ISRAEL: Sending soldiers of peace to Haiti

Last week, the Israeli army hosted the first international emergency response conference in Israel. Two hundred participants from 35 countries attended the conference to discuss new initiatives in response and preparedness for emergency situations of all kinds. The manager of the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team, Dr. Kristi Koenig, was among them. 

Col. Ariel Bar, the Home Front Command's chief medical officer, had said after the conference that one area in which they hoped to learn from the experience of other countries was natural disasters and earthquakes.

Experience came fast -- though not in Israel.

When devastation struck Haiti, Israel quickly dispatched its professional military relief team including evacuation and recovery experts aided by dogs from the Oketz ("Sting") canine unit and an extensive medical delegation that quickly deployed its fully operational field hospital in the soccer field of Port-au-Prince -- complete with surgeons and all, and a technical division that set up a communications and Internet network for coordination and video-conferencing with medical colleagues back home. The international press is also using the IDF network, as most other communications are down.

The doctors' main problem is fatigue; they're working around the clock, and surgeons are rotating shifts in the operating room headed by the chief surgeon on the site, Ofer Merin. Besides emergency operations and urgent medicine, they're handling deliveries, gunshot wounds and other injuries with no remaining medical help to turn to. Once they assess the situation, another air force plane will be delivering what they need to sustain a two-week deployment. The window of time for recovering survivors is rapidly closing; the delegation says it will stop searching for survivors Monday and concentrate on the medical efforts, assistance to other delegations and examining how Israel may learn from this for the future. Meanwhile, a group of 90 doctors and nurses from Los Angeles have asked to volunteer at the Israeli field hospital, Israel radio reported.

Follow the IDF mission in Haiti on twitter here: http://twitter.com/IDFinHaiti and videos from Haiti here: http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk?blend=3&ob=4

Gilles, a 58-year-old tax authority employee, was trapped under the ruins of the building where he worked. He was there for nearly four days. He had a cellphone, and a text message saying he was alive was conveyed to the Israeli home front command team, which spent seven hours extracting him. See his dramatic rescue here: http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk?blend=4&ob=4#p/a/u/2/oSsCBuBVzQw

Also on the site are ZAKA, a Jewish rescue and disaster-response team, who arrived directly from attending to a heliocpter crash in Mexico that killed Moshe Saba, a member of the Jewish community there and one of Mexico's wealthiest families. The ZAKA teams of ultraorthodox Jews have much experience from the most gruesome of suicide bombings in Israel but say the situation in Haiti is sheer hell. They worked straight through the Sabbath too, some saying it was an honor to violate the holy day in order to save human lives. They did break briefly to welcome the Sabbath with wine and bread -- and also with representatives from Egypt and Qatar. Disaster breeds unexpected closeness sometimes. The delegation rescued eight students trapped under the ruins of the university for 38 hours. See their videos from Haiti here: http://www.zaka.us/video.asp (including a brief Hava Nagila break for the soul).

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened Sunday's weekly Cabinet meeting with a few words about the "horrific tragedy" that took place in Haiti. "I hope the team saves lives and that Haiti recovers from this awful tragedy," he said, adding that Israel was a small country but one with a big heart and the Jewish ethic of extending help, as it has done before when disasters struck other countries. But some in the press were critical, like Sever Plocker, here.

The Ministry of Education has decided to dedicate an online lesson to schools on the disaster in Haiti, and one religious school has announced it will hold a special prayer Monday. In the meanwhile, many Israeli humanitarian, medical and aid NGOs are organizing donations for Haiti, such as Israeli Flying Aid, Magen David Adom, Lions, and Natan.  

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem

Comments

[israelilover]

Yail, yeah israel is the only democracy in the Middle East!
Lebanon is democracy, good joke! we all know that Hezballa (or what ever their name) and Syria rule Lebanon, while israel is democracy maybe her politicians are bad but it is 100% democracy! long live israel! great work!
the IDF is aramy of peace and love! poepel who hate israel go to hell!

[Yail Bloor]

@Josh Is Israel the only democracy in the Middle East? Lebanon has been democratic since the thirties - with an interregnum throughout the civil war, but its coming back. Admittedly, there are problems with the Lebanese system, but in the case of Israel you also have problems.

[m]

hey M

sorry had to do it... :D

[M]

Under a topic about humanitarian aid to Haiti, it is very inappropriate and questionable to hijack the thread to diss Israel and Jews. Even as a non-Jew, it is easy for me to see that the negative comments seem to come from a position of hate and prejudice-- most of it likely based on religious issues and inflammatory geo-politics. These distasteful and mean spirited posts say a lot about the posters, and only cause me to feel sympathetic to the Israelis.

[Josh]

@ Smart Alex. If it wasn't for Israel Iraq would have had nuclear weapons during the Gulf War. Its the only democratic nation in the whole middle east. And please explain what Gazans are? Do you mean Palestinians?

And to all the other Israel haters. That country is under such siege that it must send some its kids in armored school buses to protect to school.

And thank you to everyone else who is praising Israel for their heroic effort during this tragedy.

[jimbob]

looks like quite a few Jewhaters here getting all upset when the reality, that Israelis are infinitely superior to them, gets in the way of their 'the Jooos are torturing Islamic nazis!' propaganda big-lies. Hilarious!

[mbino]

this is for SMART ALEX you are either being paid by the Palestinians or neo Nazis to spew such hatred or you are purely an ignorant specimen.
you knowledge is less than nil and i suggest you go back to the hole you crawled out of and stay there

[romundo]

Hey Tom I can only say... thousands... ha ha ha, Hey Guy your are dreaming!

