Ambassadors of Humanity
By Anat Meidan

Over the course of five months, the doctors and nurses of Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon treated Wania Suleiman, a resident of Jabaliya Refugee Camp in Gaza.  After suffering a serious stroke, she lost consciousness during the 24th week of pregnancy.  Attempts at Azati Hospital to stabilize her condition proved unsuccessful and she was transferred to Barzilai.  At the end of September, after about ten weeks during which doctors fought for the lives of Wania and her fetus, she gave birth to her third son.

Last Wednesday, Suleiman passed away in the hospital’s internal medicine ward as the medical staff fought back tears.  Two days later, a Qassam rocket landed in Ashkelon, shaking the hospital building and raising the level of fear and anxiety of its occupants.  “We knew the Suleiman family on an intimate basis; we were happy when a healthy boy was born and saddened that his mother never got to see him.  When she died, our hearts ached,” said Dr. Yosef Mashil, head of the internal medicine department as he rushed off to care for a Gaza resident, about age 40, brought to Barzilai under artificial respiration.

About 25 Gaza residents are now hospitalized in Ashkelon.  They arrive at Barzilai after coordination between the Hospital Authority and the medical institutions in the Gaza Strip.  This dialogue goes on all the time—even when the Qassams thunder overhead.  No one produces a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to saving lives.  The battle to save lives is the sole determining factor, even as an interminable battle rages outside bent on destroying life.

Outside, war prevails, aimed at sowing hatred and death.  Inside, within the hospital walls, the fight is one for the lives of patients regardless of their national identification.  Were, God forbid, a Qassam rocket to fall on the hospital’s grounds, there would certainly be joy in Gaza over the staggering achievement.  It would not occur to anyone to think of the Gaza residents rehabilitating there.

It seems nightmarish and surrealistic, and some would say that it makes no sense, but the response at Barzilai is the only ethical answer to the surrounding chaos.  This model is the way to build humanistic relations between neighbors, humane and normal within a reality that is crazed, sick, and inhuman.

The small glimmer of hope amid the vast darkness is that the husband and children of Wania Suleiman, who was treated with unending devotion at Barzilai, and the families of the 25 Palestinians hospitalized here, will lower the level of hatred when they return home.  They, who met Israelis in white cloaks working to improve their quality of life, will perhaps be ambassadors of coexistence and of a dialogue of words rather than missiles.  Who knows better than they that this is the only alternative left to us.

Following the event, you will be able to watch archived footage of the speech here. The archived footage will only be available later this evening.

Please note that you need Real Player to watch the videos

Among the inspiring rallies yesterday in front of the United Nations was this one by the organization Stop Child Executions calling for Iran to respect the human rights of its citizens. Here is a video of Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the head of the organization, speaking at the protest, with people from many different religions and political views in attendance.

The waves of protest against the address to the United Nations by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran are broadening. The loud cry of hundreds of Jewish protesters, who stood Monday in front of the United Nations building, was replaced yesterday by the profound silence of those who cannot cry out—the youths in Iran who have been condemned to death.
According to data provided by Amnesty International, 140 juveniles have been executed in Iran since 1990—26 of them since Ahmadinejad came to power—with a further 71 on death row. According to the protest organizers, “Stop Child Executions,” these executions violate international law, which establishes prison as the maximum sentence for minors. “I look out at the streets of New York and see Christians, Buddhists, and Baha’is who all openly display their faith; I see women with heads uncovered and people protesting government policies. In Iran, they would already have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed.” The organization’s founder, Iranian expatriate and former Miss Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam, said, “Change in Iran will not come through war and bombs; that’s exactly what Ahmadinejad wants. Change will only come from a revolt by the Iranian people, backed by the West, which needs to cry out today on behalf of these children and against Iran’s violation of human rights.”
During the past several years, those executed in Iran include not only minors, but also women and men accused of homosexual acts, opposition to the Revolution, corruption of the Earth, and standing in the way of God.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside UN headquarters in New York today to protest the arrival of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. Speakers criticized Iran’s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and the regime’s failure to respect its citizens’ basic human rights. Among the speakers was Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, whose comments are featured in the above video.

This television show comes from Palestinian Authority TV programming for kids. Enough said.

