When Brother-in-Law Of Terrorist Haniyeh Has A Heart Attack, He Goes To An Israeli Hospital

Despite the tension and violence between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, there were even more Palestinian Arabs treated in Israeli hospitals in 2011 than there were in 2010:

Cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians in the medical field grows: An increase in the number of Palestinian patients treated in Israel was reported during 2011, according to the Civil Administration annual summary. Approximately 115,000 Palestinian patients were treated, over 100 Palestinian doctors interned at Israeli hospitals, and five organ donations were performed.


Annual summary data shows a 13% increase in the number of Palestinians treated in Israel in comparison to the previous year. "Every year more patients are sent to Israeli hospitals," said Civil Administration Health Coordinator, Mrs. Dalia Bassa.

Additionally, during 2011 five organ transplants saved the lives of Palestinian patients treated in Israeli hospitals. Two of the organs were donated by Israelis. Two operations on pregnant Palestinian women were performed as well at the Hadassa Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem, saving their babies. [emphasis added]

So that the Arabs will not be overly dependent on Israeli hospitals, in 2011 Israel hosted 2,000 Palestinian doctors at various conferences and educational programs both in Israel and abroad. In addition, there were 118 Palestinian doctors who worked for a year as interns in the Israeli hospitals.

Still, though the availability of Israeli medicine and hospitals is--or should be--common knowledge, every once in a while there is a story that catches you by surprise.

Four months ago, Israel treated the brother-in-law of Hamas terrorist leader Haniyeh:

The sister of Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh recently entered Israel along with her husband, who received urgent treatment at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Ynet has learned.

Four months ago the husband of Suhila Abd el-Salam Ahmed Haniyeh suffered a serious cardiac episode which could not be treated at any hospital in Gaza. After the couple filed an urgent entry request with Israeli authorities, a Palestinian ambulance transported the husband to the Erez Crossing, where he was moved to a Magen David Adom vehicle and taken to the hospital in Petah Tikva along with his wife.

In Health Care, Israeli-Style, P. David Hornick points out that Hamas, of course, is the Palestinian terrorist group that wants to destroy Israel --

And Hamas regularly acts in the spirit of such statements, having killed and injured thousands of Israelis in suicide bombings, rocket firings, and other terror. As for Ismail Haniyeh, you can see him here at Hamas's 24th anniversary rally in Gaza last December 14, bellowing decidedly unfriendly things about Israel such as:

the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the [Israeli] invaders and usurpers from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine -- all of Palestine, Allah willing…. We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine.

Hamas may talk about refusing to do anything that might legitimize the Jewish state of Israel and grant it recognition, but as Hornick writes:

When the chips were down, then, they knew not only that an Israeli hospital could give lifesaving treatment that Gaza hospitals couldn't give, but that there was a chance the Israeli authorities would consent to their request even though Gaza is a hostile entity that instills hate and regularly bombards Israel with rockets and mortars -- in part at the instigation of the distressed man's own brother-in-law.

Ideally, this would induce soul-searching not only about Israel's technological superiority but a value system that sees the humanity even of members of a hostile population. There is, though, no sign of such a reckoning.

Read the whole thing.

But there are things that Israel does and continues to do, with or without recognition for the simple fact that this is what Jews, Israelis, do.

Apparently it is another example of culture that differentiates where Israel and the Palestinian Arabs stand.

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