Masoud Barzani: Kurdistan is ripe for independence

“The strong forces drew the borders, but now they are essentially destroyed and the time has come that this current reality has to be admitted and accepted,” Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said yesterday.  “We should admit that the concept of citizenship did not come forth, and the borders have no meaning anymore. It means Sykes-Picot is over.” The Kurdish leader also added: “Kurdistan is ripe for independence.”

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the Sykes-Picot agreement redrew the borders of the Middle East 100 years ago.   The borders the French and British drew had more to do with their interests than any relevancy to natural tribal boundaries.  Similarly to Africa, the colonial powers often times forced bitter enemies or culturally competitive societies to live together. By doing this, they created conflicts still unresolved today. It also allowed for Arabists to push migration of disenfranchised Arabs into the Mandate of Palestine as well as traditional Kurdish lands.  This artificially created an Arab presence in these areas, where historically it was very small.

Sykes-picot[1]

With Western strength receding in the region, indigenous peoples, like the Kurds, Jews, and Druze are beginning to push back on the artificial boundaries placed on their traditional lands.  Barzani’s statement is a serious step in truly creating a new Middle Eastern order.

A Year After Quake, Israelis Still Helping Nepal Recover

Israeli NGOs were among the first to arrive after the disaster and are among the last to leave, running a variety of programs in stricken areas.

April 25, 2015, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale devastated Nepal. Just over two weeks later, the country was rattled again by a magnitude 7.3 quake centered northeast of Kathmandu. Nearly 9,000 people were killed, 22,000 injured and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed or damaged in the twin quakes.

As with most international disasters, Israel was among the first countries to send humanitarian aid in many forms. The lifesaving and rehabilitation activities of the Israeli government, military and various NGOs were so significant that the Nepalese came to see Israel as a source of inspiration.

Whether it was pulling survivors from the rubble, delivering babies and treating the injured, cheering traumatized children, teaching resilience techniques, rebuilding villages or introducing lifesaving innovations, Israelis were prominent in all aspects of relief work.

A year later, Israeli nonprofits Tevel b’Tzedek (The Earth in Justice) and IsraAID are still on the scene helping Nepali villagers get back on their feet, and expect to be there for some time to come.

The Earth in Justice

Tevel b’Tzedek, founded by Rabbi Micha Odenheimer with the goal of engaging young Jews and Israelis in the developing world, began its humanitarian work in Nepal in 2007. The original plan was to cycle volunteers to one impoverished district at a time.

“When the earthquake hit, we were in the second cycle,” Deputy Director Elana Kaminka tells ISRAEL21c. “But the quake hit the communities from the first cycle and we knew these people, so we redeployed to those communities in addition to continuing with the ones in the second cycle, which also was hit by the earthquake. In addition, we took on a third district that was affected.”

The organization’s connections and understanding of the region were of invaluable help to other NGOs arriving on the scene.

“The JDC [Jewish Joint Distribution Committee], which is one of our donors, showed up the day after the earthquake,” says Kaminka. “We’re not a disaster-relief organization and they have more expertise in that but had no knowledge of Nepal and no staff here, so we joined forces and have been working closely together.”

One of their joint projects is a youth service program modeled after the Israeli shnat sherut, year of national service, in earthquake-devastated villages. “We train and provide a small stipend to 40 youth leaders to take a role in rebuilding their own communities,” says Kaminka. “People always think about Israeli technology and agriculture, and we do introduce technologies such as drip irrigation, but Israeli social models are also interesting.”

Tevel helped an Israeli medical team from Natan International Humanitarian Aid with logistics immediately after the earthquake; and recently finished a project with Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency-response network, to distribute building supplies and food to 800 Nepali families.

With support from the Pears Foundation, Shusterman Foundation and Crown Foundation, Tevel has also worked with volunteers from the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, World Jewish Relief and others.

Bishnu Chapagain, the Nepali director of Tevel’s activities in Nepal, earned his doctorate in plant science in Israel at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His agricultural training is critical to Tevel’s long-term project to introduce Nepali farmers to Israeli farming practices.

Currently, a variety of Tevel recovery programs in agriculture, education, disaster-risk reduction, resilience, crisis intervention and income generation are benefiting some 25,000 villagers in six of Nepal’s most impoverished regions.

