Daily Archives: December 26, 2009

Double Standards

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One of Israel’s greatest problems is the double standards applied to her.

Take for example the furore over the allegation that “Israel harvests the organs of Palestinians”

The story blew up in August 2009 when a Swedish newspaper alleged that the IDF was deliberately killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.

While the article itself, for those who bothered to read it, rather than the screaming headlines around the world, made it clear this story related to what was alleged to have happened in the late 1980s and 1990, there was no doubt that when the story took wings it clearly gave the impression that this was now happening in the Gaza conflict, and appeared to allege it was exclusively Palestinian organs being taken.

In December 2009, Israel confimred there had been organ retention of skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from dead bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives, in the late 1980s  and 1990, but that this practice is now illegal and no longer occurs. However, not surprisingly, Israel denied (and noted that there was no evidence to support) the story’s original claims that Israeli soldiers were deliberatly killing Palestinians for their organs or that Israel was kidnapping Palestinians and ‘harvesting’ their organs.

The furore that this “revelation” has caused is a clear example of the double standards I am talking about.   For I doubt if researchers would find many countries that have not retained organs for positive purposes and resuarch, with or without the permission of families, yet when has this ever given rise to such indignation and media mania.

The story has developed into a typical Chinese whispers one, with the allegations taking wings and new dimensions throughout the world, particularly in the Arab media.  And now it has been extended to Israel being accused of “importing 25,000 Ukranian children to steal their organs”!!!

The saddest thing is not that this type of story is circulated, but there are plenty of people out there all to willing to believe it!

Stories you won’t find in the media

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Good news stories about Israel seldom get reported in the media.  Yet hardly a day goes by when something positive happens that tells the true story of Israel.   One such story is the heartwarming one of the child from gaza whose sight was restored in an Israeli hospital.   It was first published in the Jerusalem Post, and I picked it up from Stuart Palmer’s excellent Hairfa Diary blog.

Gazan Child Healed in Haifa

A build up of fluid causing pressure within the eyeball is called glaucoma and it’s not “Good News”. When that condition is present at birth then the baby is blind and requires very intricate surgery.
 
This is what happened to Halla a little girl from the Gaza Strip who was brought to Carmel Medical Center in Haifa (just 5 mins down the road from where I live) at the age of ten months and blind from birth. Ophthalmologists at the hospital performed two operations one after the other, the first, to drain the fluid and the second and more complicated procedure, to implant microscopic tubes to maintain the drainage process.

 
This is the type of story the newly elected High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission, Baroness Ashton, should be given as compulsory reading before she makes speeches in the European Union arena.   Despite knowing absolutely nothing about the Middle East, or much else come to that by the sound of things, she used her maiden speech to damn Israel and speak of the terrible conditions in Gaza.  Maybe it would have been best if she had waited till she had visited the area before spewing out her bias.  It is simply incredible that practically everyone who is given a posting that involves pontificating on the Israel/Palestinian situation arrives with an anti Israel/pro Palestinian agenda. 

The fairy tale ending – Halla can see, she reacts to her surroundings, she smiles, she laughs, she’s putting on weight and doing all the things that a ten month old baby should be doing. With all the expenses being met by the Peres Peace Center all her overjoyed parents need to do is take her back home.

This beats all the negative ideology being spewed out on the Gazans radio, TV and newspapers.