Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Dorothy Is Not Worried

Dorothy Naor has admirable qualities, mostly in what we refer to as the sphere of humanitarian activities. I don't mind her left-wing views but I have a problem with her priorities.

Here's part of Dorothy's story (a bit shortened and I'll comment below):-

Dear All,

I'm not from Machsom Watch. I'm just an individual that at times accompanies Palestinians to hospitals. Yesterday I received a phone call asking me if I could go today to Gaza to pick up a 17 year old patient at the Erez checkpoint and drive him and his father or uncle (one of them accompanies him) to Sheba hospital
near Tel Aviv. The boy has been fighting leukemia for several years...I arrived at the checkpoint at 9:00, only to learn that the Erez checkpoint was closed and that no one--but NO ONE-- was coming out, not for hours. There had been 'hot'
reports on some sort of Palestinian attempt at violence.

So I was told. I don't take these reports too seriously.

They could be true, but they just as likely are concocted to play to Israeli fears and assumptions, mainly to keep them in line--to keep the public fearing, so, heaven help it, it won't start asking questions and doubting that Israel needs an army, much less an army that is the 4th strongest in the world!

...Then I started phoning. Not so easy, because while I have numbers as the Civil Administration in my cell phone address book, these are for the West Bank, not Gaza. So that when I phoned Dalia at the Civil Administration, she was unable to help me. When later I had the Gaza phone numbers for the Civil Administration, no one answered the phone. Apart from these phone numbers, all my phone numbers of Knesset members and the like were at home. It just hadn't occurred to me that I might need them (that won't happen again). To make a long story short, several people whose numbers I had gave me phone numbers and made suggestions of whom to call. The female soldier at the gate gave me the phone numbers of the Erez DCO. The DCO couldn't help. The Physicians for Human Rights couldn't help. The person from the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said that he would help, but at the end said that he could not tell the army what to do. Later I was informed that it was the Shabak who was holding things up. The Knesset members that I contacted did not answer their phones (perhaps they were abroad). And so on and so forth...


What admirable qualities does Dorothy possess?

Gumption. Assertiveness. Willingness to do things alone.

Of course, however, her value system is a bit problematic.

It just so happens that the Pals. continue to send forth the suicide bombers and the incident at Tel Aviv inbetween Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is just one.

Yes, hard decisions have to be made and I certainly know that the police or other security personnel can be SOBs.

But, on the background of Pal. violence, that something like this occured should not be surprising to a seemingly intelligent person like Dorothy.

And if she doesn't appreciate the security we have in Israel due to the Shabak, etc., then let her go "over the rainbow".

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