If you think that title a low blow, read what follows…
Associated Press reports that the IDF, under the decisive and manly leadership of that master strategist, Ehud Barak, has instituted a “crackdown” on alleged Hamas institutions on the West Bank. Apparently, if Israeli intelligence sources are to be believed, the only way to prevent Hamas from taking over the West Bank is to trash Palestinians girls schools and hospitals:
Israeli troops in jeeps swooped down on the West Bank city of Nablus early on Monday, shutting down a girls’ school, a medical centre and two other facilities… witnesses said. Computers, documents, cash and furniture were seized, the witnesses said.
…In recent months, Israeli troops and Abbas’ security forces have gone after West Bank charities, moneychangers, women’s cooperatives, media outlets and schools with suspected ties to the militants.
Around 1 a.m. Monday, dozens of military jeeps, two bulldozers and two trucks entered Nablus and headed for the facilities of the Solidarity charity, delivering an order to shut the facility for three years, witnesses said.
…The troops shut down Solidarity’s headquarters, as well as an elementary school for 160 girls and a sports club.
“The Israelis have confiscated all computers, documents, televisions and even mobile phones, from the school,” said Principal Fidda Draikh. “Now we need to look for an alternative place to educate these girls. We cannot leave them without a school.”
The medical centre that was shuttered bears the same name as the charity but is run by a different charitable organisation that was controlled by Hamas until its top administration was replaced last year by Abbas’ government, said its director, Dr. Hafez al-Sadr.
Sadr said office equipment was smashed and computers, documents and about $6,000 in Israeli and Jordanian currency were seized. He said the centre is not connected to Hamas. Troops also raided Nablus offices of the Palestinian Authority’s ministry of religious affairs.
Yes, I’m sorry to say this is what passes for tactical brilliance in the post-Lebanon IDF. They learned all their lessons from that war, right? That being an army of Occupation for so long had dulled them to fighting a counter-insurgency war. So the way they’re counteracting that is by trashing computers and stealing currency from Palestinian social welfare organizations. And their intelligence is so fresh that they close down a hospital that once had a Hamas affiliation but is now run by Israel’s alleged ally, Mahmoud Abbas.
So in the next war Israel has to fight, the nation should feel confident in victory as long as the enemy is a school full of Palestinian girls and a hospital. And I have an idea for what the IDF should do with that $6,000 they stole from the non-Hamas hospital (read farther below).
The IDF’s next badge of shame is the ongoing saga of young Maria Amin, paralyzed by an errant IDF missile meant to kill an Islamic Jihad militant. Instead, it killed her brother, grandmother and mother. Only her father remained alive to care for her. The IDF stepped up to the plate as a result of lots of negative PR after this botched targeted killing operation and offered Maria top-flight care at an Israeli rehab facility.
But now that the bad press has died down, the IDF would like to wash its hands of Maria and cart her off to a facility in Ramallah which has little of the expertise or equipment necessary to maintain her long-term care:
Paralyzed from the neck down in an Israeli strike on the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, six-year-old Palestinian Maria Amin is fighting an order to move her from a rehabilitation centre in Israel to the West Bank.
Maria can move around in a wheelchair controlled by a joystick she guides with her chin, but her Israeli doctors say her life would be in danger if Israel’s Defense Ministry sends her to the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Two years ago, Maria was paralyzed from the neck down when the car she was traveling in was caught in a missile attack on a leader of the Islamic Jihad group in Gaza. Her mother, grandmother and older brother were killed.
The Defense Ministry, which has covered Maria’s medical expenses and sponsored her father and younger brother to live with her at a Jerusalem hospital, has been seeking…to send her to Ramallah’s Abu Raya Rehabilitation Centre.
Maria’s father, Hamdi, appealed against the decision, but…Israel’s Supreme Court put off for a third time a hearing on the case until December, when an injunction blocking her transfer to the Ramallah facility expires.
Adi Lustigman, Maria’s lawyer, told the court…”She needs to live near the hospital, she must be near the emergency room – things she cannot have in the West Bank.”
“Maria cannot have her mother, brother or grandmother back, she cannot have her body, but there are things we can do to make things better and this is to take care of her for all of her life because she cannot survive outside Israel,” Lustigman said.
Upset at what he described as foot dragging, Maria’s father said he believed the court did not want to set a precedent that would encourage other Palestinians hurt in Israeli attacks to seek long-term medical treatment in Israel.
