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Didn’t know there was anything particularly Zionist about providing disaster relief? You learn something new every day. This is a story of exploiting the suffering of poor, defenseless Haitians on behalf of Israeli triumphalism.
A baby named Israel...who, if he reaches adulthood, would never be welcome in Israel (IDF)
Sol Salbe translated an eye-opening column from Yediot by an Israeli doctor who was an integral member of all Israeli international disaster response teams until recently. Then he made the mistake of writing a mildly critical statement about Israeli disaster relief efforts. As a result, he was relieved of his obligation for further IDF service and further participation in the disaster relief program. The op ed is so revealing (and not yet available online in English) I’m going to quote large sections. An explanatory note–at Israel’s Haiti field hospital, they delivered what the Israeli PR flacks called “the first baby since the earthquake.” The medical staff urged the woman to name her baby “Israel” and she was only to eager to oblige. Another Israeli PR coup!
Public Relations instead of saving lives
Sending portable toilets to Haiti would have been a better option, but this does not provide good photo opportunities. Israeli missions to disaster areas in the past have shown that such activity was in vain.
Yoel Donchin
I received my final exemption from the army after I published an article which said that the State of Israel acts like the proverbial Boy Scout, who insists on doing a good deed daily and helping an old lady cross the road even against her will. How ungrateful of me to publish such a column when I had participated in almost all the rescue missions to overseas disaster areas! Suddenly I am no longer suitable to take part in such heroic endeavours. But in light of the experience I gained in such missions…we have wasted our effort.
Generally speaking, we start preparing for such a mission within hours of the announcement of a natural disaster. Most often the Israeli mission team is the first one to land in the area. Like those who climb Mount Everest, it plants its flag on the highest peak available, announcing to all and sundry that the site has been conquered. And in order to ensure that the public is aware of this sporting achievement, the mission is accompanied by media representatives, photographers, an IDF spokesman’s office squad and others.
I understood the purpose perfectly when the head of one of the delegations to a disaster zone was asked whether oxygen tanks and a number of doctors could be removed to make room for another TV network’s representatives with their equipment. (With unusual courage, the delegation head refused!)
The lesson learnt from the activities of those missions is that when there is a natural disaster, or when thousands of people are expelled from their homes by force, as happened in Kosovo, survivors may benefit from international assistance only if it responds to the region’s specific needs. Also assistance must be coordinated among the various aid agencies.
The competitive race to a disaster zone imposes a huge strain on the local health and administration authorities. Airports are clogged by transport planes unloading a lot of unnecessary but bulky equipment. Doctors and rescue organisations seek ways to utilise single carriageway roads and in fact they are a burden. The correct way to help is to send a small advance force to gauge the dimensions of the disaster…
Would they still call that child Israel?
Three components are crucial: shelter, water and food — these things are crucial in order to save the largest number of people. Water purification equipment, tents, basic food rations are needed. But they do lack the desired dramatic effect. If we went down that track we would miss out on seeing that child who was born with the assistance of our physicians. Most certainly, the excited mother wouldn’t give her child (who knows if he will ever reach a ripe old age?) the name Israel or that of the obstetrician or nurse. (Would he get citizenship because he was born in Israeli territory? There would be many opposed to that.) The drama is indeed classy, but its necessity is doubtful.
It being Israel, our current force contains a Kashrut supervisor, security personnel and more.
In the present disaster, which is of a more massive scale than anything we have encountered to date, the need is not so much for a field hospital but field, ie portable, toilets. There is more of a need for digging equipment to dig graves and sewage pipes.
A country which wants to provide humanitarian aid without concern for its media image should send whatever is required by the victims, and not whatever it wants to deliver. But would the evening news show the commander of the Israeli mission at the compound with 500 chemical toilets? Unlikely. It is much more media savvy to show an Israeli hospital, replete with stars of David and of course the dedicated doctors and nurses, dressed in their snazzy uniforms with an Israeli flag on the lapel.
…It is quite likely that financial assistance commensurate with Israel’s resources would be preferable to the enormous expense and complicated logistics involved in the maintenance of a medical unit in the field…
But apparently a minute of TV coverage is much more important…and in fact Israel is using disasters as [military] field training in rescue and medical care. After a fortnight, the mission will reportedly return to Israel. To be truly effective a field hospital needs to remain for two or three months, but that’s a condition that Israel cannot meet.
…It is only in the Israeli aid compound in Haiti that large signs carrying the donor country’s name hang for all to see.
Prof. Yoel Donchin is the director of the Patient Safety Unit at the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem.
Translated by Sol Salbe, who directs the Middle East News Service for the Australian Jewish Democratic Society.
If after reading this you’re feeling either slightly soiled or angry, I urge you to perform a truly constructive, selfless act in reply to Israel’s self-promotional puffery. Make a gift to American Jewish World Service or Doctors Without Borders, who are each doing acts of mercy without thought of benefit to themselves or any narrow political movement. In fact, DWB’s flights of precious, desperately needed medical supplies have been repeatedly turned away by American forces controlling incoming air traffic, in favor of military equipment deemed needed for the occupation which seems to be taking shape there.
