That, in a nutshell, is what Annapolis has been all about- like umpteen 'Peace Conferences' over the past 60 years
Compare those maps with this:
Thursday, 29 November 2007
tell the rapist and the victim to sort it out
That, in a nutshell, is what Annapolis has been all about- like umpteen 'Peace Conferences' over the past 60 years
Compare those maps with this:
tell the rapist and the victim to sort it out
That, in a nutshell, is what Annapolis has been all about- like umpteen 'Peace Conferences' over the past 60 years
Compare those maps with this:
World Fed Up With Americans
I don't think most Americans realise what damage their current government's policies and behaviour are doing to their image abroad.I was born just 10 days after Pearl Harbor, and all my life has been dominated by the perception that American values, way of life, liberty, freedom, democracy, etc should be aspired to by the rest of us.
Now, I look at the following report, see that America's bully-boats aren't even wanted in the Orient's prime shopping mall, and I realise the party's over:
US Pacific Commander Criticizes China on Naval Issue
By Al Pessin Pentagon27 November 2007
The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific has criticized China for denying three U.S. Navy ships access to Hong Kong Harbor in recent weeks, saying the decisions were not responsible.
When the boss of a huge naval fleet bleats that:
"....hundreds of family members of the task force's crew had flown to Hong Kong at their own expense to meet the ship and spend the holiday with their loved ones" , but were denied conjugal rights, you know the world's falling apart.What holiday with their 'loved ones' ?
Well, I think that might have been 'Thanksgiving' when Americans celebrate their conquest of the poor buggers who inhabited their country before they arrived.
World Fed Up With Americans
I don't think most Americans realise what damage their current government's policies and behaviour are doing to their image abroad.I was born just 10 days after Pearl Harbor, and all my life has been dominated by the perception that American values, way of life, liberty, freedom, democracy, etc should be aspired to by the rest of us.
Now, I look at the following report, see that America's bully-boats aren't even wanted in the Orient's prime shopping mall, and I realise the party's over:
US Pacific Commander Criticizes China on Naval Issue
By Al Pessin Pentagon27 November 2007
The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific has criticized China for denying three U.S. Navy ships access to Hong Kong Harbor in recent weeks, saying the decisions were not responsible.
When the boss of a huge naval fleet bleats that:
"....hundreds of family members of the task force's crew had flown to Hong Kong at their own expense to meet the ship and spend the holiday with their loved ones" , but were denied conjugal rights, you know the world's falling apart.What holiday with their 'loved ones' ?
Well, I think that might have been 'Thanksgiving' when Americans celebrate their conquest of the poor buggers who inhabited their country before they arrived.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Annapolis - What a fuck-up
George Bush's speechwriter actually wrote this, and GWB dutifully mouthed it during his opening address at Annapolis:"And when liberty takes root in Iraqi soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions across the Middle East who want their societies built on freedom and peace and hope."
- according to the Jerusalem Post:
He also said:
"Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather, it is to launch negotiations ....."
(Giving Israel more time to build walls, divisive roads, steal the water, and settle Russians in 'the Palestinian homeland'.)
"The emergence of responsible Palestinian leaders has given Israeli leaders the confidence they need ...."
(Abu Mazen, I told you I need three cubes of ice in my whisky, not two!)
"Second, the time is right because a battle is underway for the future of the Middle East - and we must not cede victory...."
(And we won't, even if we've built the biggest ever helicopter rescue pad on earth in the middle of Baghdad)
"President Abbas and his government....are offering the Palestinian people....a homeland of their own...."
(Or whatever is left of where they've been living for countless generations already)
"We're here because....We're here because....We're here."
"For these negotiations to succeed, the Palestinians must do their part. "
(Shut up and die)
"The United States will help Palestinian leaders build these free institutions - and the United States will keep its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people. "
(The United States has recently shown the whole world exactly how it builds its own 'free institutions'. Think Guantanamo.)
"The task begun here at Annapolis will be difficult. This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it - and no doubt a lot of work remains to be done. Yet the parties can approach this work with confidence. The time is right. The cause is just. And with hard effort, I know they can succeed. "
(Now where have I ever heard that crap before, during half a century of 'negotiations'?)
"President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, I pledge to devote my effort during my time as ..."
(..an alcoholic lame duck...)
"Thanks for coming. May God bless their work"
(Whose work?)
It's now Wednesday, 28 November 2007. I predict, with some confidence, that the Israeli delegation will return home, recover a little from jet lag, and launch a Shock 'n Awe campaign on Gaza by this weekend, and no-one will give a shit, because 'the Palestinians, once again, haven't done their part'.
To all of those who predicted this flim-flam would be a failure, I can only retort:
"Did you think it would be as bad as this?"
Annapolis - What a fuck-up
George Bush's speechwriter actually wrote this, and GWB dutifully mouthed it during his opening address at Annapolis:"And when liberty takes root in Iraqi soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions across the Middle East who want their societies built on freedom and peace and hope."
- according to the Jerusalem Post:
He also said:
"Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather, it is to launch negotiations ....."
(Giving Israel more time to build walls, divisive roads, steal the water, and settle Russians in 'the Palestinian homeland'.)
"The emergence of responsible Palestinian leaders has given Israeli leaders the confidence they need ...."
(Abu Mazen, I told you I need three cubes of ice in my whisky, not two!)
"Second, the time is right because a battle is underway for the future of the Middle East - and we must not cede victory...."
(And we won't, even if we've built the biggest ever helicopter rescue pad on earth in the middle of Baghdad)
"President Abbas and his government....are offering the Palestinian people....a homeland of their own...."
(Or whatever is left of where they've been living for countless generations already)
"We're here because....We're here because....We're here."
"For these negotiations to succeed, the Palestinians must do their part. "
(Shut up and die)
"The United States will help Palestinian leaders build these free institutions - and the United States will keep its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people. "
(The United States has recently shown the whole world exactly how it builds its own 'free institutions'. Think Guantanamo.)
"The task begun here at Annapolis will be difficult. This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it - and no doubt a lot of work remains to be done. Yet the parties can approach this work with confidence. The time is right. The cause is just. And with hard effort, I know they can succeed. "
(Now where have I ever heard that crap before, during half a century of 'negotiations'?)
"President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, I pledge to devote my effort during my time as ..."
(..an alcoholic lame duck...)
"Thanks for coming. May God bless their work"
(Whose work?)
It's now Wednesday, 28 November 2007. I predict, with some confidence, that the Israeli delegation will return home, recover a little from jet lag, and launch a Shock 'n Awe campaign on Gaza by this weekend, and no-one will give a shit, because 'the Palestinians, once again, haven't done their part'.
To all of those who predicted this flim-flam would be a failure, I can only retort:
"Did you think it would be as bad as this?"
Sunday, 25 November 2007
War is Nuts
While Israel lobbies loudly for an end to Iran's nuclear development, up to and including 'pre-emptive attacks', with its usual hypocrisy (Israel is the Middle East's only existing nuclear power), another major conflict has erupted between Israel and it's vassal state, the almighty USA.
U.S. officials demanding halt to indirect Israel imports of Iranian pistachio nutsThe reddish nuts are landing in Israeli shops after funneling through Turkey, violating Israeli law that bans all Iranian imports and angering American officials who are urging Israel to crack down as part of their attempt to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Keenum said in a meeting with Israeli officials in Rome on Monday that the pistachio imports must stop, a U.S. official confirmed Wednesday.
