Israelis blocking medical care in Gaza

[stranger81]

For the Palestinians, Erez is a chokepoint where only a lucky few can exit from Gaza, usually for medical emergencies. Bassam al-Wahedi, 26, a tall, soft-spoken journalist, was one of them. He had gone blind in one eye because of a retinal illness, and surgery at a Jerusalem hospital was his only hope of regaining sight in that eye. Since Gaza is denied all but basic humanitarian needs under an international boycott of Hamas, many complicated surgeries are no longer done there.

His eye bandaged, al-Wahedi set off through the innards of Erez's security maze. He fumbled along tunnels, steel doors that opened and slammed as he passed along, entered a strange cylinder that fired a whoosh of air at him before he finally reached a large hall with an Israeli soldier sitting inside a bulletproof glass booth. Al-Wahedi showed his permit, explaining that he was due in surgery at 3:30 pm that afternoon.

Next, says al Wahedi, three plainclothed Israelis with pistols and walkie-talkies led him past cages with growling dogs to a room where he was strip searched and interrogated by a man who identified himself as a captain in Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic intelligence agency. Al-Wahedi claims that his interrogator told him in fluent Arabic: "We want you to work for us." When al-Wahedi protested, saying he had nothing to do with the militants, the Shin Bet officer allegedly replied: "We issue the permits and we can cancel them. If you don't get operated on, you'll lose your sight. What good will you be?"

"I told him that we would talk after my operation, when I crossed back through Erez," recounts al-Wahedi. Nothing doing, replied the intelligence officer, who, according to al-Wahedi, handed him an Israeli cellphone SIM card and a phone number. "He wanted me to go back to Gaza and collaborate with them for two weeks, and if they liked what I did, I could come to Israel and have my eye operation with the best doctor in Tel Aviv."

For al-Wahedi, contact with any Israeli had always been traumatic. He says that his father, an ambulance driver, was clearing away wounded Palestinians after a battle when he was shot dead by an Israeli sniper. And his 16-year-old brother was killed by a stray piece of shrapnel from an Israeli rocket attack on a passing car driven by a suspected militant.

And so, at Erez, al-Wahedi says he tore up Shin Bet's phone number. "I was angry and frustrated. I knew that if I didn't have surgery immediately, even the best surgeon couldn't fix my eye," he claims. Contacted by TIME, Shin Bet denied approaching al-Wahedi to collaborate and say that he was turned back at Erez because of his involvement in "activities dangerous to the state."

Nevertheless, the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights alleges that since last June — when Hamas took control of Gaza from its Fatah rivals loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas — at least 30 other patients seeking urgent medical help were denied passage by Shin Bet because they refused to act as informers. In the past, most collaborators worked from within Fatah, and when they were chased from Gaza last June, it was a blow to Israeli intelligence.

Yassir Abu Aayya, 37, suffering from heart troubles, told TIME he was turned back after refusing to reveal the whereabouts of his militant brother. "They told me I should go back and die in Gaza," he says. If these accounts are true, say human rights activists, the withholding of medical care for non-medical reasons is a form of torture. "This violates all conventions against torture," says Miri Weingarten, spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv-based Physicians for Human Rights. Israeli authorities deny carrying out such practices at Erez and dismiss them as Palestinian propaganda.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1725422,00.html

[pelsar]

1. there is a lesson here....

one shouldnt expect much from the society that is under attack from ones own govt.

[hifalutin]

2. Another lesson

don't bite the hand that feeds you.

[stranger81]

4. Funny, there doesn't seem to be much feeding going on . . . .

Lots of starvation, house demolitions, political incarcerations, segregated roads, roadblocks, land grabs and murder, but very little feeding.

You make the Israeli state sound so generous to the people it's trying to dispossess, dehumanize and/or kill. I'm sure it's surprising to learn that the Palestinians don't see the Israeli state as quite so beneficient.

[pelsar]

5. its called separation....

gaza has an option to live without israeli incursions.....the options are all in the hands of the Palestinians ruling party in gaza, it doesnt get any simpler than that....they have chose to try to kill israelis almost every single day since israel left

btw

i love the "starvation" claim..its like the genocide claim, or the concentration camp claim......you wouldnt have a images to back it up?.....didnt think so, but its always good to make false claims, as there are always some fools that "eat that stuff up"

[azurnoir]

6. a rose by any other name............

apartheid
One entry found.

apartheid

Main Entry:
apart·heid Listen to the pronunciation of apartheid Listen to the pronunciation of apartheid
Pronunciation:
\ə-ˈpär-ˌtāt, -ˌtīt\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Afrikaans, from apart apart + -heid -hood
Date:
1947

1: racial segregation; specifically : a former policy of segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-European groups in the Republic of South Africa

2: separation, segregation <cultural apartheid> <gender apartheid>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apartheid

[pelsar]

7. your right i forgot the "apartheid claim"..

