaven and earth to make the life of a sick person better. The parents of young Noam Naor, who died in a tragic accident, donated one of his kidneys to save the life of a 10-year-old Palestinian Arab boy at Schneider’s children hospital.  And at Rambam hospital in Haifa, Israeli-Arab Mohammed Eckert received a kidney from the son of Israeli-Jew David Ben-Yair, whilst simultaneously David received a kidney from Mohammed’s wife.  David said, "Here, in our country, and in the world at large, we have to realize that we have the power to save people, all people."

I read a staggering statistic last week that over a fifth of the world’s biotechnology originated in Israel.  This was based on the biotech industry’s annual turnover of $120 billion.  But in Israel, commercial interests don’t drive all medical research and treatments.  Insurance companies were not prepared to cover expensive insulin pumps. So Israeli biotech Valeritas has developed a cheap, reliable, disposable mechanical pump for delivering insulin to type 2 diabetes patients.  And financial factors were hardly the main issue when an Israeli-led international research team discovered a rare genetic disease affecting in-bred Arab families.  Five Palestinian Arabs at Sheba Hospital and two Moroccan Arabs in Munich are suffering from a bone marrow mutation, called congenital neutrophil defect syndrome.  Now Israeli doctors are working on a potential treatment.

The lives of the victims of the Oklahoma tornado will be a little better thanks to specialist trauma counseling from Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID.  And whilst helping friends is non-negotiable, does the world know that every week Israel delivers tens of thousands of tons of goods into the terrorist-run Gaza mini-state?

Israel’s technological innovations frequently make life better for the less fortunate. Israeli start-up OrCam has developed a camera-based system that will “read” to the visually impaired whilst on the move.  So the partially sighted can read a newspaper or a menu, cross the road safely or simply pick up a can of vegetables in a grocery store and read its label. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykDDxWbt5Nw

Israeli children get better educational opportunities, thanks to the proliferation of technology in the Jewish State.  Israel’s “Computer for Every Child” project is designed to close the digital gap and allow Israeli boys and girls from families with reduced means to receive the latest technology, such as computer tablets.  Over 55,000 computers have been distributed to all sectors of Israeli society: Ultra-orthodox, Arab, Bedouin, Druze, new immigrants, special needs children, etc.  Meanwhile, teenagers from the WIZO Nachlat Yehuda School and Youth Village in Rishon Lezion, an agricultural high school that specializes in life sciences, took their agriculture matriculation exam last week.  The curriculum covers animal care and dairy cow production.  And now Apple Inc. is launching the first entrepreneurship development center of its kind at the Amal High School in Hadera. Sixty students will develop iOS-based apps for iPads and iPhones.

I often report news that proves that Israel’s minorities have a better life in the Jewish State than anywhere else in the Middle East.  This week it’s the turn of the Druze of the Golan, who are too afraid of Syrian dictator Assad to become Israeli citizens.  However, a recent biased article in an anti-Israel UK newspaper led me to discover that the Mayor of the Druze town of Majdal Shams says that living in the State of Israel “is a privilege”. And that Shefaa Abu Jabal is the first Syrian Druze woman resident of Israel to graduate from an Israeli university.

The future looks better in the Jewish State than in most countries.  In recent news, Israel’s growth exceeds most of the other OECD countries and unemployment is one of the lowest at 6.9 percent. Despite having one of the lowest mortality rates and highest life expectancies, Israel spent the fifth least on health (7.7% of GDP).  And then there’s the gas… The skies are now open and Ryanair plans to bring 4-5 million tourists to Israel. As Daniel Pipes writes, John Kerry’s statement that Israelis have “a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity” indicates, “Israel’s enemies should give up and find some other country to torment”.

Finally, as Israel’s Mapal bubbles make wastewater clean across the world, I even found a positive news story from the BBC that mentioned that Israel’s work to re-flood the Hula valley had made life better for an endangered indigenous Israeli species – the Hula Painted Frog. 

“The dream is just beginning”

You’d better believe it!

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com