[Israeli Agriculture Minister] Simchon said a recent meeting with a senior U.S. agriculture official focused on using technology to detect the origin of pistachios. He said that would involve chemical testing to determine the climate and soil of where the nuts were grown.
California is the second largest producer of pistachios in the world, according to the former California Pistachio Coalition. Iran is first.
"As a proud native of the golden state (California), I think Israelis should eat American pistachios, not Iranian ones," said Stewart Tuttle, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
War is Nuts
While Israel lobbies loudly for an end to Iran's nuclear development, up to and including 'pre-emptive attacks', with its usual hypocrisy (Israel is the Middle East's only existing nuclear power), another major conflict has erupted between Israel and it's vassal state, the almighty USA.
U.S. officials demanding halt to indirect Israel imports of Iranian pistachio nutsThe reddish nuts are landing in Israeli shops after funneling through Turkey, violating Israeli law that bans all Iranian imports and angering American officials who are urging Israel to crack down as part of their attempt to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Keenum said in a meeting with Israeli officials in Rome on Monday that the pistachio imports must stop, a U.S. official confirmed Wednesday.
[Israeli Agriculture Minister] Simchon said a recent meeting with a senior U.S. agriculture official focused on using technology to detect the origin of pistachios. He said that would involve chemical testing to determine the climate and soil of where the nuts were grown.
California is the second largest producer of pistachios in the world, according to the former California Pistachio Coalition. Iran is first.
"As a proud native of the golden state (California), I think Israelis should eat American pistachios, not Iranian ones," said Stewart Tuttle, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Palestinian State - Solution for Israel's Niggers?
This statement, by Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister takes the ethnic cleansing of the 'Jewish State' a whole lot further:Livni: Palestinian state - solution for Israeli Arabs as well
"The future Palestinian state would serve as a national solution for the Palestinians of the West Bank, those living in the refugee camps and those who are citizens with equal rights in the Jewish state, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated Sunday. "
---------------------------------------------------------------
In other words:
- We can use this opportunity (Annapolis) to get rid of our fellow 'Israeli democratic citizens' by cooking up a new 'state' beyond the 'fence'.
- We'll deal with the Sephardis later.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Born in Tel Aviv, Livni is the daughter of Eitan Livni, a Polish-born former Irgun member and Likud member of the Knesset. Her mother, Sara (nee Rosenberg) also fought in the Irgun.
Irgun (Hebrew: ארגון; shorthand for Ha'Irgun Ha'Tsvai Ha'Leumi B'Eretz Yisrael, הארגון הצבאי הלאומי בארץ ישראל, "National Military Organization in the Land of Israel") was a Zionist militant group that operated in Palestine from 1931 to 1948, as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense", ההגנה) Jewish paramilitary organization. In Israel, Irgun is commonly referred to as Etzel (אצ"ל), an acronym of the Hebrew initials. For secrecy reasons, people often referred to the Irgun, in the time in which it operated, as Haganah Bet (Hebrew: literally "Defense 'B' " or "Second Defense" הגנה ב), Haganah Ha'leumit (ההגנה הלאומית) or Ha'ma'amad (המעמד).
The group made attacks against Palestinian Arabs a central part of their initial efforts.
- It was armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism, expressed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky as that "every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state".
- The organization was a political predecessor movement to Israel's right-wing Herut (or "Freedom") party, which led to today's Likud party.
'Nuff said.
Palestinian State - Solution for Israel's Niggers?
This statement, by Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister takes the ethnic cleansing of the 'Jewish State' a whole lot further:Livni: Palestinian state - solution for Israeli Arabs as well
"The future Palestinian state would serve as a national solution for the Palestinians of the West Bank, those living in the refugee camps and those who are citizens with equal rights in the Jewish state, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated Sunday. "
---------------------------------------------------------------
In other words:
- We can use this opportunity (Annapolis) to get rid of our fellow 'Israeli democratic citizens' by cooking up a new 'state' beyond the 'fence'.
- We'll deal with the Sephardis later.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Born in Tel Aviv, Livni is the daughter of Eitan Livni, a Polish-born former Irgun member and Likud member of the Knesset. Her mother, Sara (nee Rosenberg) also fought in the Irgun.
Irgun (Hebrew: ארגון; shorthand for Ha'Irgun Ha'Tsvai Ha'Leumi B'Eretz Yisrael, הארגון הצבאי הלאומי בארץ ישראל, "National Military Organization in the Land of Israel") was a Zionist militant group that operated in Palestine from 1931 to 1948, as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense", ההגנה) Jewish paramilitary organization. In Israel, Irgun is commonly referred to as Etzel (אצ"ל), an acronym of the Hebrew initials. For secrecy reasons, people often referred to the Irgun, in the time in which it operated, as Haganah Bet (Hebrew: literally "Defense 'B' " or "Second Defense" הגנה ב), Haganah Ha'leumit (ההגנה הלאומית) or Ha'ma'amad (המעמד).
The group made attacks against Palestinian Arabs a central part of their initial efforts.
- It was armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism, expressed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky as that "every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state".
- The organization was a political predecessor movement to Israel's right-wing Herut (or "Freedom") party, which led to today's Likud party.
'Nuff said.
Monday, 19 November 2007
How to Treat a Dying 'Terrorist' Child
Read this, and weep (perhaps, or if you think that this little girl is a 'terrorist', then say "Serves her right!" )
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m Last update - 22:56 16/11/2007
Toxic treatment By Esti Ahronovitz - Edited for brevity only:
Jamal Harma sits in a coffee shop in the village of Hawara, near Nablus. He comes from the Balata refugee camp.
His daughter Farah died of cancer. "I don't wish the loss of a child on anyone," he says.
In January 2005, Farah, then 10 years old, was diagnosed with bone cancer. The tumor was discovered in her right knee after a biopsy at Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus. From there she was referred to Al-Watani Hospital in Nablus, and from there to Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv for radiation treatment.
And even though the doctors in Nablus proposed that she go to Jordan for treatment, he preferred to take her to Assuta, in the framework of an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the hospital, which stipulates that Assuta will accept, in return for payment, cancer patients who need radiation treatment that cannot be performed in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
"We all cried. The good news was that the cells were still small. Microscopic. At Al-Watani Hospital, we were told that she wouldn't need chemotherapy, only radiation. That the tumor was just starting to grow."
On February 24, 2005, Farah and her grandmother took the daily minibus that transports patients from Nablus to Tel Aviv, and went to Assuta Hospital.
Jamal didn't have the necessary permits to leave Nablus, so he stayed at home, worrying.
When Farah returned home, there was a large circle drawn on her leg with a black marking pen, from the thigh to the calf - the area the doctor had marked as the target for radiation.
According to the civil suit filed two months ago in Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, Prof. Natalio Walach, an oncologist who heads the chemotherapy unit at Assaf Harofeh Hospital and also served as director of radiotherapy at Assuta, sent Farah for radiation treatment without examining any medical information and without conducting any further examination to determine the exact type of the girl's cancer.
He looked at Farah's leg, and based on the referral letter from the Palestinian health ministry, decided on the treatment. The suit charges that Walach did this without following a standard procedure known as treatment planning, which is designed to ensure that maximum benefit is obtained from the dangerous radiation treatments - in other words, that maximum radiation is aimed at the tumor and minimum radiation at the healthy tissue.
...during the brief meeting with the doctor, Farah and her escort were not asked a single question and did not receive any explanation about the method of treatment. There was no physical examination.
This week, Walach said: "I don't remember the case that well."