Somehow Israeli field hospitals and all their support equipment manage to get through this bottleneck. Could it be? Nah, I didn’t think so.
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Tags: american jewish world service, doctors without borders, haiti earthquake, hasbara, Humanitarian aid, israeli pr, Médecins Sans Frontières, named her baby israel, politicizing disaster relief, Sol Salbe
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01:29 Israeli field hospital in Haiti closes gates, en route back to Israel (Israel Radio)
I guess they can’t wait to fold their tents and go home. Couldn’t even wait out the week.
Grand total of 11 days in situ. Not even the 2 weeks Dr. Donchin claimed they would stay or the 5 wks. Janica the hasbarist claimed let alone the 2-3 months Donchin said they needed to stay to really have an impact!
Daniel: First of all, my remark that Zionists have control over the news media is my own opinion, and there is nothing “dumb and thuggish” about it. You misquote me when you claim that I used the term “Jews” in my comment; kindly go back and read again and you will see that I said nothing about Jews. However, I will not withdraw or repudiate my remark about control of the media, and as a case in point I will remind anyone who cares to argue that Jared Malsin, an editor for Maan in Palestine and an American Jew, was deported from Israel recently, and it was painfully obvious to everyone that it was because of his so-called anti-Israel reportage. Once again, I caution you as to the language you use and ask that you think twice before you use it.
I also will not tolerate any remarks that generalize Palestinian resistance as being the cause of the failure of the fossilized “peace process.” It is obvious to most of us that the block in the “road” has in almost all cases been the Israeli government, and now it is at the point where it is too late for a two-state solution, and I believe this had been the Israeli intention all along. This is not the proper thread for a full blown argument on this, and it has been hashed and rehashed ad infinitum on others, but I am drawing attention to your comment simply to point out that you’re not as open-minded and liberal as you think you are. It is the Israeli government’s responsibility to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and its brutal and disgusting siege on Gaza. As an Israeli citizen, I do hope you are active in achieving this goal.
[...] enough, Stillman links to a very good article on Israel’s aid to Haiti, based largely around an article translated from Yediot Ahronot [...]
“If a commenter behaves in an obnoxious way, they will be treated the way they treat others.”
Dear Mr. Silverstein: You’re fucking obnoxious. This may be your blog, so you’re technically allowed to say whatever you want, but when you set such a poor example for your commenters by being abusive, it’s difficult to see why anyone except supercilious yes-men bother to read this blog. You’re a vile hypocrite and a useful idiot for the enemies of both Israel and Diaspora Jewry.
Not technically, I’m actually allowed to say whatever I want.
And you’re fucking BANNED.
No big loss, Brian. Too bad that any Jew who criticizes Israeli policies is automatically branded “a traitor to Israel and world Jewry,” as if one cannot be a good Jew without being a Zionist. I would personally say that any Jew who speaks out against illegal occupation and abuse of the Palestinian people, and in favor of peace, is the better Jew than one who adopts a racist and abusive ideology and confuses political loyalty with religion.
[...] Safety Unit at the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem, and veteran of Israeli relief efforts, states that Israel’s priorities were not non-showy staples such as chemical toilets and water purification [...]
[...] Owes Haiti Billions Why the Blood Is on Our Hands Also good articles exposing Zionist "Israel"- The Zionization of Disaster Relief | Tikun Olam-???? ????: Make the World a Better Place Port-au-Hasbara Gaza collects Haiti aid, says it was similarly shaken by Israel – Haaretz – Israel [...]
A good article on Israel arming Baby Dock and Papa Doc Duvalier dictators back in the day!
http://globalgrind.com/channel/culture/content/13...
On Dec. 27, 1982, the US newspaper Christian Science Monitor reported that since 1968 Israel had sold weapons to two Haitian dictators-Francois Duvalier, who became president in 1957; and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, who succeeded him in 1971. The two, known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc," controlled and terrorized the country with a private army. On March 27, 1983, the New York Times reported that Israel was among the few countries that had agreed to sell weapons to Baby Doc, and provided him with the long-term payment arrangement that he requested.
Paul Farmer, who would serve as President Bill Clinton’s deputy UN representative to Haiti, previously reported that Gen. Prosper Avril, the head of the military junta that took power in Haiti in 1988, received temporary asylum in Israel in 1990. Avril was the head of Baby Doc’s notorious "Presidential Guard," and a US court ruled that he was responsible for "scandalous human rights violations." He would later serve prison time in Haiti for his crimes.
In 1990, four years after Baby Doc was ousted from power, the popular priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti-in the first democratic elections the nation had seen. But in 1991 he was deposed in a military coup. Britain’s The Independent newspaper reported Oct. 14, 1991 that about 2,000 Uzi and Galil machine-guns from Israel were sent to Haiti in the weeks prior to the coup-with diplomats claiming the weapons went to military units especially loyal to the coup-plotters.