Naomi Baum
Naomi Baum, retired founder-director of the Resilience Unit at theIsrael Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma of Jerusalem’s Herzog Hospital, teaching resilience techniques to Nepalese women on behalf of Tevel b’Tzedek. Photo via Facebook
The projects are run by 80 Nepali and 59 Israeli staff and volunteers working side by side, fulfilling a three-year commitment to the government of Nepal.

“We don’t come and tell them what to do,” stresses Kaminka. “They tell us what they need help with and we approach our work as a partnership with them. Our focus is not only giving out things but developing people in the community who can take on these projects long after we’re gone.”

This year, Tevel b’Tzedek was the first Israeli organization recognized in Nepal as an INGO (international NGO) among 127 others, including major players such as Save the Children and Care International. “This is a major accomplishment for the Israeli development world. The other NGOs see that there is an Israeli face at the table,” says Kaminka.

“We are now recruiting for the fall 2016 sessions of both our one-monthExchange for Change program and seven-month Tevel Fellowship program, which mixes pairs of Israeli and Nepali volunteers in some of the poorest and most remote villages. We need great people who want to help rebuild Nepal.”

IsraAID

IsraAID arrived in Nepal the second day after the earthquake to help rescue survivors and establish a temporary field clinic in northeast Nepal.

The organization now runs a variety of humanitarian projects in Nepal under the direction of 55 Nepali and five Israeli staffers, says IsraAID Global Partnership Director Yotam Polizer, who visits every other month and directs all the NGO’s activities in Asia. “We’ll be there at least three more years because these are all long-term initiatives,” he tells ISRAEL21c.

Polizer was quite familiar with the country before the earthquake through his previous positions at Tevel b’Tzedek and at the Israeli embassy in Kathmandu.

“I had gained knowledge of Nepal and its language and had many contacts there, so I was able to build a team quickly when IsraAID arrived,” Polizer tells ISRAEL21c.

Working in all six affected districts with support from the American Jewish Committee and Jewish Federation network, IsraAID brings in Israeli specialists to train local NGOs to run initiatives such as an emotional support hotline. “We have an office and training center in Kathmandu,” says Polizer.

Ahead of this past winter, IsraAID and a Korean NGO distributed more than 1,000 packages of warm clothing to Nepali children affected by the earthquake. Polizer points out that the goal was not only to protect the children from the cold but also to ensure their ability to attend school during the winter.

IsraAID in Nepal
IsraAID and a partner NGO distributed warm clothing to 1,000 children in earthquake-affected communities of Nepal. Photo courtesy of IsraAID Nepal

“We helped establish a factory that now employs 130 women and is expanding to employ 500 in the next year or so. They sell honey to local stores and to tourists in Nepal. Each woman receives one beehive stacked with a colony of local Himalayan bees to start her venture,” Polizer says.

Nepalese women in beekeeping jackets
IsraAID’s HoneyAID project equips and trains Nepalese women to be beekeepers. Photo courtesy of IsraAID Nepal

“Theater is an important part of the Nepali culture, and they don’t have electricity or Internet so it’s the best way to deliver messages,” explains Polizer. “Altogether, more than 70,000 people have taken part in our theater program, and the model is now being adopted by UNICEF.”

As IsraAID also continues to work actively in Japan five years after the tsunami (the only foreign organization still on the ground after arriving to help in relief efforts in March 2011), several partnerships have developed between its teams in Fukushima and Nepal.

The Japanese government is funding Disaster Specialist Education, a program where Israeli and Japanese experts who have worked with IsraAID in Fukushima are sent to a Nepali university to train a cadre of disaster-relief professionals such as social workers.

Polizer is especially excited about an exchange program involving five high school students from Nepal and five from Fukushima.

“The Nepali teens came to Japan and they learned from one another and created bonds,” says Polizer. “This was significant because it’s rare for victims of different disasters to make contact with one another. We hope to do more of this. We are fundraising for it now because it was really successful.”

(Originally published on Israel21c.org)

Life Is Better in Majuli Since An Israeli Came to Visit

She didn’t speak their language, but that didn’t stop Gili Navon from befriending and assisting the women of a remote island tribe in northeast India.