"Fourteen times my daughter traveled to Assuta, for two weeks in a row. She left Nablus every day with her grandmother at seven in the morning, passed through the checkpoints and got to Tel Aviv." But her father was restless with worry.
On March 16, Harma took his daughter tor another radiation treatment at Assuta, and afterward they went to Ichilov Hospital, where they met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender, the deputy head of the orthopedic oncology department. "When we met Kollender," says Jamal, "he asked me: 'Why did you come to us so late?'
I told him: 'She's being treated at Assuta.' He asked me: 'What are you doing there at Assuta?' I said: 'What do you mean? Radiation.' Kollender took off his glasses, looked at me and clutched his head in his hands. He told his secretary not to let anyone else in the room. 'We're in big trouble,' he told me. I didn't understand what was happening. He called Assuta Hospital, while I was sitting there. I don't know whom he spoke to there.
'How could such a thing happen?' he asked them. 'You'll be responsible. This wouldn't happen to a child from Israel.''
This week, Kollender recalled: "A little girl came to me with an advanced and neglected tumor, and when her father told me that the girl was getting radiation at Assuta, my hair stood on end. Every expert in oncology, actually every specialist in oncology or orthopedics, knows that the standard treatment all over the world for such a case is chemotherapy, followed by limb-preserving surgery, and then another round of chemotherapy.
I called Assuta right away and started to shout and search for the oncologist who sent this girl for radiation.
When he called me back he said: 'She was referred for radiation, so I sent her for radiation.'"
At the request of Physicians for Human Rights, Bendel received Farah Harma's medical file. "We were stunned to discover that the file of a girl who was ill with an aggressive form of cancer consisted of just two pages," says Bendel. "The first page contained Walach's diagnosis, that Farah had osteosarcoma, and the second page documented the amounts of radiation. You've got a girl with such a dangerous tumor and this is her whole medical file?"
The papers show that Farah was given radiation with a Cobalt 60 machine. The lawsuit claims that this is a very outdated radiation instrument that has not been used for medical purposes in Israeli hospitals for years. Today there are more modern machines than the Cobalt 60, but these are used in a limited fashion, and only for very specific purposes. "As far as is known," says Sfard, "the standard method of radiation treatment is with a linear accelerator.
As a matter of fact, Assuta Hospital is the only medical institution that still administers radiation with a Cobalt 60, and it does not do so to Israelis. The only use made of this machine at Assuta is for the treatments the hospital gives Palestinians as part of the agreement with the PA."
Sfard, the attorney for Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights, says he hears about awful things that happen to Palestinians every day. "But when I heard this story, I could hardly believe it. It's bloodcurdling. After I started looking into it, I was just appalled. It seems that at Assuta there's a separate medical channel for Palestinians, and they are given inferior care. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Someone's making money from this. And we're talking about cancer-stricken children here."
"A Cobalt 60 machine was formerly in use at Assuta," the hospital said, "for those limited medical uses that were approved by top-ranking medical specialists in Israel, and in the past both Israelis and Palestinians were treated with it, as was standard in advanced Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, England, Spain and in leading and recognized medical institutions in America."
Meller and Bendel decided not to ignore the matter. They requested a meeting with Assuta's medical director, Dr. Orna Ophir. At the meeting Ophir admitted that the Cobalt 60 machine did not meet the accepted standard in Israel and that the use made of it at Assuta was solely to meet the needs of the Palestinian Authority.
At the meeting, Bendel reproached Ophir, saying that Assuta had found a way to make money from a service it couldn't sell to Israelis. Bendel says Ophir confirmed this and even added, as the lawsuit says, that she saw no ethical problem in selling an out-of-date treatment to Palestinians.
"It's not my problem," she told the shocked Bendel and Meller.
Ophir acknowledged that in Harma's case, "a terrible mistake was made," but she backed Walach, saying that "he did what the Palestinian doctor told him to do." The lawsuit also asserts that Ophir remarked: "Farah's parents had given up on her before they came to us. They have fourth-rate doctors, and they want me to give them first-rate treatment." Bendel was horrified by Ophir's reaction: "Where is the ethical and moral responsibility you expect from a medical institution and the people running it?"
Sfard maintains that Assuta Hospital acted according to a discriminatory standard and followed a much lower medical standard than it does when treating Israelis. "The hospital violated its constitutional duty to preserve human dignity." Sfard adds that "when Assuta was asked to clarify its numerous faults, what was uncovered was an indifferent and racist system motivated by financial considerations, to the point that the hospital's paramount and central role of treating the sick seemed to have been forgotten."
This is a unique lawsuit.
The expert opinion of Prof. Meller is appended to the lawsuit. "It's a very tragic story," Meller said this week. "If something like this were to happen to an Israeli child, who knows how far the case would have gone. In the United States, a lawsuit like this would be for millions of dollars.
There are ethical violations here, and violations of the most minimal rules of medical conduct."
Assuta Hospital says that Farah Harma arrived there with a referral for radiation from the Palestinian hospital.
Meller chuckles. "It's as if you were to come to Assuta with a referral letter that said, 'Cut off her head.' Would they cut off your head then? It's not serious. If a little girl came to my department today, no matter where she came from, we wouldn't touch her before going over all the pathology material and doing every possible examination, including a biopsy. Not because I don't trust other doctors. It's a repeat examination for legal defense purposes that is standard all over the world. And they didn't do this; then they compounded the mistake by administering radiation with an outdated machine that they wouldn't dare use on an Israeli patient. The third thing is that kids are kids. You can't treat a little girl with osteosarcoma without the definite involvement of a pediatric oncologist and a multidisciplinary team. Prof. Walach is a retired oncologist who is employed by Assuta. He is not a pediatric oncologist."
What effect does unnecessary radiation have? "Radiation destroys cells. It causes localized damage and stunts the local growth of a limb. Radiation treatments increase the chances of tumors some years later, which are a consequence of the radiation."
The dramatic day when Harma met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender was the last day that Farah received radiation treatment.
Kollender and Meller ordered that the radiation at Assuta be halted and began to treat the girl in their department, in an attempt to save her life.
Jamal Harma stopped working and sold his car, which he had used as a taxi, in order to be able to stay in Tel Aviv by his daughter's side. He never budged from her bed.
"That was also the time there was a closure and they closed the checkpoints. Sometimes they wouldn't let me out. I'd carry Farah in my arms, or on my back, and trudge all the way through the mountains to get around the checkpoints. Then I'd take a taxi to Taibe, get a taxi from there to Kfar Sava and from there to the Tel Aviv central bus station. We didn't give up. "
When her hair started falling out, because of the chemotherapy, the doctor recommended that we shave it all off. I said to her, 'Daddy's little girl, your hair is going to fall out, it's better that I shave it off for you and afterward you'll grow new hair that's prettier and stronger and you'll be able to go back and play with your friends.' We went into the shower in the hospital and I shaved her head. It was so hard. She cried and I cried."
But the battle was lost. "Farah's condition was very serious and she didn't respond to the treatments," explains Prof. Meller.
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m Last update - 22:56 16/11/2007
Toxic treatment By Esti Ahronovitz - Edited for brevity only:
Jamal Harma sits in a coffee shop in the village of Hawara, near Nablus. He comes from the Balata refugee camp.
His daughter Farah died of cancer. "I don't wish the loss of a child on anyone," he says.
In January 2005, Farah, then 10 years old, was diagnosed with bone cancer. The tumor was discovered in her right knee after a biopsy at Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus. From there she was referred to Al-Watani Hospital in Nablus, and from there to Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv for radiation treatment.
