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Showing posts with label Syrians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syrians. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Syrian Injured Find Aid in Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

When Syria's Civil War started, their government  of Bashar Hafez al-Assad made it illegal for their doctors to give medical care to anyone suspected of supporting the opposition.  Many of their doctors have been targeted for death and have been attacked.

Reports estimate that more than 15,000 Syrian doctors, which is half of their profession there, have fled Syria.  60% of their hospitals have been destroyed.

In Aleppo, which used to be the major Jewish city, there used to be 1,171 doctors in their government hospitals, part of a very good medical care system that was cheap for the citizens.  Today these same doctors are in rebel hands with only 292 left.  Jews left in 1992-94, helped by Judith Feld Carr. Jews were not a part of the population at large but were confined in a Jewish quarter.  They probably weren't allowed into the medical profession of Aleppo.

In eastern Ghota outside of Damascus,  30 doctors of 1,000 are left.  All other medical personnel have fled.  Their medical facilities have been targeted for attacks by both the government and the rebels.
                                                                             
Word was out that Israel was giving medical care to Syrians,  and hundreds of injured have gotten to their border for treatment, and are never turned away.  The war has been going on for 3 years and Israel not only has been providing medical aid but go into refugee camps in Jordan where 600,000 Syrians are held which has put a great strain on Jordan, who haven't recouped from their previous Iraqi refugees, and give aid.

 Combatants and civilians streamed over in IDF ambulances to get to the Western Galilee Hospital and Ziv Medical Center in Safed and even further to Haifa for help at Rambam Hospital, which is the army hospital there.  They also have taken in the injured near Tiberias at the smaller Poriya Hospital.

Doctor makes claim after UN report shows child casualty rates in Syria are the highest recorded in any recent conflict in the region


Israel opened a new neuro-surgical department, the only one in northern Israel a year ago. A few months after opening, they saw that 20% of their patients were Syrians.  250 were war wounded with horrendous trauma like head injuries showing attempted execution-type shootings and attempted machete beheadings.  One patient had his whole lower jaw missing and couldn't talk of course and couldn't   write to communicate because he was illiterate.  His jaw took 17 hours of surgery with medical experts from all over Israel to rebuild his jaw from a part of his leg bone.  They have also treated women and children, civilians injured in the war.  Doctors have found that snipers deliberately shoot children in the spine.
                                                                               
The Syrians are Israel's enemies.  They have been told that Jews are the devil, Satan.  They are taught to hate them, but they must have been desperate and realized it was their own people who had harmed them, so how much more could the Israeli's show harm to them?  When they opened their eyes after surgery, they looked like they were in shock, but it only took a few days before they felt comfortable and were at ease.  Israel makes sure that there is an Arabic speaker available for them at all times.

It was the chief military medical officer of the IDF Northern Command that requested the Israeli doctors to treat Syrians at this particular hospital, but the head man, Dr. Masad Barhoum, a Christian Arab, said it was natural for him to accept the request.  "We have to do this," he told the reporters.  "It is our professional privilege and it is our moral obligation.  They've had to see 120,000 die in Syria already and know that people   are homeless being their homes have been bombed and crushed that are now suffering from disease and injuries without being able to get treatment.  "What we are doing is a drop in the ocean.  I thank G-d I have the opportunity to treat these injured."

All Israelis are reflecting the morality of the Jewish people.  The surprise is that Assad, president of Syria, is also a doctor, an eye doctor.  His value system for life is quite different, however.  His values center on punishing people who disobey him.  He is most vindictive.

This was brought out being he is an Alawite, a branch of Islam that is not accepted by the Muslim Brotherhood whose headquarters were in Homa.   Assad's family are a minority group.  This is the way Lebanon also rules, with the Christian minority.  When Assad took over on November 16, 1970, the Brotherhood began to plan for his overthrow.  The guerilla war started in the late 70's and bombs went off outside of Syrian government building.  Soviet advisers and members of Assad's ruling Baath Party were shot in attacks or taken hostage.  Assad responded with the same style, abductions and assassinations.

He was the main target and on June 26, 1980, the Muslim Brotherhood members threw 2 grenades at him and then opened fire.  He survived with a foot injury when he kicked away one of the grenades.  So he has no heart for rebels.  An election was held last week and of course he won.  He'll be reigning until 2021 now.
                                                                         
1980-85: My Safed apartment came with bars on the living room windows as we were on ground floor.    That was to deter terrorists from entering and attacking.  

During the 1982 Lebanon-Israel War, I was living in Safed in the northern Galilee and was teaching English right across the street from the Ziv Hospital/Medical Center where I sought treatment a few times.  My 9th grade boy students were asked to help out in the hospital with their skills of speaking Arabic and English, languages of the enemy that were also patients there from the war. We could hear the helicopters land on the hospital roof, and the children would hover in corners fearing they were bringing in their fathers or brothers who were called into the IDF during this period.   They came back after their shift and told me that they had seen things kids their age should never have to see, in telling about the injuries they witnessed.  They learned the hard way what war was all about.