(Originally published on Israel21c.org)

Gili Navon didn’t intend to start a nonprofit organization when she traveled to Majuli, a remote island of about 200,000 in Assam, northeast India.

It was 2007, and she came with a photographer friend to explore arural culture she’d heard about from a yoga teacher during her yearlong backpacking trek through India after her army discharge in 2005.

Something about the place attracted her intensely. Though she did not speak Assamese or any local dialects, Navon bonded with the families – and particularly the women — of Majuli’s peaceful Mising tribe.

She accompanied them to the jungle to pick herbs and helped with household chores. She watched them spin raw silk and cotton into colorful garments. She saw the struggle for sustenance in this low-caste subsistence-farming society where tourists rarely venture and river erosion has caused mass relocation.

River erosion is a serious threat to the Mising tribe of Majuli. Photo by Mitu Khataniar
River erosion is a serious threat to the Mising tribe of Majuli. Photo by Mitu Khataniar

 

“We came to have a real relationship. Slowly I learned the language and visited many times. They knew I cared about them,” Navon tells ISRAEL21c.

That caring led her to do a four-month internship in Majuli during her studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Glocal  (“global” and “local”) Community Development Studies master’s degree program.

“Coming in with an Israeli education, where you continually search for ways to improve and innovate, together with my love and appreciation of the local culture and way of life, I felt I have something to contribute.”

Navon organized 24 tribal women into a weaving cooperative in 2011 to help them turn their cultural tradition into a more viable source of income from marketable items such as table runners, scarves, wallets and yoga bags.

One project led to another, one trip to another. In 2013, Navon and fellow Glocal student Shaked Avizedek partnered with local youth and women to establish Amar Majuli (“Our Majuli”), a grassroots not-for-profit organization. In Israel, Amar Majuli now functions within Tevel b’Tzedek, a nonprofit that runs long-term volunteer projects to enhance the livelihood and wellbeing of communities in developing countries.

The heart of Amar Majuli’s community work is the Rengam (United) Women Weavers Cooperative, whose goal is to provide members and their families with independent sustainable livelihoods from handloom work and eco-tourism while gaining leadership skills.

The weaving cooperative today includes about 100 women, ages 18 to 60, from 20 villages. The project’s headquarters doubles as a meeting place for educational lectures on topics such as women’s health, and has also become an informal hostel for unmarried women who otherwise have no place in society.

To enhance the mobility and independence of the members, Amar Majuli established two bicycle banks. Navon explains that Majuli’s villages are far from infrastructure such as markets and hospitals, necessitating many hours of walking. Since Majuli is flat, cycling provides an easy solution. An innovative system allows each woman gradually to buy her own bike by paying pennies per use.

Mising women can get around more easily due to the Amar Majuli bike bank. Photo by Aviv Naveh
Mising women can get around more easily due to the Amar Majuli bike bank. Photo by Aviv Naveh

In addition, Amar Majuli runs a sustainable agriculture program in cooperation with the Farm2Food Foundation. The program provides practical tools for poor farmers of both genders, aiming to increase sustainable agro-economic productivity in an environmentally friendly manner.

“The main part of our work evolved around the establishment and operation of five demonstration plots equipped with drip-irrigation systems donated by Netafim,” Navon says.

Mising farmers learning to use Israeli drip-irrigation methods. Photo courtesy of Gili Navon
Mising farmers learning to use Israeli drip-irrigation methods. Photo courtesy of Gili Navon

During the monsoon season, the island suffers from floods and Amar Majuli shifts into relief mode, organizing medical clinics and giving out water filters. “This is a very hard period of the year. Roads are blocked, there are sanitary problems and shortages of drinking water, and many people get sick without access to medical treatment,” says Navon, 32.

Since its inception, the organization has worked alongside the local community without a formal budget or paid staff, developing solutions for social and economic problems. This year, Navon is curtailing her visits in a conscious effort to turn the leadership reins over to the local three staff members and eight board members.

A volunteer advisory board in Israel provides professional assistance in areas such as fundraising, branding and strategic planning. “We are in search of partners who want to support us and help us further reach out and ensure the sustainability of our community work in Majuli,” Navon says.