And even though the doctors in Nablus proposed that she go to Jordan for treatment, he preferred to take her to Assuta, in the framework of an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the hospital, which stipulates that Assuta will accept, in return for payment, cancer patients who need radiation treatment that cannot be performed in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
"We all cried. The good news was that the cells were still small. Microscopic. At Al-Watani Hospital, we were told that she wouldn't need chemotherapy, only radiation. That the tumor was just starting to grow."
On February 24, 2005, Farah and her grandmother took the daily minibus that transports patients from Nablus to Tel Aviv, and went to Assuta Hospital.
Jamal didn't have the necessary permits to leave Nablus, so he stayed at home, worrying.
When Farah returned home, there was a large circle drawn on her leg with a black marking pen, from the thigh to the calf - the area the doctor had marked as the target for radiation.
According to the civil suit filed two months ago in Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, Prof. Natalio Walach, an oncologist who heads the chemotherapy unit at Assaf Harofeh Hospital and also served as director of radiotherapy at Assuta, sent Farah for radiation treatment without examining any medical information and without conducting any further examination to determine the exact type of the girl's cancer.
He looked at Farah's leg, and based on the referral letter from the Palestinian health ministry, decided on the treatment. The suit charges that Walach did this without following a standard procedure known as treatment planning, which is designed to ensure that maximum benefit is obtained from the dangerous radiation treatments - in other words, that maximum radiation is aimed at the tumor and minimum radiation at the healthy tissue.
...during the brief meeting with the doctor, Farah and her escort were not asked a single question and did not receive any explanation about the method of treatment. There was no physical examination.
This week, Walach said: "I don't remember the case that well."
"Fourteen times my daughter traveled to Assuta, for two weeks in a row. She left Nablus every day with her grandmother at seven in the morning, passed through the checkpoints and got to Tel Aviv." But her father was restless with worry.
On March 16, Harma took his daughter tor another radiation treatment at Assuta, and afterward they went to Ichilov Hospital, where they met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender, the deputy head of the orthopedic oncology department. "When we met Kollender," says Jamal, "he asked me: 'Why did you come to us so late?'
I told him: 'She's being treated at Assuta.' He asked me: 'What are you doing there at Assuta?' I said: 'What do you mean? Radiation.' Kollender took off his glasses, looked at me and clutched his head in his hands. He told his secretary not to let anyone else in the room. 'We're in big trouble,' he told me. I didn't understand what was happening. He called Assuta Hospital, while I was sitting there. I don't know whom he spoke to there.
'How could such a thing happen?' he asked them. 'You'll be responsible. This wouldn't happen to a child from Israel.''
This week, Kollender recalled: "A little girl came to me with an advanced and neglected tumor, and when her father told me that the girl was getting radiation at Assuta, my hair stood on end. Every expert in oncology, actually every specialist in oncology or orthopedics, knows that the standard treatment all over the world for such a case is chemotherapy, followed by limb-preserving surgery, and then another round of chemotherapy.
I called Assuta right away and started to shout and search for the oncologist who sent this girl for radiation.
When he called me back he said: 'She was referred for radiation, so I sent her for radiation.'"
At the request of Physicians for Human Rights, Bendel received Farah Harma's medical file. "We were stunned to discover that the file of a girl who was ill with an aggressive form of cancer consisted of just two pages," says Bendel. "The first page contained Walach's diagnosis, that Farah had osteosarcoma, and the second page documented the amounts of radiation. You've got a girl with such a dangerous tumor and this is her whole medical file?"
The papers show that Farah was given radiation with a Cobalt 60 machine. The lawsuit claims that this is a very outdated radiation instrument that has not been used for medical purposes in Israeli hospitals for years. Today there are more modern machines than the Cobalt 60, but these are used in a limited fashion, and only for very specific purposes. "As far as is known," says Sfard, "the standard method of radiation treatment is with a linear accelerator.
As a matter of fact, Assuta Hospital is the only medical institution that still administers radiation with a Cobalt 60, and it does not do so to Israelis. The only use made of this machine at Assuta is for the treatments the hospital gives Palestinians as part of the agreement with the PA."
Sfard, the attorney for Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights, says he hears about awful things that happen to Palestinians every day. "But when I heard this story, I could hardly believe it. It's bloodcurdling. After I started looking into it, I was just appalled. It seems that at Assuta there's a separate medical channel for Palestinians, and they are given inferior care. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Someone's making money from this. And we're talking about cancer-stricken children here."
"A Cobalt 60 machine was formerly in use at Assuta," the hospital said, "for those limited medical uses that were approved by top-ranking medical specialists in Israel, and in the past both Israelis and Palestinians were treated with it, as was standard in advanced Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, England, Spain and in leading and recognized medical institutions in America."
Meller and Bendel decided not to ignore the matter. They requested a meeting with Assuta's medical director, Dr. Orna Ophir. At the meeting Ophir admitted that the Cobalt 60 machine did not meet the accepted standard in Israel and that the use made of it at Assuta was solely to meet the needs of the Palestinian Authority.
At the meeting, Bendel reproached Ophir, saying that Assuta had found a way to make money from a service it couldn't sell to Israelis. Bendel says Ophir confirmed this and even added, as the lawsuit says, that she saw no ethical problem in selling an out-of-date treatment to Palestinians.
"It's not my problem," she told the shocked Bendel and Meller.
Ophir acknowledged that in Harma's case, "a terrible mistake was made," but she backed Walach, saying that "he did what the Palestinian doctor told him to do." The lawsuit also asserts that Ophir remarked: "Farah's parents had given up on her before they came to us. They have fourth-rate doctors, and they want me to give them first-rate treatment." Bendel was horrified by Ophir's reaction: "Where is the ethical and moral responsibility you expect from a medical institution and the people running it?"
Sfard maintains that Assuta Hospital acted according to a discriminatory standard and followed a much lower medical standard than it does when treating Israelis. "The hospital violated its constitutional duty to preserve human dignity." Sfard adds that "when Assuta was asked to clarify its numerous faults, what was uncovered was an indifferent and racist system motivated by financial considerations, to the point that the hospital's paramount and central role of treating the sick seemed to have been forgotten."
This is a unique lawsuit.
The expert opinion of Prof. Meller is appended to the lawsuit. "It's a very tragic story," Meller said this week. "If something like this were to happen to an Israeli child, who knows how far the case would have gone. In the United States, a lawsuit like this would be for millions of dollars.
There are ethical violations here, and violations of the most minimal rules of medical conduct."
Assuta Hospital says that Farah Harma arrived there with a referral for radiation from the Palestinian hospital.
Meller chuckles. "It's as if you were to come to Assuta with a referral letter that said, 'Cut off her head.' Would they cut off your head then? It's not serious. If a little girl came to my department today, no matter where she came from, we wouldn't touch her before going over all the pathology material and doing every possible examination, including a biopsy. Not because I don't trust other doctors. It's a repeat examination for legal defense purposes that is standard all over the world. And they didn't do this; then they compounded the mistake by administering radiation with an outdated machine that they wouldn't dare use on an Israeli patient. The third thing is that kids are kids. You can't treat a little girl with osteosarcoma without the definite involvement of a pediatric oncologist and a multidisciplinary team. Prof. Walach is a retired oncologist who is employed by Assuta. He is not a pediatric oncologist."
What effect does unnecessary radiation have? "Radiation destroys cells. It causes localized damage and stunts the local growth of a limb. Radiation treatments increase the chances of tumors some years later, which are a consequence of the radiation."