The Palestinian arabs living in israel as israeli citizens are arent segregated....and national borders arent considered apartheid (but dont let definitions get the way)


oh gosh, you forgot about egypt didnt you?...seems to be a constant around these parts since it really really really ruins the "its all israels fault" mantra....

[azurnoir]

9. What claim?

I gave a definition to your use of separation, which in the context surprised me.

Now as to claims I found this as interesting:The Palestinian Arabs living in Israel as Israeli citizens are arent segregated. so Israeli Arabs are really Palestinians posing as Israeli's is that it, well then it's exemplary of Israel to grant them rights as citizens.

[pelsar]

11. israeli arabs...

as part of their identities also see themselves as Palestinians....its just a part of their identity as they see themselves. (guess its one of those things that ones learn from listening to them.....)

[azurnoir]

13. Thanks for the heads up

in the past, like last week all caution was used to keep the identities separate, now today I have seen the conflation on a couple of OP's here, while iit may be that Israeli Arabs identify with Palestinians pushing the idea in the media does not bode well for them.

[Vegasaurus]

14. And yet they want all the benefits and protections that Israel offers

and have made it clear, in a number of polls, that they would not choose to live in a Palestinian state.

So, they want it both ways. To identify as Palestinians, and the "cause of resistance", under the protected guise of a liberal democracy.

[azurnoir]

15. Thanks again for the heads up

on a new and dangerous "talking point" of the pro-Israel anti Palestinian or Israeli Arab set. One can only "wonder" what the endgame is here.

[Vegasaurus]

16. These are not pro-Israel talking points but the talking points of the Israeli Arabs themselves

Palestinians who prefer Israel


Two polls released last week, from Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications and the Arabic-language newspaper As-Sennara, survey representative samples of adult Israeli Arabs on the issue of joining the PA, and they corroborate what Gheit says. Asked, "Would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?" 62 percent want to remain Israeli citizens and 14 percent want to join a future Palestinian state. Asked, "Do you support transferring the Triangle to the Palestinian Authority?" 78 percent oppose the idea and 18 percent support it.

IGNORING THE don't-knows/refused, the ratios of respondents are nearly identical preferring to stay within Israel - 82 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Gheit exaggerates that "no one" wants to live in the PA, but not by much. Thousands of Palestinian residents in Jerusalem who, fearful of the PA, have applied for Israeli citizenship since Olmert's statement further corroborate his point.

Why such affection for the state that Palestinians famously revile in the media, in scholarship, classrooms, mosques, and international bodies, that they terrorize on a daily basis? Best to let them explain their motivations in direct quotations.

Financial considerations: "I don't want to have any part in the PA. I want the health insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here," says Ranya Mohammed. "I'll go and live in Israel before I'll stay here and live under the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport. I have seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges I'm not ready to give up."

Law and order: Gazans, note Israeli-Arab journalists Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, now "miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime."

Raising children: "I want to live in peace and to raise my children in an orderly school," says Jamil Sanduqa. "I don't want to raise my child on throwing stones, or on Hamas."

A more predictable future: "I want to keep living here with my wife and child without having to worry about our future. That's why I want Israeli citizenship. I don't know what the future holds," says Samar Qassam, 33.

[azurnoir]

17. Yes but polls also show

that a growing number of Israeli Jews want them expelled, and this plays right into that.

[Vegasaurus]

18. How so?

The Israeli Arabs themselves prefer Israel's economy, safety, democracy, etc., They themselves would rather stay in Israel than a new Palestinian state. This has nothing to do with what Israeli Jews think.

And yet the IAs support violent resistance by militants. It makes no sense to me, but supporting militancy and violence against your own country would surely be a reason for citizens who really care about the country (true Zionists) to wonder about your loyalty and citizenship.

[pelsar]

19. israeli arabs are also volunteering for national service....

far more now than then in the past......