Gili Navon became close with the women in Majuli. Photo by Aviv Naveh
Gili Navon became close with the women in Majuli. Photo by Aviv Naveh

“People sometimes wonder what is the motive for someone to do something for a community outside her own,” says Navon, who lives with photographer Aviv Naveh in the Jerusalem suburb of Nataf.

“In Majuli I met a completely different way of life and a kind of poverty we don’t see here. I saw a need and an opportunity for development. The people have a complete lack of financial security, especially women. If someone gets sick and they already sold their cow, there is no way to save that person’s life. They lack the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty because of discrimination, social exclusion and lack of access.”

For Majuli, Navon adapted and modified the ABCD (Assets Based for Community Development) approach she learned in the Glocal master’s program. Rather than focusing on needs and problems, ABCD identifies and builds on the existing strengths and assets in a community. Navon writes and lectures on how ABCD can be adapted to various disadvantaged communities.

“Coming in with an Israeli education, where you continually search for ways to improve and innovate, together with my love and appreciation of the local culture and way of life, I felt I have something to contribute — and of course to learn, as well,”she says.

Navon was deeply influenced and inspired by the stories of her grandfather Moshe Nachshon (Lipson), who fought to bring Jewish refugees to Israel from Europe and was one of the founders of Flotilla Shayetet 13 navy seals unit.

“I grew up on those amazing, heroic stories, so finding a meaningful project was important to me,” she says. “I wanted to follow that example of dedicating myself to others.”

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7 Israeli Robots That Are Transforming Surgery

The rapidly emerging field of robot-assisted surgery promises to revolutionize how doctors operate. Israel is one of the world leaders in this field.

(Originally published on Israel21c.org)

Robotic or robot-assisted surgery can give doctors better vision, precision, flexibility and control when performing complex minimally invasive procedures. Someday, surgeons will even use robotic tools to operate through the Internet, bringing modern medical techniques to remote parts of the world.

Only a handful of surgical robots currently are approved for use, and Israelis developed three of them.

“This really puts us in the center of the field,” says Prof. Alon Wolf, founding director of the Biorobotics and Biomechanics Lab at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and chair of the Robotics in Healthcare session at the upcoming 2016 IATI-BioMed conference in Tel Aviv, May 24-26.

Wolf was studying for his doctorate under robotics pioneer Moshe Shoham of the Technion when they started developing SpineAssist (see below) for minimally invasive spinal surgery. This revolutionary device later formed the basis for Shoham’s Mazor Robotics.

“Many countries are putting a lot of money into developing these technologies, yet they have not been as successful as we are,” Wolf tells ISRAEL21c. “Israel is very respected around the world in this area.”

The “snake” robot for search-and-rescue that Wolf presented to President Obama on his 2013 visit to Israel was the inspiration for the Flex Robotic System (see below).

Prof. Alon Wolf showing the snake robot to President Obama at the Technion in 2013. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO
Prof. Alon Wolf showing the snake robot to President Obama at the Technion in 2013. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO

Wolf explains that surgical robotics began as a vision of the US army to deliver immediate treatment on the battlefield without exposing the surgeon to danger. A medic would put the robot into place and the surgeon would operate it remotely from a bunker.

“This vision is not completely realized yet, but we do have enabling technologies that allow you to do things in the operating room that you could not do before, and that’s crucial,” says Wolf. “In addition, improved remote capabilities allow a surgeon to log into cameras in other cities and control the view in real time via computer.”

Israel also used military experience as the basis of its robotics advances, says serial entrepreneur Ziv Tamir, the original distributor in Israel for Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci, the American product that broke the ground for robotic surgical systems in 1999. He went on to found a few Israeli companies in this space through ZDev Medical.

“The technologies from Israel are based on knowledge from the military. This is a critical difference because all the surgical robotics projects in other countries are coming from universities so the technology is not always needs-based,” Tamir tells ISRAEL21c.

At BioMed, Wolf will discuss how medical robotics involves innovation from many disciplines. “I’ll try to show how this puzzle of tools and Internet and users is coming together to create a new reality, and why high-tech companies like Google, IBM and Apple are investing in technologies out of the scope of their core technology, including robotics,” says Wolf.