[Daniel]

@Tom
And the US didn't kill innocent people in Afghanistan? Yes it did. And it's not even about hundreds there, but about millions. Anyhow Israel tried it's best not to hurt innocent people... and just protected it's citizens from a massive rocket attack. Innocent people die in wars. I know it's sad but it's the truth, especially when terrorists hide behind children.
I don't want to discuss about it now since it's not the right place. I would treat your comment as a spam... and probably your name isn't even Tom..
I want to thank Israel for their hard work in Haiti. I'm astonished by the efficiency and quality of the equipment bought and the time it took Israel to establish all this. Great work!

[Tom]

We will never forget Zionists killed thousands of innocent babies and women in Palestine. Zionists decided to help Haiti in hope to remove War Crime. Nice try..

We are not fooled!

[Dave]

Not sure where some nut group gets the figure of $15 billion in US aid to Israel. Real number is $3billion most of it necessitated by the continuing Arab and Iranian threat to Israel's existence, a challenge no other country faces. Israeli aid to Haiti still exceeds US relief to Haiti, and who gets more aid from the world per capita than any country? The Palestinians, and they're doing nothing for the Haitians.

[samss]

Joe, it seems to me that you really do not understand difference between the "loan guarantees" and "aid". Aid is money transferred to a state as a gift. Loan guarantees are guarantees of the US government that money BORROWED by Israel will be returned in any case. Therefore, the US loan guarantees allow Israel BORROWING money on the market with lower interest, but this money MUST be returned. The guarantees cost NOTHING to American taxpayer. I am sure that the authors of the paper you cited did understand the difference and deliberately lied denoting all as "aid".
There is one more "trustful" source for citing, which values not less than the sources you cited in your comment: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
For some reason you cite something of 2003. Now, in 2010, Israel gets ONLY aid from the US, which creates jobs in the US, because this aid can be used ONLY for buying American weapons.

[simon (from London)]

It never surprises how much the supporters of Palestinian cause, (oh by the why never focus on 'lets focus on safe/honest governance' ) ape and try to bash Israel and its Jewish identity by using its own history and experiences against her.. truly indicates a cause which is morally in-question and cannot hold itself without scrutiny, (when journalists brave themselves and ask direct questions rather than being in the hands of arabist apologists who use 'pro-palestinian bias strategy' as a carrot for more access to the story.. remember guys and girls 'jews makes news didn't you know'

[simon (from London)]

RE: JOE
the only dedicated refugee organization that the great neutral and sacred institution the UN given to one sole people since its founding after WW2, is the one dedicated to the Palestinians. So sorry if Jewish people who feel passionately for the State of Israel feel slightly threatened by the notion and perhaps feel bit miffed with the UN's latest 'have-a-go-at-Israel alone report' , we simply cant treat it with complete honestly. go on why don't you come back at me for stating this obvious fact mate

[Fivish]

And Saudi Arabia sent a letter of condollence!

Truely, Israel is a light unto the nations.

[Maria]

and 57 muslim countries contributed to the Haiti desaster.........nothing.

[Joe]

"Funny how generous one can be with someone else money (US aid)"
Total US aid package to Israel for year of 2003; $15 billion
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_17.shtml

"keep one's own neighbors (Palestinians) under military occupation with stopping humanitarian aids from reaching them"
Amnesty International, "Israel must end its suffocating blockade of the Gaza Strip, which leaves more than 1.4 million Palestinians cut off from the outside world and struggling with desperate poverty"
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/israel039s-gaza-blockade-continues-suffocate-daily-life-20100118
UN Goldstone report, "United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza"
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32057&Cr=palestin&Cr1

Nothing personal, here are fellow Jewish organization, UN and Amnesty International findings. Take your insults and fairytale up to United Nations :)

[Publicola]

Some of the commentators here are definitely to be envied for their plain and simple general view of things.
There are the good guys, praising Israel for its ingrained characteristic feature of its willingness to help;
and there are the really bad guys, critizising Israel for its occupation of territory sind 1967 and - though victorious - for not being able and prepared to undertake really serious peacemaking efforts.
I would be glad to be able to see the world as a world of the dichotomy sketched above.

Unfortunately I am one of the few, whose fate is to have been condemned by the divine powers to see things generally as much more, if not too, complicated and complex - way beyond just a dual worldview.

I suppose the reason for this self-tormenting attitude might be that I am possibly a late-born off-spring of Adam and Eve,
who both committed the error and sin to eat from the tree of knowledge. This ingestion of only one apple from the tree of knowledge was the beginning of the misery of being capable, nay, of being forced to see multifarious causes for multifarious effects. Apologies !

[Barry]

I am going to forget the Jew haters for a moment and simply praise the Israelis for being among the first boots on the ground in Haiti, saving lives and generally making the world a better place. IDF recruiting and orientation videos do not just show soldiers in combat. They highlight humanitarian missions in Rwanda, Kenya, Thailand and others. They are truly a people's army.
Jew haters: you are in fine company. In generations to come, you will live in the same infamy as all other Jew haters. And the Jews will still be learning and teaching and leading.

[Li'l Mamzer]

"Bottom line is, many countries are contributing to the relief efforts in Haiti. But only Israel has decided to try to score some cheap propaganda points " - Smart Alex

Israel sent two jumbo jets to Haiti and the only functioning field hospital on the island staffed by perhaps the best emergency care physicians in the world, saving lives and providing comfort and care to those in desperate need, and all you can come up with is that it's a publicity stunt?

Your ignorance and callousness is truly astounding.

Israeli emergency response teams are the best in the world because there have been so many horrific Palestinian Arab suicide terror attacks on her citizens. And Israel providing aid to those in need around the world in ways that much larger countries cannot match has been in practice for decades. That's just one reason why Israel will always have my sympathies in her fight for freedom and security from haters and terror-supporters like you, "Smart Alex".