The dramatic day when Harma met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender was the last day that Farah received radiation treatment.
Kollender and Meller ordered that the radiation at Assuta be halted and began to treat the girl in their department, in an attempt to save her life.
Jamal Harma stopped working and sold his car, which he had used as a taxi, in order to be able to stay in Tel Aviv by his daughter's side. He never budged from her bed.
"That was also the time there was a closure and they closed the checkpoints. Sometimes they wouldn't let me out. I'd carry Farah in my arms, or on my back, and trudge all the way through the mountains to get around the checkpoints. Then I'd take a taxi to Taibe, get a taxi from there to Kfar Sava and from there to the Tel Aviv central bus station. We didn't give up. "
When her hair started falling out, because of the chemotherapy, the doctor recommended that we shave it all off. I said to her, 'Daddy's little girl, your hair is going to fall out, it's better that I shave it off for you and afterward you'll grow new hair that's prettier and stronger and you'll be able to go back and play with your friends.' We went into the shower in the hospital and I shaved her head. It was so hard. She cried and I cried."
But the battle was lost. "Farah's condition was very serious and she didn't respond to the treatments," explains Prof. Meller.
How to Treat a Dying 'Terrorist' Child
Read this, and weep (perhaps, or if you think that this little girl is a 'terrorist', then say "Serves her right!" )
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m Last update - 22:56 16/11/2007
Toxic treatment By Esti Ahronovitz - Edited for brevity only:
Jamal Harma sits in a coffee shop in the village of Hawara, near Nablus. He comes from the Balata refugee camp.
His daughter Farah died of cancer. "I don't wish the loss of a child on anyone," he says.
In January 2005, Farah, then 10 years old, was diagnosed with bone cancer. The tumor was discovered in her right knee after a biopsy at Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus. From there she was referred to Al-Watani Hospital in Nablus, and from there to Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv for radiation treatment.
And even though the doctors in Nablus proposed that she go to Jordan for treatment, he preferred to take her to Assuta, in the framework of an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the hospital, which stipulates that Assuta will accept, in return for payment, cancer patients who need radiation treatment that cannot be performed in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
"We all cried. The good news was that the cells were still small. Microscopic. At Al-Watani Hospital, we were told that she wouldn't need chemotherapy, only radiation. That the tumor was just starting to grow."
On February 24, 2005, Farah and her grandmother took the daily minibus that transports patients from Nablus to Tel Aviv, and went to Assuta Hospital.
Jamal didn't have the necessary permits to leave Nablus, so he stayed at home, worrying.
When Farah returned home, there was a large circle drawn on her leg with a black marking pen, from the thigh to the calf - the area the doctor had marked as the target for radiation.
According to the civil suit filed two months ago in Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, Prof. Natalio Walach, an oncologist who heads the chemotherapy unit at Assaf Harofeh Hospital and also served as director of radiotherapy at Assuta, sent Farah for radiation treatment without examining any medical information and without conducting any further examination to determine the exact type of the girl's cancer.
He looked at Farah's leg, and based on the referral letter from the Palestinian health ministry, decided on the treatment. The suit charges that Walach did this without following a standard procedure known as treatment planning, which is designed to ensure that maximum benefit is obtained from the dangerous radiation treatments - in other words, that maximum radiation is aimed at the tumor and minimum radiation at the healthy tissue.
...during the brief meeting with the doctor, Farah and her escort were not asked a single question and did not receive any explanation about the method of treatment. There was no physical examination.
This week, Walach said: "I don't remember the case that well."
"Fourteen times my daughter traveled to Assuta, for two weeks in a row. She left Nablus every day with her grandmother at seven in the morning, passed through the checkpoints and got to Tel Aviv." But her father was restless with worry.
On March 16, Harma took his daughter tor another radiation treatment at Assuta, and afterward they went to Ichilov Hospital, where they met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender, the deputy head of the orthopedic oncology department. "When we met Kollender," says Jamal, "he asked me: 'Why did you come to us so late?'
I told him: 'She's being treated at Assuta.' He asked me: 'What are you doing there at Assuta?' I said: 'What do you mean? Radiation.' Kollender took off his glasses, looked at me and clutched his head in his hands. He told his secretary not to let anyone else in the room. 'We're in big trouble,' he told me. I didn't understand what was happening. He called Assuta Hospital, while I was sitting there. I don't know whom he spoke to there.
'How could such a thing happen?' he asked them. 'You'll be responsible. This wouldn't happen to a child from Israel.''
This week, Kollender recalled: "A little girl came to me with an advanced and neglected tumor, and when her father told me that the girl was getting radiation at Assuta, my hair stood on end. Every expert in oncology, actually every specialist in oncology or orthopedics, knows that the standard treatment all over the world for such a case is chemotherapy, followed by limb-preserving surgery, and then another round of chemotherapy.
I called Assuta right away and started to shout and search for the oncologist who sent this girl for radiation.
When he called me back he said: 'She was referred for radiation, so I sent her for radiation.'"
At the request of Physicians for Human Rights, Bendel received Farah Harma's medical file. "We were stunned to discover that the file of a girl who was ill with an aggressive form of cancer consisted of just two pages," says Bendel. "The first page contained Walach's diagnosis, that Farah had osteosarcoma, and the second page documented the amounts of radiation. You've got a girl with such a dangerous tumor and this is her whole medical file?"
The papers show that Farah was given radiation with a Cobalt 60 machine. The lawsuit claims that this is a very outdated radiation instrument that has not been used for medical purposes in Israeli hospitals for years. Today there are more modern machines than the Cobalt 60, but these are used in a limited fashion, and only for very specific purposes. "As far as is known," says Sfard, "the standard method of radiation treatment is with a linear accelerator.
As a matter of fact, Assuta Hospital is the only medical institution that still administers radiation with a Cobalt 60, and it does not do so to Israelis. The only use made of this machine at Assuta is for the treatments the hospital gives Palestinians as part of the agreement with the PA."
Sfard, the attorney for Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights, says he hears about awful things that happen to Palestinians every day. "But when I heard this story, I could hardly believe it. It's bloodcurdling. After I started looking into it, I was just appalled. It seems that at Assuta there's a separate medical channel for Palestinians, and they are given inferior care. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Someone's making money from this. And we're talking about cancer-stricken children here."
"A Cobalt 60 machine was formerly in use at Assuta," the hospital said, "for those limited medical uses that were approved by top-ranking medical specialists in Israel, and in the past both Israelis and Palestinians were treated with it, as was standard in advanced Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, England, Spain and in leading and recognized medical institutions in America."
Meller and Bendel decided not to ignore the matter. They requested a meeting with Assuta's medical director, Dr. Orna Ophir. At the meeting Ophir admitted that the Cobalt 60 machine did not meet the accepted standard in Israel and that the use made of it at Assuta was solely to meet the needs of the Palestinian Authority.
At the meeting, Bendel reproached Ophir, saying that Assuta had found a way to make money from a service it couldn't sell to Israelis. Bendel says Ophir confirmed this and even added, as the lawsuit says, that she saw no ethical problem in selling an out-of-date treatment to Palestinians.
"It's not my problem," she told the shocked Bendel and Meller.
Ophir acknowledged that in Harma's case, "a terrible mistake was made," but she backed Walach, saying that "he did what the Palestinian doctor told him to do." The lawsuit also asserts that Ophir remarked: "Farah's parents had given up on her before they came to us. They have fourth-rate doctors, and they want me to give them first-rate treatment." Bendel was horrified by Ophir's reaction: "Where is the ethical and moral responsibility you expect from a medical institution and the people running it?"