“I believe the future is in robotics,” agrees Tamir. “All the big companies such as J&J have projects in robotic surgery.”

Here’s a look at seven significant Israeli surgical robotics companies.

1. Mazor Robotics of Caesarea is a global innovator in robotic spine and brain surgery products based on technology pioneered by Prof. Moshe Shoham of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Kahn Medical Robotics Laboratory for Research and Instruction.

The first product, SpineAssist, was approved by the FDA in 2004. Mazor’s next-generation Renaissance Guidance System is now installed in about 100 medical centers around the world (more than half of them in the United States) for biopsies, reconstructive surgery, scoliosis correction, spinal fusion and other delicate operations.

The Renaissance 3D planning software helps surgeons map procedures for each patient and guides the tools according to the predetermined blueprint during the operation.

2. MedRobotics’ Flex Robotic System, based on Alon Wolf’s snake robot, can reach body cavities beyond the surgeon’s direct line of sight, especially head and neck structures.

“You lock it into location and operate through the snake, introducing portfolio tools we developed,” says Wolf. “It’s a single-port surgery because the system is flexible, enabling surgeons to do things they couldn’t do before.”

The Flex Robotic System was approved for medical robotics assistive surgery in Europe in 2014 and in the United States in July 2015. Wolf cofounded MedRobotics 10 years ago with colleagues he worked with at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s headquartered in Massachusetts.

3. MST (Medical Surgery Technologies) of Yokneam makes AutoLap, an image-guided laparoscope positioning system to orient the surgeon and stabilize the surgeon’s motions — without a human assistant – in minimally invasive surgery.

The surgeon wears a wireless ring-like device that interfaces with the AutoLap system. The proprietary software captures and interprets visual data from the laparoscope and maneuvers it in coordination with the surgeon’s actions in real time, according to CEO Motti Frimer.

“We compare it to Xbox in the clinical domain, where the system understands individual gestures,” he says.

Last June, MST received $12.5 million in an investment round led by Haisco Pharmaceutical Group of China, earmarked for expanding marketing and sales of AutoLap in the United States, Europe and China. The system is already used in a dozen medical centers in Europe and at the first US site.

“We are addressing a real need in computer-assisted robotic surgery, because most robotics must be commanded by joysticks or other devices while the MST image-analysis platform responds to the surgeon’s actions. We aim to be the gold standard for all laparoscopic surgery, and also hope to expand MST’s image-based artificial intelligence technology into additional medical robot and computer-assisted surgical domains.”

MST’s AutoLap image-guided laparoscopic positioning system. Photo: courtesy
MST’s AutoLap image-guided laparoscopic positioning system. Photo: courtesy

4. Human Extensions in Netanya is awaiting FDA (US) and CE (Europe) approvals for its ergonomic, bionic surgical glove designed as a robotized brain to enable smooth and precise movements.

Founder and CEO Tami Frenkel explains that Human Extensions’ disruptive technology is modular for use in a wide variety of complex minimally invasive operations and can be tailored to a surgeon’s skill level and specific task.

“This novel solution will allow surgeons — for the first time — to access a patient’s anatomy in a manner resembling open surgery,” Frenkel tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s as if their hands are inside the patient’s body.”

She says the Human Extensions platform represents a big step forward as “the only smart multifunctional handheld system on the horizon for minimally invasive surgery of all kinds.”

The Human Extensions tool. Photo: courtesy
The Human Extensions tool. Photo: courtesy

5. Microbot Medical was cofounded in 2010 by Moshe Shoham with Yossi Bornstein and Harel Gadot, leveraging two technologies from Shoham’s mechanical engineering lab: ViRob and TipCAT. Advanced prototypes are in development.

ViRob is a revolutionary autonomous crawling micro-robot that acts as a “submarine” allowing surgeons to send a camera, medication or shunts to narrow, twisting parts of the body (such as blood vessels and digestive and respiratory organs) and to do minimally invasive operations on those areas guided by MRI and CT scanners. Prof. Nir Shvalb, now head of the Kinematics & Computational Geometry Multidisciplinary Laboratory at Ariel University, worked on ViRob as Shoham’s PhD student.