Showboating over Gaza
Israel last Saturday permitted two boats of protesters to land on the shores of Gaza. This disappointed the more aggressive agitators in the party, as they hankered for a confrontation with the Israeli navy that never came. Yvonne Ridley, on board making a documentary for an Iranian state-funded broadcaster, must have been particularly frustrated.
Having thoroughly assessed the security risks, Israel granted the ships safe passage. The protesters came ashore with enough hot air to fill the 5,000 balloons they’d brought for the children of Gaza. They also delivered 200 hearing aids. Yet their silence regarding Hamas’s abuse of its own people, let alone Israeli civilians, has been deafening.
Ironically, while the protesters tub-thumped their way to Gaza, just three weeks earlier, scores of Palestinians were at the Israeli border, fleeing for their lives. Eleven Palestinians died and more than a hundred were injured in fierce fighting between Hamas and its Fatah rivals. Facing slaughter by Hamas forces, nearly 200 Fatah members fled to Israel for refuge. Bilal Hilles, one of the wounded, described his fear at the prospect of returning to Hamas rule. “It would be like a death sentence for me,” he told the Jerusalem Post.
Hamas’s enslavement of Gaza continues, as does the silent complicity of the protesters.
Observers should be wary. The portrayal of Israel as pantomime villain and as sole cause of conflict in the Middle East is jeopardising the search for real solutions to complex problems. Sections of liberal society risk sleepwalking into the service of those who represent the antithesis of liberal values, namely Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas.
In Gaza, Hamas has ruthlessly crushed its rivals, stifling criticism and ransacking its opponents. Hamas seized power in a bloody coup d’etat in June last year, during which its Fatah rivals were brutalised and murdered, a fact evocatively illustrated by the sight of a Palestinian Authority official being hurled from a fifth-floor window.
Hamas has used the recent internal violence in Gaza to extinguish the final flames of resistance to its rule. No opposition media remains after Hamas shut down the radio station of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Human Rights Watch recently reported on Hamas’s rule, citing “arbitrary arrests, tortured detainees, clamping down of freedom of expression and assembly”.
Yet the protesters’ anti-Israel dogma prevents an honest assessment of Hamas’s abuse of its population and its misuse of resources. Key facts are distorted and disregarded, particularly as regards humanitarian aid, food and fuel supply. Contrary to the most popular distortions, patients and companions are frequently allowed into Israel and the West Bank for medical treatment. In 2007, more than 130,000 Gazans were granted entry on those grounds, a trend that continues to this day.
In keeping with the orders of the Israeli supreme court, millions of litres of fuel are made available every week at the Nahal Oz fuel depot. Hamas has frequently attacked the depot with mortar bombs and rifle fire. Thousands of tonnes of food supplies, medical equipment and building materials are transported through the Sufa and Karni crossings weekly. Following the period of relative calm brokered by the Egyptians in June, the supply has increased considerably. This despite near daily violations in the form of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel. Where does the aid and the fuel go? Why has Hamas frequently attacked the crossings and fuel terminals? Why has Hamas forced staff at petrol stations and bakeries to go on strike? In their zeal to demonise Israel, the protesters are failing to ask these questions. Consequently, they are failing the Palestinians tyrannised by Hamas’s illegitimate rule.
The beneficiaries of this intellectual negligence are Hamas and their Iranian sponsors. Iran and its extremist friends are threatening moderates throughout the Arab world - in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Iraq, as well as among the Palestinians. Ironically, Arab Muslim commentators, who traditionally are no friends of Israel, seem more alarmed by the threat than their British counterparts.
It is time to realise that bashing Israel will not build Palestine. Showboating designed to vilify Israel will not steer the Palestinians through the choppy waters to statehood. Instead, the world must encourage the Palestinians to build their infrastructure and develop governing institutions. The extremists who sabotage this must be held to account. Ignoring the fragile dynamics within Palestinian society will merely push Palestinians further towards the Iranian orbit, towards isolation and away from their national aspirations.
The alarm bells about the extremist challenge have been ringing loudest within the Arab world itself. It is time they were heard here. Yet as the agitators and their fan clubs strive for ratings on Iranian TV, the pleas of progressives are falling on deaf ears.