Sfard maintains that Assuta Hospital acted according to a discriminatory standard and followed a much lower medical standard than it does when treating Israelis. "The hospital violated its constitutional duty to preserve human dignity." Sfard adds that "when Assuta was asked to clarify its numerous faults, what was uncovered was an indifferent and racist system motivated by financial considerations, to the point that the hospital's paramount and central role of treating the sick seemed to have been forgotten."
This is a unique lawsuit.
The expert opinion of Prof. Meller is appended to the lawsuit. "It's a very tragic story," Meller said this week. "If something like this were to happen to an Israeli child, who knows how far the case would have gone. In the United States, a lawsuit like this would be for millions of dollars.
There are ethical violations here, and violations of the most minimal rules of medical conduct."
Assuta Hospital says that Farah Harma arrived there with a referral for radiation from the Palestinian hospital.
Meller chuckles. "It's as if you were to come to Assuta with a referral letter that said, 'Cut off her head.' Would they cut off your head then? It's not serious. If a little girl came to my department today, no matter where she came from, we wouldn't touch her before going over all the pathology material and doing every possible examination, including a biopsy. Not because I don't trust other doctors. It's a repeat examination for legal defense purposes that is standard all over the world. And they didn't do this; then they compounded the mistake by administering radiation with an outdated machine that they wouldn't dare use on an Israeli patient. The third thing is that kids are kids. You can't treat a little girl with osteosarcoma without the definite involvement of a pediatric oncologist and a multidisciplinary team. Prof. Walach is a retired oncologist who is employed by Assuta. He is not a pediatric oncologist."
What effect does unnecessary radiation have? "Radiation destroys cells. It causes localized damage and stunts the local growth of a limb. Radiation treatments increase the chances of tumors some years later, which are a consequence of the radiation."
The dramatic day when Harma met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender was the last day that Farah received radiation treatment.
Kollender and Meller ordered that the radiation at Assuta be halted and began to treat the girl in their department, in an attempt to save her life.
Jamal Harma stopped working and sold his car, which he had used as a taxi, in order to be able to stay in Tel Aviv by his daughter's side. He never budged from her bed.
"That was also the time there was a closure and they closed the checkpoints. Sometimes they wouldn't let me out. I'd carry Farah in my arms, or on my back, and trudge all the way through the mountains to get around the checkpoints. Then I'd take a taxi to Taibe, get a taxi from there to Kfar Sava and from there to the Tel Aviv central bus station. We didn't give up. "
When her hair started falling out, because of the chemotherapy, the doctor recommended that we shave it all off. I said to her, 'Daddy's little girl, your hair is going to fall out, it's better that I shave it off for you and afterward you'll grow new hair that's prettier and stronger and you'll be able to go back and play with your friends.' We went into the shower in the hospital and I shaved her head. It was so hard. She cried and I cried."
But the battle was lost. "Farah's condition was very serious and she didn't respond to the treatments," explains Prof. Meller.
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m Last update - 22:56 16/11/2007
Toxic treatment By Esti Ahronovitz - Edited for brevity only:
Jamal Harma sits in a coffee shop in the village of Hawara, near Nablus. He comes from the Balata refugee camp.
His daughter Farah died of cancer. "I don't wish the loss of a child on anyone," he says.
In January 2005, Farah, then 10 years old, was diagnosed with bone cancer. The tumor was discovered in her right knee after a biopsy at Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus. From there she was referred to Al-Watani Hospital in Nablus, and from there to Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv for radiation treatment.
And even though the doctors in Nablus proposed that she go to Jordan for treatment, he preferred to take her to Assuta, in the framework of an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the hospital, which stipulates that Assuta will accept, in return for payment, cancer patients who need radiation treatment that cannot be performed in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
"We all cried. The good news was that the cells were still small. Microscopic. At Al-Watani Hospital, we were told that she wouldn't need chemotherapy, only radiation. That the tumor was just starting to grow."
On February 24, 2005, Farah and her grandmother took the daily minibus that transports patients from Nablus to Tel Aviv, and went to Assuta Hospital.
Jamal didn't have the necessary permits to leave Nablus, so he stayed at home, worrying.
When Farah returned home, there was a large circle drawn on her leg with a black marking pen, from the thigh to the calf - the area the doctor had marked as the target for radiation.
According to the civil suit filed two months ago in Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, Prof. Natalio Walach, an oncologist who heads the chemotherapy unit at Assaf Harofeh Hospital and also served as director of radiotherapy at Assuta, sent Farah for radiation treatment without examining any medical information and without conducting any further examination to determine the exact type of the girl's cancer.
He looked at Farah's leg, and based on the referral letter from the Palestinian health ministry, decided on the treatment. The suit charges that Walach did this without following a standard procedure known as treatment planning, which is designed to ensure that maximum benefit is obtained from the dangerous radiation treatments - in other words, that maximum radiation is aimed at the tumor and minimum radiation at the healthy tissue.
...during the brief meeting with the doctor, Farah and her escort were not asked a single question and did not receive any explanation about the method of treatment. There was no physical examination.
This week, Walach said: "I don't remember the case that well."
"Fourteen times my daughter traveled to Assuta, for two weeks in a row. She left Nablus every day with her grandmother at seven in the morning, passed through the checkpoints and got to Tel Aviv." But her father was restless with worry.
On March 16, Harma took his daughter tor another radiation treatment at Assuta, and afterward they went to Ichilov Hospital, where they met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender, the deputy head of the orthopedic oncology department. "When we met Kollender," says Jamal, "he asked me: 'Why did you come to us so late?'
I told him: 'She's being treated at Assuta.' He asked me: 'What are you doing there at Assuta?' I said: 'What do you mean? Radiation.' Kollender took off his glasses, looked at me and clutched his head in his hands. He told his secretary not to let anyone else in the room. 'We're in big trouble,' he told me. I didn't understand what was happening. He called Assuta Hospital, while I was sitting there. I don't know whom he spoke to there.
'How could such a thing happen?' he asked them. 'You'll be responsible. This wouldn't happen to a child from Israel.''
This week, Kollender recalled: "A little girl came to me with an advanced and neglected tumor, and when her father told me that the girl was getting radiation at Assuta, my hair stood on end. Every expert in oncology, actually every specialist in oncology or orthopedics, knows that the standard treatment all over the world for such a case is chemotherapy, followed by limb-preserving surgery, and then another round of chemotherapy.
I called Assuta right away and started to shout and search for the oncologist who sent this girl for radiation.
When he called me back he said: 'She was referred for radiation, so I sent her for radiation.'"
At the request of Physicians for Human Rights, Bendel received Farah Harma's medical file. "We were stunned to discover that the file of a girl who was ill with an aggressive form of cancer consisted of just two pages," says Bendel. "The first page contained Walach's diagnosis, that Farah had osteosarcoma, and the second page documented the amounts of radiation. You've got a girl with such a dangerous tumor and this is her whole medical file?"
The papers show that Farah was given radiation with a Cobalt 60 machine. The lawsuit claims that this is a very outdated radiation instrument that has not been used for medical purposes in Israeli hospitals for years. Today there are more modern machines than the Cobalt 60, but these are used in a limited fashion, and only for very specific purposes. "As far as is known," says Sfard, "the standard method of radiation treatment is with a linear accelerator.