[pelsar]

20. and when the israeli arabs..

and arabs in jerusalem make it clear that they prefer israel..and when they volunteer for national service as they are now doing, like never before, they in fact strengthen their own position within the israeli society.

and this plays right in to the hands of the avg israeli citizen, who are the vast majority of the citizens of israel

[azurnoir]

21. ah huh

until then what -your either for us or against us? nice

[pelsar]

22. obviously not...

since the israeli/Palestinian arabs have been living in as citizens for many many years now without volunteering for national service....with the shaping of the future Palestinian state, it undemocratic nature being seen, many of them have decided to strengthen their ties to the side that they prefer. Not all, but many.

and those that dont, obviously have nothing to fear from the state, since nothing has happened to them all of these past years.

trying to belittle the choices of the israeli arabs simply because you disagree with their choices is like closing your eyes and ears to the facts. They know far better than you or I what is best for them......i would think that "progressives" would in fact support the choices that they have made, given that its based on real knowledge and freedom of choice.

[azurnoir]

23. Well now

rying to belittle the choices of the israeli arabs simply because you disagree with their choices is like closing your eyes and ears to the facts. They know far better than you or I what is best for them......i would think that "progressives" would in fact support the choices that they have made, given that its based on real knowledge and freedom of choice.

Seems I remember you saying almost the exact same thing a while back when I suggested that Israeli Arabs be drafted in to national service, actually if Israel is going to conscript then it should be everyone and everyone should have a choice of how they serve, could solve some problems with the ultrareligious too, not to mention those who send their kids out of the country to keep them out the IDF.

Now what I have a problem with or was wondering about in the last series of posts to put it succinctly are we seeing the ratchet up an "the enemy within" type propaganda aimed at Israeli Arabs.

[Vegasaurus]

8. There shouldn't be feeding

Nor should there be providing of fuel, electricity or medical care.

The government of Gaza has shown (and the citizens reportedly support this) that they would rather keep up their resistance, their bombing campaigns and rocketing of Israeli cities, rather than take care of the citizens. They have shown the violence is the preferred way of life, and in fact, prefer to bomb the electricity plants that provide their electricity and the aid trucks bringing their aid (really stupid, but you can't argue with facts).

Therefore, the poor Palesitnians really can't be seriously complaining about not being able to get into Israel for their medical treatment. If they want anything at all from Israel in the way of help or aid, it would behoove the government of Gaza to stop with the daily violence. Maybe then their lives wouldn't be such a hellhole.

[Malikshah]

3. Another lesson--treat people as subhuman and they will respond in ways that are counterproductive

and violent.

Such is life and death in this hellhole we call the planet these days.

[aranthus]

10. Yeah right.

Because Israel just one day in June, 1967, decided to invade Gaza and the West Bank for the hell of it. There hadn't been any attacks by Palestinians against Israel. The Palestinians weren't trying to start a war between Israel that the Arab states. They are just innocent victims. Give me a break.

[Malikshah]

12. Read some of the history first...then come back and discuss the issue

Try Israeli historians like Flapan and Shlaim.

Get real.

[aranthus]

24. You mean like

Avi Schlaim's "War and Peace in the Middle East" which I have read two or three times? How about Said's "Blaming the Victims? Now, how about you? Have you read "Six Days of War," by Michael Oren? How about "Six Days in June" by Eric Hammel? Or "Elusive Victory" by Trevor Dupuy? Or the Israel/Arab Reader? More to the point, how and where do any of them contradict the fact that since about 1964 the Syrians and the Palestinians had conspired to start a general war against Israel, and that in 1967 they finally got the war that they wanted (though obviously not with the result that they had hoped for)? do you deny that Fatah was attacking Israel with Syrian assistance? If so, where's the proof? Do you deny that that the intent was to provoke an Israeli reaction that would ultimately plunge the region into a general war? (See, Six Days of War, page 1). If so, where's the proof? For that matter, if the war is solely about Israel keeping the Palestinians locked in the territories, then why were the Arabs attacking the Jews in the 1920's, 30's, and 40's, when there were no refugees, no occupied territories, and the Jews controlled only the land that the owned?

[Name removed]

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[aranthus]

26. Oh, there are a few,

but they all seem to want to justify the war to destroy Israel. That stance doesn't lead to a solution either.

[Tom Joad]

27. what racist filth.

[azurnoir]

28. Once again

what would your solution be? Do you really believe the problem is "Jews in the ME"?

[Name removed]

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