Israel's religious learning is that of feeling that life is precious, valuable, and that means all life.  The toast is L'Chaim, to Life.  Many many Jews seek to become doctors, and indeed there are many among our people.  Here they are, threatened by Arabs who had a nuclear facility ready to use against them in Iraq, and even now have missiles pointing at them from Lebanon and Syria with threats to take over the Golan recently coming from Assad, and they are caring for their  unwanted, their injured, and making them whole again.  All this has to be done quietly so that their patients will not be murdered for having sought treatment when they return to Syria.

The estimate is that about 1,000 Syrians have entered Israel for medical treatment.  About 450 were treated at the army field hospital.   At the same time, Israel has been hit by Katyusha rockets fired into northern Israel from Lebanon by Hezbollah, and they wind up protecting these patients along with everyone else.

Resource:  Magazine: The Jerusalem Report, June 16, 2014, Treating the Enemy by Judith Sudilovsky
Book:  Messages From a Syrian Jew Trapped in Egypt, p. 4,5., by Nadene Goldfoot
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10697943/Israeli-doctor-treating-Syrians-says-snipers-deliberately-shoot-children-in-the-spine.html
Book: Letters From Israel, by Nadene Goldfoot

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Netanyahu's Fantastic Offer to Arabs Will Be Squashed and Why

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      
   
The New York Times reporters, Mark Landler and Jodi Rudoren reported on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the American Israel Public Affairs committee.( AIPAC) yesterday.

Netanyahu  gave a pitch for peace with the Palestinians by saying that it would enable Israel to tighten ties with its Arab neighbors and "catapult the region forward" on issues like health, energy and education.  "We could better the lives of hundred of millions,"  he said.  "We all have so much to gain from peace."

We know that Netanyahu and Israel want peace with their neighbors.  They've wanted it before Israel became a state in 1948.  They worked and planned to create Israel but at the same time to have peace with their neighbors.

 He said that after his big meeting with Obama, where they discussed some very tough issues for Israel in this peace process.  Evidently he's trying to convince the Arabs what they would gain instead of the perpetual war, blood and guts and their stand to never ever accept Israel as a Jewish state. However, the Palestinian Arabs  follow the Muslim Brotherhood Creed on this which is to never have peace with Israel.
                                                                             
Netanyahu is also locking horns with Obama,  Kerry and the Arabs over Jews living in Judea and Samaria, which is land originally set aside as being part of the Jewish Homeland by the League of Nations in the 1920's.  The big world powers call them "Jewish settlements," and probably call Tel Aviv a settlement as well.  1967  was when Israel won back Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem after being attacked by all the surrounding Arabs and then some more beyond the perimeter.  It has been 47 years, and Jews that moved there are still being hit with the "settlement" word.  They settled  long ago already in 1968, after the war was won with the latest established in 1984 except for one which was established in 1998-16 years ago.  In all, there are 321,179 Jews living in Judea-Samaria. Israel had stopped building for one whole year and the Palestinians didn't come around.  It was a waste of time.
                                                                             
  Netanyahu praised Kerry as the man who never sleeps.  Kerry had warned Israel that they could be ostracized if they failed to make peace with the Palestinians but as far as we know has said absolutely nothing like that to the Arabs.  Kerry didn't make himself popular with that comment with Israel.  Besides that issue, he has shown that he sides with the Palestinians by making all sorts of incredible demands on Israel and nothing for the Arabs.

Obama wants the Palestinians and Israelis to sign a framework accord which Kerry is drafting and expects it to be signed by the end of April.  This is  evidently written out in general terms only about Israel's security and the borders of a future Palestinian state which is already a done deal in the UN as far as accepting a Palestine as an observer state.  It is to allow the 8 month old negotiations that have been going on with Kerry to be extended.  An unofficial statement from an official said that the agreement would have enough in it that was good for Israel.  That is the official's opinion, not Netanyahu's.  Like we say, "Is it good for the Jews"?  The answer for the past 8 months has been, "NO."  

Obama is now taking over in the talks from Kerry.  He's meeting on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, with Abbas to urge him to sign.

Netanyahu told Obama that they were pressing up against very tough issues for Israel.