As a matter of fact, Assuta Hospital is the only medical institution that still administers radiation with a Cobalt 60, and it does not do so to Israelis. The only use made of this machine at Assuta is for the treatments the hospital gives Palestinians as part of the agreement with the PA."
Sfard, the attorney for Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights, says he hears about awful things that happen to Palestinians every day. "But when I heard this story, I could hardly believe it. It's bloodcurdling. After I started looking into it, I was just appalled. It seems that at Assuta there's a separate medical channel for Palestinians, and they are given inferior care. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Someone's making money from this. And we're talking about cancer-stricken children here."
"A Cobalt 60 machine was formerly in use at Assuta," the hospital said, "for those limited medical uses that were approved by top-ranking medical specialists in Israel, and in the past both Israelis and Palestinians were treated with it, as was standard in advanced Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, England, Spain and in leading and recognized medical institutions in America."
Meller and Bendel decided not to ignore the matter. They requested a meeting with Assuta's medical director, Dr. Orna Ophir. At the meeting Ophir admitted that the Cobalt 60 machine did not meet the accepted standard in Israel and that the use made of it at Assuta was solely to meet the needs of the Palestinian Authority.
At the meeting, Bendel reproached Ophir, saying that Assuta had found a way to make money from a service it couldn't sell to Israelis. Bendel says Ophir confirmed this and even added, as the lawsuit says, that she saw no ethical problem in selling an out-of-date treatment to Palestinians.
"It's not my problem," she told the shocked Bendel and Meller.
Ophir acknowledged that in Harma's case, "a terrible mistake was made," but she backed Walach, saying that "he did what the Palestinian doctor told him to do." The lawsuit also asserts that Ophir remarked: "Farah's parents had given up on her before they came to us. They have fourth-rate doctors, and they want me to give them first-rate treatment." Bendel was horrified by Ophir's reaction: "Where is the ethical and moral responsibility you expect from a medical institution and the people running it?"
Sfard maintains that Assuta Hospital acted according to a discriminatory standard and followed a much lower medical standard than it does when treating Israelis. "The hospital violated its constitutional duty to preserve human dignity." Sfard adds that "when Assuta was asked to clarify its numerous faults, what was uncovered was an indifferent and racist system motivated by financial considerations, to the point that the hospital's paramount and central role of treating the sick seemed to have been forgotten."
This is a unique lawsuit.
The expert opinion of Prof. Meller is appended to the lawsuit. "It's a very tragic story," Meller said this week. "If something like this were to happen to an Israeli child, who knows how far the case would have gone. In the United States, a lawsuit like this would be for millions of dollars.
There are ethical violations here, and violations of the most minimal rules of medical conduct."
Assuta Hospital says that Farah Harma arrived there with a referral for radiation from the Palestinian hospital.
Meller chuckles. "It's as if you were to come to Assuta with a referral letter that said, 'Cut off her head.' Would they cut off your head then? It's not serious. If a little girl came to my department today, no matter where she came from, we wouldn't touch her before going over all the pathology material and doing every possible examination, including a biopsy. Not because I don't trust other doctors. It's a repeat examination for legal defense purposes that is standard all over the world. And they didn't do this; then they compounded the mistake by administering radiation with an outdated machine that they wouldn't dare use on an Israeli patient. The third thing is that kids are kids. You can't treat a little girl with osteosarcoma without the definite involvement of a pediatric oncologist and a multidisciplinary team. Prof. Walach is a retired oncologist who is employed by Assuta. He is not a pediatric oncologist."
What effect does unnecessary radiation have? "Radiation destroys cells. It causes localized damage and stunts the local growth of a limb. Radiation treatments increase the chances of tumors some years later, which are a consequence of the radiation."
The dramatic day when Harma met with Dr. Yehuda Kollender was the last day that Farah received radiation treatment.
Kollender and Meller ordered that the radiation at Assuta be halted and began to treat the girl in their department, in an attempt to save her life.
Jamal Harma stopped working and sold his car, which he had used as a taxi, in order to be able to stay in Tel Aviv by his daughter's side. He never budged from her bed.
"That was also the time there was a closure and they closed the checkpoints. Sometimes they wouldn't let me out. I'd carry Farah in my arms, or on my back, and trudge all the way through the mountains to get around the checkpoints. Then I'd take a taxi to Taibe, get a taxi from there to Kfar Sava and from there to the Tel Aviv central bus station. We didn't give up. "
When her hair started falling out, because of the chemotherapy, the doctor recommended that we shave it all off. I said to her, 'Daddy's little girl, your hair is going to fall out, it's better that I shave it off for you and afterward you'll grow new hair that's prettier and stronger and you'll be able to go back and play with your friends.' We went into the shower in the hospital and I shaved her head. It was so hard. She cried and I cried."
But the battle was lost. "Farah's condition was very serious and she didn't respond to the treatments," explains Prof. Meller.
"Jewish State ?"
Some readers may notice that I copy a lot from other blogs. That's because the situation is more than a little complex, and I can't get my own mind around certain plots and sub-plots.Here's Lawrence of Cyberia on the latest demand from the Israelis that the Palestinians recognise the "Jewish State" - excerpts:
"At one time, everyone knew that peace would break out all over the Middle East if the Palestinians would just recognize Israel. But then the PLO went and spoiled things [nearkly 20 years ago, in 1979] by recognizing Israel, so there had to be a new excuse for not ending the Occupation.
The new demand was that the Palestinians had to recognize Israel's "right to exist". And now, to ward off any danger that peace might raise its ugly head at Annapolis, here's a timely new one: the Palestinians have to recognize that Israel exists; that it has a right to exist; and that it has the right to exist as a "Jewish state".
...Israelis don't seem to have a common understanding of what they mean by a "Jewish state"; yet they insist the Palestinians must recognize nonetheless that Israel is one.
After all, how can Palestinians have a right to return to their homes in a "Jewish state" when they're not even Jewish, and non-Jews shouldn't expect to be allowed to live in a "Jewish state" in the first place...
The PLO says that Palestinians, like everyone else, give diplomatic recognition to countries, not to demographic balances, religious leanings or political affiliations. In recognizing Iran, for example, they give formal acceptance to Iran's sovereignty, its people and its borders, but not to its religious orientation. If Iran wants to call itself "The Islamic Republic of...", that is purely an internal Iranian affair. It's "Iran" that international diplomacy recognizes, not the Islamic-ness or Republic-ness of its political system. Similarly, if Israel wishes to call itself "The Jewish State of...", that is an internal Israeli affair, which does not need and cannot demand recognition from the PLO or anyone else in the world community.
The one thing they won't say is that Israel is formally a "Jewish state", i.e. a state for Jews. Just as a Jewish American might recognize that the USA is a Christian country in terms of its dominant population and cultural traditions, but would never accept that it should be formally designated a "Christian state", because that immediately defines Jews and other non-Christians as lesser citizens. For some outrageous no-doubt Islamofascist Jew-hating reason, the Palestinians similarly refuse to declare that Israel is constitutionally a state where Israelis of Palestinian descent are inferior citizens.
Israelis need to decide what it is they mean by a "Jewish state", before they accuse the Palestinians of being unreasonable in rejecting it. Right now, I suspect that some of them are happy to conflate the two different understandings of what a "Jewish state" is; perhaps so that when the PLO rejects Olmert's demand for a "state for Jews", they can pretend the PLO is rejecting too the idea of Israel as a "state of Jews".