The Defense Ministry maintains that Israeli law does not require the army to compensate Palestinians injured in fighting against militants in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It said sponsoring Maria was a humanitarian gesture.
I have an idea how the IDF can fund Maria’s care. Confiscate the funds of every Hamas-affiliated hospital and school in the West Bank and use them to provide for Maria. It would soften the blow of seeing the Israeli army attack poor orphaned Palestinian girls by closing their schools; and allow the IDF to trumpet its “humanitarian gesture” on Maria’s behalf.
If you don’t trust the IDF to do the right thing for Maria, the Sunday Times offers a charity fund for her medical care. Make your check payable to “Marya Aman Appeal” and send it to:
Marya Aman Appeal
c/o Foreign Desk
The Sunday Times
1 Pennington Street
London E98 1ST
In March Gideon Levy reported on the World’s Most Moral Army’s War On Charity in Hebron (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/964067.html), against tenants of the Islamic Charity Movement, also unaffiliated with Hamas, not to speak of the tenants themselves. So this is more of the same, shame on them.
Unlike you, I’m however unconvinced that the army doesn’t know what they’re doing. To me this, together with the earlier Hebron operation, seems more in the spirit of Moshe Dayan’s suggestion that the Palestinians will live like dogs, and whoever will leave, will leave – a creeping ethnic cleansing policy.
A former landlady of mine had unpaid debts with the government. So did the police or the army come and evict me? Surprise, surprise, they didn’t, they just served me notice that I now had to pay the rent to X instead of her. If my landlord (but not me) was suspected of being a terrorist, the same would probably (IANAL) happen: I’d have to pay the rent to a court-appointed trustee, while the case was pending anyway.
(But I forget: when Israel and real or imagined terrorists are involved, there’s no such thing as a pending case.)
I strongly disagree (though I hope that was sarcasm on your part) that Israel should use money they stole from Palestinian charities to fund treatment for Israels own victims, let alone start to systematically steal for that purpose. The army is responsible for Maria’s plight (and that of thousands like her) in exactly the same way as those launching Qassams for the injuries or deaths of those they hit.
@fiddler:
Yes, it certainly was meant as sarcasm. Several yrs ago I wrote a post about an IDF incursion in which they essentially robbed a Palestinian bank of several million dollars claiming the funds were used for terrorism w/o providing any proof whatsoever. The current incident is along the same lines though they’re stealing from girls & orphans in this case which, if anything, is worse.
Thanks Richard for reporting on this. I read these reports nearly every day and am absolutely heartsick and outraged.
The trashing of the Hebron Girls’ Orphanage, the taking (stealing) of their sewing machines and expensive baking equipment and the shuttering the buildings on the campus all for the ‘crime’ of (erroneously) being supported by Hamas charity in Hebron is only one of ongoing slow cleansing –where 500 illegal settlers in the midst of 145,000 Palestinians are curfewed /shuttered inside their homes whilst the fanatics have wild noisy all night street parties outside the windows of those locked in. And all the soldiers do is stand watching, to ensure that the occupied do not open a window or go outside or to the store. But what of the orphaned girs? they have no other place to live and this would force them out and even on the street too poor to pay for rent. But as if that isn’t bad enough what about mention of the handicapped young teacher who was beaten and tied to a telephone post by fanatical settlers, nearly lynched and kicked and stomped despite his handicapped legs.
How long are we going to stand by and watch this inhumanity take place, in our names by that racist violent govt? There are too many such incidents to call it unusual. We just dont read about it in MSM like NYtimes but its is on going. When is this country going to put its foot down and remind the Israeli govt that as long as they receive our tax dollars they WILL respect the laws. Also, they WILL be inspected by IAEA considering that its Dimona plant is older than 40 yrs and is a grave risk to the people and I have read about piles of radioactive wastes being dumped near where Beduoin encampments were moved out of the Negev several years ago. The children especially are at great risk.
These are the sort of things that racists and those without conscience do,not honorable lawabiding governments.
Another great post, Richard. I hadn’t seen the AP report on the raid, but it’s a lot more detailed than other articles I’ve seen.
It’s good that you juxtaposed what’s happening in Nablus to the attack on Maria Amin in Gaza. Not to say the obvious, but Nablus is just as besieged as Gaza, and subject to almost as many attacks and incursions.