TipCAT is a proprietary flexible, self-propelled endoscope for use in the colon, blood vessels and urinary tract. A series of balloons sequentially inflate and deflate to create safe, fast and gentle locomotion inside body structures. Like ViRob, TipCAT supports functional tools.

Prototype of the tiny ViRob from Microbot, which will allow surgeons to send a camera, medication or shunts into narrow, twisting parts of the body.Photo courtesy of Technion
Prototype of the tiny ViRob from Microbot, which will allow surgeons to send a camera, medication or shunts into narrow, twisting parts of the body.Photo courtesy of Technion

6. XACT Robotics is developing a novel platform robotic technology for accurately inserting and steering the needle in minimally invasive CT-guided procedures such as lung biopsies.

It consists of a robot, a control unit connected to the CT and to the robot, and a workstation where the interventional radiologist can plan and observe the procedure. Any deviation from the planned pathway can be detected and corrected immediately without reinserting the needle or repositioning the patient.

The company hasraised $5 million in a round led by MEDX Ventures Group, which founded the firm based on technology from the Technion. The American National Health Institute will conduct joint trials with XACT on animals and later on humans.The CEO of the company, based in Shoham, is Chen Levine.

7. MemicInnovative Surgery “is dedicated to developing and delivering innovative robotic surgical solutions that enable surgical procedures currently considered infeasible,” says CEO Dvir Cohen, who has mechanical engineering degrees from the Technion and an MBA from Tel Aviv University.

“Memic’s surgical robotic system is based on a unique design that enables a novel and intuitive surgical approach for laparoscopic procedures,” says company cofounder Nir Shvalb.

Based in Kfar Saba, Memic is now moving forward with clinical trials and regulatory clearances.

Memic

Bill Clinton: I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state

Bill Clinton tried to show off his pro-Israel bonafides by answering a member of the crowd during a campaign stop. The former President said: “I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state.”

Now this could be true, but most Israelis would say that Clinton nearly killed us when he tried to give the Palestinians a state in Israel’s biblical heartland.  At least 1,603 Israelis have been killed since the Oslo Accords were signed. 1,303 of them have been since the failed “peace” initiative of President Clinton’s at the end of his term.

Once again, who has killed who?

Reclaiming Jerusalem’s Old City

At around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evening (October 3, 2015), a knife-wielding Arab attacked Aharon Bennett, his wife Odel, their 2-year-old son and infant who were on their way to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City. Hearing the screams of help from Odel Bennett, from his apartment window, Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, an Old City resident and IDF reserve officer, didn’t hesitate, and went downstairs from his apartment in Beit Wittenberg (HaGai Street), with his gun, to try and save those wounded by the Arab terrorist in the attack, but the terrorist stabbed him and seized his weapon. Lavi and Bennett, who were stabbed in the upper body and were unconscious when paramedics arrived at the scene, died in hospital shortly afterwards.

Now, over 7 months later, another Jewish acquisition in Jerusalem’s Old City, facilitated by the Ateret Cohanim organization has been approved by legal authorities.

“Arab terror and ongoing Arab incitement and violence, has an aim of  trying to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, to keep Jews away from the Old City, the Temple Mount and even the Kotel, and also intends to weaken the resolve of the Jewish people, especially of the families and students in and around the Old City,” says Daniel Luria, Executive Director of Ateret Cohanim. “However the Arab are mistaken on all fronts. We will not be driven out of “our Jerusalem” and such acts of violence has only strengthened our resolve, strength of conviction, faith and fortitude.”

The building will be home to 3 or 4 Jewish families and some Yeshiva students. There are today over 1000 Jewish residents, including many Yeshiva students, of the old Jewish Quarter,(renamed the Moslem Quarter) in addition to the 4000 Jewish residents of the Jewish Quarter.

The newest acquisition is only a few minutes walk from the site of the murder of Rabbi Lavi and Bennett.  Building and buying in the Old City in areas where Jews were driven out in 1929, 1936-37, and 1948 is not only a powerful and lasting response to ongoing Arab terror, it is the best way to honor the memory of the fallen residents, especially the week of Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day.

“It’s a spectacular accomplishment and it will hopefully lead to many more in the near future,” adds Rabbi Packer head of the Heritage House. “The Arabs are ready to leave. The question is: Are the Jews ready to take possession of the Land.”