Netanyahu also brought up the growing boycott movement that hits on Israel.  He said that "this links it to the darkest chapters of anti-Semitism in history. "   The Arabs and their siders took his comment as showing how well the boycott is working.  He's just disgusted by being singled out when so many other nations are doing so many destructive things in this world, such as Assad in Syria or the Ayatollah in Iran and the nuclear bombs they are creating.  Being singled out for something others find an excuse to fault Israel for is anti-Semitism, pure and simple.
 We've had over 2,000 years of it and can spot it easily.  Israel has every legal right in the world to allow people to move into Judea and Samaria, but being Jews-are being given a bad time about it.  Legal, shmegal, the powers to be don't give a hoot evidently about legalities.  Jews, who believe in Judaism which has been faulted by other religions as being too full of laws that people don't need to follow, has international law on their side about living on the land, and THAT is now the worst evil of the century.  How about that for logic today?    So the Arabs are using boycotting as another form of their rockets, mortars and missiles that Hamas uses almost every day against the civilians of southern Israel, a teeny land of only 8,000 sq. miles.  Hit southern Israel and the wind from it hits the rest of Israel. So does the pain and anguish making its citizens more determined than ever not to be driven out of their country.  .
                                                                       
                                     Hezbolla terrorists fighting in Syria

Sorry, Syrians.  Abbas can kill as many of his 22,505,000 Syrian citizens as he wants.  ISRAEL is continuing to live and love and worship G-d in their own land and that's what's arousing the world to pounce on Israel instead of Assad.  What's good and what's bad today has taken a new direction.  What Netanyahu has  pitched to the Arabs is too logical.  That's not what their Palestinian charters  of the PA or Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood stand for.  It's not what they want at all!  When someone convinces them to change their goals, then you can talk about peace.  The war ain't over till the fat lady sings and the fat lady ain't sung yet.

Resource:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/middleeast/netanyahu-promotes-efforts-toward-a-peace-deal.html?_r=0
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/wbsettle.html
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/03/05/report-state-department-sources-say-obama-sabotaged-peace-Update: 3/5/14 talks-with-goldberg-interview-conducted-behind-kerrys-back/  Read this one!  

Monday, January 6, 2014

Israelis Saving Lives of Syrians

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                          

                                                                                    Ayatolla of Iran

                                          Hallway in Rebecca Sief Hospital in Safed

The Ayatolla of Iran and other leaders  repeatedly call Jews viruses, monkeys, apes and other hideous adjectives in their brainwashing of their followers to hate or feel disgust towards the Jews and their Jewish state of Israel.  Naturally, the whole Middle East seems to be reflecting this same attitude.  Abbas refuses to accept Israel as a Jewish state.  Jews are unacceptable to his Palestinian ideals, a state, if it reaches fruition, to be devoid of all Jews, truly a real apartheid state.
                                                                           
          Doctor at Ziv Hospital attending Syrian woman injured in Civil War

Yet, the teachings of Moses permeates in the Israelis who live by the credo that life is important, not death.  They have helped 200 Muslim Syrians who have dared to cross the border into Israel seeking medical help over these last 9 months.  The 200th patient updates the number as of December 25, 2013.  One of the latest was a very pregnant mother in labor who managed to get to Safed where her son was born in their Rebecca Sief Hospital, known as Ziv Hospital which serves the upper Galilee and northern Golan with 310 beds.  This was my hospital where I visited several times, being it was on my block where I lived from 1981 to the end of 1985 in binyon (building 213 on David Eleazar Street.)  .  .

These people are grateful that they were given care, the same all the Israelis would receive.  They have returned to their country but cannot tell their friends where they have been for fear of their own lives being threatened there.  However, the word is out.  Go to Israel if you have been injured.  Some even come with references and names of a preferred surgeon someone found was wonderful.  At least these people will not be so apt to believe leaders who curse Jews and want to kill them all.  If they ever get a chance to vote in an election, they may not be voting against Israel.

The hospital is now collecting donations to help purchase medical equipment for wounded Syrians through its website.

Reference: http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/01/01/syria-war-victims-saved-by-their-biggest-enemy-israel/ , video from BBC
http://www.safed.co.il/ziv-hospital.html
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.565365
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkdMJyuIU5U

Monday, March 11, 2013

90,000 Syrian Deaths But Not Alarming to Newsmen

Nadene Goldfoot
On the 12th of February 2013 at least 70,000 Syrians had been killed in their uprising. Syria has been the 17th largest Muslim majority country in the world with a population of 22,505,000 of which 90% are Sunni/Shi'a following Hanafi/Alevi  fiqhs.   Kerry reports that now 90,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began.  It has been a wholesale slaughter but the world just isn't reacting very strongly.  They're just ho-humming about it.   Is it that when an Arab kills an Arab it is not news?  Reporters don't get excited until it is a Jew that kills an Arab.  1.2 million Syrians have been displaced.  Many have found refuge in Jordan who has had to create camps to hold them.  The fighting is even spilling into Israel's Golan Heights.

