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The “genocidal” Israelis seem determined to confuse us. They confuse us when they provide first-rate medical treatment to Mahmoud Abbas (for whom an Israeli cardiologist made hushed-up house calls to Ramallah), as well as to his wife, his brother, and his brother-in-law. When the late Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority spokesman, came down with Covid, he demanded to be transferred from a Palestinian to an Israeli hospital. Every day, thousands of Israeli Arabs are treated in Israeli hospitals by Jewish medical personnel; none of them appear to worry about becoming the victims of “genocide.” Since October 7, 2023, dozens of Gazan Arabs have been treated in the Sheba Medical Complex, while thousands have been helped by Israel to travel to third countries, including Jordan, the UAE, and European countries, for treatment. Does that sound like a policy of “genocide” to you?
The latest unsung example of Israeli treatment is about a Syrian girl, apparently a Druze, who was brought to Israel for treatment of a serious heart condition at the Rambam Hospital in Haifa. More on her condition, and the treatment she received in Israel from Israeli medical personnel — both Jewish and Arab — can be found here: “Syrian girl receives life-saving treatment at Rambam Hospital in Haifa,” Jerusalem Post, June
A 12-year-old Syrian girl who was critically ill due to a heart problem received life-saving treatment at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa last week, following a joint humanitarian effort between the IDF and the “Yitro – Jews for Druze” association.
The young girl was evacuated from southern Syria last Thursday and brought to the Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital at Rambam.
She was in a life-threatening condition, requiring urgent medical care. Accompanied by her mother, the girl underwent a medical procedure in the pediatric intensive care unit to treat her heart issue….
The “genocide” charge against the Jewish state has taken on a ghastly life of its own. It’s almost become a Homeric epithet: rosy-fingered dawn, wine-dark sea, grey-eyed Athena, wily Odysseus, genocidal Israel. But this Arab girl’s lifesaving operation at an Israel hospital is one more example that gives the lie to that charge. And so do the many dozens of Gazans whose lives were saved by treatment in Israeli hospitals since October 7, 2023.
Other examples that undermine that “genocide” charge against Israel are the thousands of Gazans whose trips for medical care in Jordan, in the UAE, and in Europe, have been facilitated by the IDF. None of this fits the “genocide” narrative. Israel is trying in every way it can to minimize the harm to civilians in Gaza. That’s why the IDF has dropped millions of leaflets, sent millions of text messages, and made millions of robocalls, to warn civilians to leave sites, and buildings, about to be targeted. Is that “genocide”? And one last telling bit of data: the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths in the Gaza war is less than 1:1, far below the ratio of 9:1 that, according to the UN, has been the average in all the wars fought since 1945. In Afghanistan, the Americans brought that ratio down to 4:1, and in Iraq, to 3:1. But no military in history has come close to what the IDF has done, in managing to bring that ratio down to 19:22, that is, less than 1:1. Is that “genocide”?