For Israelis, Mixed Feelings on Aid Effort

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Inderdaad een beetje vreemd.
Op ruim 10.000km afstand hulp bieden, en in een naburig land eerst zelf
soorgelijk leed veroorzaken en dan de getroffen burgers laten stikken.

Groet / Cees

For Israelis, Mixed Feelings on Aid Effort
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/world/middleeast/22israel.html
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Dr. Ram Avraham treated a Haitian infant in an Israeli Defense Forces
hospital tent near the Port-au-Prince airport.

By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: January 21, 2010

JERUSALEM — The editorial cartoon in Thursday’s mass-circulation Israeli
newspaper Yediot Aharonot showed American soldiers digging among the
ruins of Haiti. From within the rubble, a voice calls out, “Would you
mind checking to see if the Israelis are available?”

A week ago, ahead of most countries, Israel sent scores of doctors and
other professionals to Haiti. Years of dealing with terrorist attacks
combined with an advanced medical technology sector have made Israel one
of the most nimble countries in disaster relief — a factor that Western
television news correspondents have highlighted.

But Israelis have been watching with a range of emotions, as if the
Haitian relief effort were a Rorschach test through which the nation
examines itself. The left has complained that there is no reason to
travel thousands of miles to help those in need — Gaza is an hour away.
The right has argued that those who accuse Israel of inhumanity should
take note of its selfless efforts and achievements in Haiti.

The government has been trying to figure out how to make the most of the
relatively rare positive news coverage, especially after the severe
criticism it has faced over its Gaza offensive a year ago.

“Israelis are caught in a great confusion over themselves,” noted Uri
Dromi, a commentator who used to be a government spokesman. “There is
such a gap between what we can do in so many fields and the failure we
feel trapped in with the Palestinians. There’s nostalgia for the time
when we were the darlings of the world, and the Haiti relief effort
allows us to remember that feeling and say, you see we are not as bad as
you think.”

“Now They Love Us,” was the headline Wednesday on the column of Eitan
Haber, a close aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s and a
Yediot columnist. “In another month or two, nobody will remember the
good deeds” of Israeli soldiers, he wrote. “The very same countries and
very same leaders who are currently lauding the State of Israel will
order their representatives to vote against it at the United Nations,
proceed to condemn I.D.F. operations in Gaza, and again slam its foreign
minister.”

Israeli journalists flew into Haiti with relief teams. And while the
contours of the catastrophe have been well described, inherent in the
coverage is the question of what Israel’s performance says about it and
its place in the world.

Much noted has been the absence of rich and powerful Persian Gulf
countries in the relief effort, a point made here when the 2004 tsunami
hit large parts of Asia and Israeli relief teams swung into action there
as well.

Many commentators argued that the work in Haiti was a reflection of a
central Jewish value. Michael Freund, a columnist in The Jerusalem Post,
wrote on Thursday, “Though a vast gulf separates Israel from Haiti, with
more than 10,500 kilometers of ocean lying between us, the Jewish people
demonstrated that their extended hand can bridge any gap and traverse
any chasm when it comes to saving lives.”

But on the same page, another commentator, Larry Derfner, argued that
while Israel’s field hospital in Haiti is a reflection of something deep
in the nation’s character, “so is everything that’s summed up in the
name of ‘Gaza.’ ” He wrote: “It’s the Haiti side of Israel that makes
the Gaza side so inexpressibly tragic. And more and more, the Haiti part
of the national character has been dwarfed by the Gaza part.”

Early in the week, Akiva Eldar, a leftist commentator and reporter with
the newspaper Haaretz, made a similar point: “The remarkable
identification with the victims of the terrible tragedy in distant Haiti
only underscores the indifference to the ongoing suffering of the people
of Gaza.”

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