Jews don't have any laws going on to kill Arabs.  There is no enmity on the part of the Jews towards Arabs, but there has been on the part of the Arabs towards Jews starting at the beginning of time.  Abraham lived in the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.  Our problems started about 4,000 years ago. Ishmael, first son of Abraham with Hagar, the maid of Sarah,  had reason to be angry with his half brother, Isaac.  He was cast out of Abraham's house along with his mother by Sarah's frustration over his behavior around the baby, Isaac.  Ishmael became the father of the Arab people.

 Joktan, , the 2nd son of Eber (Gen. 10:25)  is thought to be the ancestor of the southern Arab tribes. Joktan's sons in the order provided in Gen. 10:26-29, were: Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. Joktan means small, smallness.

 Problems between the two parties continued  with Esau and Jacob, twin sons of Abraham's son, Isaac when Isaac took the birthright due to go to  Esau who was the elder brother by a few minutes. Esau had sold it to Jacob in a deal to get a meal quckly.   Esau wanted to kill Jacob for his own negligence of giving his birthright away which caused Jacob to leave home in Haran.  Jacob returned 20 years later and was greeted affectionately by Esau, who is identified with Edom.  Jacob's name was later changed to Israel, denoting a change in status.  This became the point of reference telling about the 2 nations.   First Isaac had problems and then his son Jacob had problems.

However, with Islam and Mohammad's anger with Jews not converting to his new religion, anger has sprung up again from the Muslims for Jews and along with it an intoleration of Jews living  in the Middle East.  Qaradawi, religious leader from Egypt who lives in Qatar, has a fatwa out for all Jews to be killed.  Enmity has been  shown by the Gazan Arabs who have shelled Israel with mortars, missiles and rockets since 2001 until just recently.

When Israel announced its birth on May 14, 1948, it was attacked immediately by the Arabs which marks Israel's "War of Independence" which cost around 20,000 casualties in total for both sides.  That's the highest amount of deaths that Israel has suffered so far.  Casualty estimates of the wars of 1967  was 20,000 and 1973 was 15,000.

All wars involving Israel have been less that Syria's deaths of the last few years by about 30,000.  The fight from Gaza led to deaths that are but a fraction of Syria's numbers of Arab on Arab.  How has the press reacted?  With protest movements against Israel by bigots.  Israel was attacked.  Israel responded eventually  but with as much diligence as humanely possible.  Then the press reacted by calling Operation Cast Lead a "Holocaust", muddying the word that exemplifies the Jews losing 6 million people in a Holocaust of having become the scapegoats of a warrior nation that tried to exterminate the whole Jewish people.   The Gazans fought among their own populated areas hiding behind women and children, making sure they would be targeted first to play the sympathy card whereas Israel does the best job of teaching soldiers techniques to save lives.

Gazans claim to have lost 1,385 in Israel's Operation Cast Lead action but uniformed soldiers count was 200-300.  "Difficulties in ascertaining an accurate Palestinian casualty count have been attributed to a number of factors. It was reported that Hamas fighters had been ordered not to wear military uniforms during the fighting..  Israeli-Arab journalist Khalad  Abu  Toameh wrote in The Jerusalem Post that this practice led to the over-counting of civilian casualties and under-counting Hamas military casualties, as Palestinian casualties arrived at hospitals without weapons or any other signs revealing they were actually fighters."

Why did the Arabs attack southern Israel from 2001 on?  "Rationales given by the Palestinian groups responsible for the attacks vary, but often include the argument that the rockets are a method of protest and of calling attention to perceived injustices. According to other explanations, the attacks constitute revenge for – or defense against – perceived Israeli aggression."  The Israel aggression hasn't been anything other than defensive strikes when deemed absolutely necessary to stop constant hits.

Israel, being such a small nation of people who make up only  half of 0.02% of the world population, is under the magnifying glass constantly.  Every death is investigated by the press as well as having been investigated by Israel itself.  It's a good thing Jews have tended to follow the profession of law, as they must be ready constantly to defend themselves against anti-Semites.  Every movement Jews in Israel make finds protesters of some sort.

The Syrians are just passed up as stale, uninteresting news.  Fighting goes on among Arabs on a regular basis in the Middle East.  Lebanon and Syria, Palestinians and Jordan, Iraq and Iran, all have had their to the death battles.

When Ha-Shem told the Jews that they were to be the light among nations, I'm sure he didn't mean to have the flood lights or stage lights on them constantly whenever they had to protect themselves, but that's the case.   So Israel tries to be the light of ethics,  even when they are in horrible situations such as war.  The fact that they have shown restraint and care for life as found by fellow soldiers of battle from other countries, puts them in a good light.

Reference:  dailyalert@list-dailyalert.org  from Gatestone Institute, by  Douglas Murray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-says-90000-killed-in-syria/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War
Tanach, the Stone Edition