 

Who are the Winners and Losers from an Independent Kurdistan?

Masrour Barzan  Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council said in a Washington Post Opinion piece, “It is time to acknowledge that the experiment has not worked. Iraq is a failed state, and our continued presence within it condemns us all to unending conflict and enmity.”

This veiled threat to carry out a referendum on Kurdish independence has a lot more legs to it than most pundits would believe.  The Kurdistan Regional Government has been toying with such a move for a while and the growing vacuum in Iraq has given them ample reason to move ahead with such a move.

The question is not if the Kurds will push for independence from Iraq, but when they do, who are the winners and losers from such a move.

Winners:

Russia opens up another potential partner in the chaos that is the Middle East.  Rich with oil, Kurdistan will provide Russia with a stable base of operations in one of the most contested regions in the world.

Israel will find its long term support of a non-Arab entity in the Middle East to be fruitful. For years Israel has provided intelligence, training, and economic ties to the fledgling Kurdish Autonomous Region.  It gains a forward base against Iran and direct access to an emerging oil market.

Losers:

Turkey stands to have the most to lose as they have opposed Kurdish independence from the beginning.  Turkey has more ethnic Kurds than the Kurdish region in Iraq.  An independent Kurdistan could very well inspire a full scale uprising and secession movement from Turkey’s Kurds.  This would be a disaster for Erdogan.

Iraq will suffer a blow it will not recover from.  Mosul and the other Kurdish dominated areas in Iraq’s North are potentially the most valuable.  Iraq would suffer other secessionist movements if Kurdish independence is successful.

The Sunni states will lose their leverage as Western allies due to the fact the Kurds are far more moderate and likely to generate both geopolitical and financial support.

United States policy will suffer another setback as Kurdish independence is a clear indicator that Washington’s leverage is in decline.

Bibi Netanyahu: I was shocked

“Two weeks ago, I was shocked to hear that UNESCO adopted a decision denying any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site. It is hard to believe that anyone, let alone an organization tasked with preserving history, could deny this link which spans thousands of years,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook.

“That is why today I am announcing a seminar on Jewish history for all UN personnel in Israel. I will personally host the lecture at the Prime Minister’s Office. The seminar will be given by a leading scholar of Jewish history and will be free to all UN staff and diplomats, including of countries which voted for this outrageous decision.”

Of course Bibi is right. The decision to disconnect the Nation of Israel from the history of the Temple Mount is outrageous, but no one should be shocked at UNESCO’s erasure of Jewish connection to its holiest site.  The organization has been politicizing its decisions instead of sticking to its mandate, which states it has purely educational goals.

The challenge is that Bibi’s own government restricts Jewish access to the mount, giving the impression that the State of Israel does not value its connection to the site.  Reverse that and organizations like UNESCO have far less strength to rewrite history.

 

Trump: “They have to keep moving forward.”

…they really have to keep going.

As a follow up to yesterday’s Daily Quote, Trump is quoted today in the Daily Mail in response to settlement building as saying: “No, I don’t think it is, because I think Israel should have – they really have to keep going. They have to keep moving forward. No, I don’t think there should be a pause. Look: Missiles were launched into Israel, and Israel, I think, never was properly treated by our country. I mean, do you know what that is, how devastating that is?”

If this is an actual policy, it is seismic as it alters the United States’s policy towards Judea and Samaria since 1967.  It explains why, in many ways the industrial war complex in the USA is very scared of a Trump Presidency.  The military establishment has been playing a neo-colonialist role in the Middle East and elsewhere, by playing one side off each other. Trump seems eager to end all that.

Trump: “Man, would that be a beauty.”

Today’s Daily Quote is from Republican front  runner and consummate deal maker, Donald Trump who was quoted as saying the following on reaching an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal: “I am going to try and make that deal just because – man, would that be a beauty – if you like deals. I like deals. I do deals. That would be great.”

Trump continued: “I’ve never met a person from Israel that didn’t want to make the deal. But it is just a very hard deal to make because it’s years of — of whatever. But I’d love to be able to make that deal.”

Israelis are tired of foreign governments trying to push them into a dangerous peace deal. It would be wise for Donald Trump to leave us alone.  This is one deal he won’t be able to make.