I suppose if you understand that the price of a universally-recognized Jewish-majority state in the 1967 borders is finally getting out of the Occupied Territories, and you really don't want to do that, it's a lot easier to derail peace talks by whipping up fears of being driven into the sea than to simply acknowledge you're not willing to pay the price.
It's a bit like having the President of Iran say that the Occupation regime over Jerusalem will disappear from the pages of time, and then pretending that he really said he would "wipe Israel off the map"; because it's always easier to invoke the Hitler bogeyman than to answer Ahmadinejad's questions about why exactly Muslim-majority Palestine should be dismantled to make way for a sectarian Zionist state....
Maybe Israelis could take a short break from insisting on what the Palestinians must give them, and make up their minds what exactly it is they want. Then perhaps if they could actually listen to what they're being offered, they might even be pleasantly surprised to find it's something they could live with after all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Couldn't put it better.
"Jewish State ?"
Some readers may notice that I copy a lot from other blogs. That's because the situation is more than a little complex, and I can't get my own mind around certain plots and sub-plots.Here's Lawrence of Cyberia on the latest demand from the Israelis that the Palestinians recognise the "Jewish State" - excerpts:
"At one time, everyone knew that peace would break out all over the Middle East if the Palestinians would just recognize Israel. But then the PLO went and spoiled things [nearkly 20 years ago, in 1979] by recognizing Israel, so there had to be a new excuse for not ending the Occupation.
The new demand was that the Palestinians had to recognize Israel's "right to exist". And now, to ward off any danger that peace might raise its ugly head at Annapolis, here's a timely new one: the Palestinians have to recognize that Israel exists; that it has a right to exist; and that it has the right to exist as a "Jewish state".
...Israelis don't seem to have a common understanding of what they mean by a "Jewish state"; yet they insist the Palestinians must recognize nonetheless that Israel is one.
After all, how can Palestinians have a right to return to their homes in a "Jewish state" when they're not even Jewish, and non-Jews shouldn't expect to be allowed to live in a "Jewish state" in the first place...
The PLO says that Palestinians, like everyone else, give diplomatic recognition to countries, not to demographic balances, religious leanings or political affiliations. In recognizing Iran, for example, they give formal acceptance to Iran's sovereignty, its people and its borders, but not to its religious orientation. If Iran wants to call itself "The Islamic Republic of...", that is purely an internal Iranian affair. It's "Iran" that international diplomacy recognizes, not the Islamic-ness or Republic-ness of its political system. Similarly, if Israel wishes to call itself "The Jewish State of...", that is an internal Israeli affair, which does not need and cannot demand recognition from the PLO or anyone else in the world community.
The one thing they won't say is that Israel is formally a "Jewish state", i.e. a state for Jews. Just as a Jewish American might recognize that the USA is a Christian country in terms of its dominant population and cultural traditions, but would never accept that it should be formally designated a "Christian state", because that immediately defines Jews and other non-Christians as lesser citizens. For some outrageous no-doubt Islamofascist Jew-hating reason, the Palestinians similarly refuse to declare that Israel is constitutionally a state where Israelis of Palestinian descent are inferior citizens.
Israelis need to decide what it is they mean by a "Jewish state", before they accuse the Palestinians of being unreasonable in rejecting it. Right now, I suspect that some of them are happy to conflate the two different understandings of what a "Jewish state" is; perhaps so that when the PLO rejects Olmert's demand for a "state for Jews", they can pretend the PLO is rejecting too the idea of Israel as a "state of Jews".
I suppose if you understand that the price of a universally-recognized Jewish-majority state in the 1967 borders is finally getting out of the Occupied Territories, and you really don't want to do that, it's a lot easier to derail peace talks by whipping up fears of being driven into the sea than to simply acknowledge you're not willing to pay the price.
It's a bit like having the President of Iran say that the Occupation regime over Jerusalem will disappear from the pages of time, and then pretending that he really said he would "wipe Israel off the map"; because it's always easier to invoke the Hitler bogeyman than to answer Ahmadinejad's questions about why exactly Muslim-majority Palestine should be dismantled to make way for a sectarian Zionist state....
Maybe Israelis could take a short break from insisting on what the Palestinians must give them, and make up their minds what exactly it is they want. Then perhaps if they could actually listen to what they're being offered, they might even be pleasantly surprised to find it's something they could live with after all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Couldn't put it better.
Dirty Dershy Waterboards Himself
Alan Dershowitz, prime attack-dog for the Zionist Compliancy Movement (aka the ADL, AIPAC, etc) has managed to incriminate himself after extremely bad treatment by a blogger.He says:
--------------------------------
"A post by Larisa Alexandrovna entitled "Alan Dershowitz: Was He Against Nazi Practices Before He Was for Them?" dated November 11, 2007,
well illustrates how some blogs endanger rational discourse and substitute name-calling for serious debate about controversial issues. Alexandrovna purports to be responding to an op-ed piece I wrote in the Wall Street Journal in which I stated unequivocally that "I am personally opposed to the use of torture." That is my normative position.
In making an argument for political accountability if torture were to be used in extreme cases involving the risk of mass casualties (the so-called "ticking bomb scenario"), I quoted former President Bill Clinton and current Senator John McCain. I then dealt with the demonstrably false factual claim that some make that torture never works.
In responding to this wholly empirical claim, I said the following:
There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works - it only produces false information. This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a well-known empirical fact that lawyers ply their trade by twisting the words of others, or by combobulating their own statements to confuse, and we should expect nothing less from the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
So, let's translate Dirty Dershy's statement above:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A (mere blogger) - Larisa Alexandrovna - shows how I think some blogs substitute rational discourse for my 'serious debate' about controversial issues.
Alexandrovna responded to a squib I dashed off for the Wall Street Journal in which I mentioned "I am personally opposed to the use of torture."
That's OK, but only sometimes.
I do think torture might be used in some cases (the so-called "ticking bomb scenario"). I even quoted Bill Clinton and John McCain. I then dealt with the claim that torture never works.
Some say it never works - it only produces false information.
This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.
(Sorry, I don't have a single bit of evidence about that to quote, although I did underline the word factual in the very next paragraph).
Wogs do it, Jews do it
Even educated Yank-ees do it
Let's do it, let's fall in line
In Spain, the best upper sets did it
(See: Inquisition)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Larisa Alexandrovna replies here
Dirty Dershy Waterboards Himself
Alan Dershowitz, prime attack-dog for the Zionist Compliancy Movement (aka the ADL, AIPAC, etc) has managed to incriminate himself after extremely bad treatment by a blogger.He says:
--------------------------------
"A post by Larisa Alexandrovna entitled "Alan Dershowitz: Was He Against Nazi Practices Before He Was for Them?" dated November 11, 2007,
well illustrates how some blogs endanger rational discourse and substitute name-calling for serious debate about controversial issues. Alexandrovna purports to be responding to an op-ed piece I wrote in the Wall Street Journal in which I stated unequivocally that "I am personally opposed to the use of torture." That is my normative position.
In making an argument for political accountability if torture were to be used in extreme cases involving the risk of mass casualties (the so-called "ticking bomb scenario"), I quoted former President Bill Clinton and current Senator John McCain. I then dealt with the demonstrably false factual claim that some make that torture never works.
In responding to this wholly empirical claim, I said the following:
There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works - it only produces false information. This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a well-known empirical fact that lawyers ply their trade by twisting the words of others, or by combobulating their own statements to confuse, and we should expect nothing less from the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
So, let's translate Dirty Dershy's statement above:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A (mere blogger) - Larisa Alexandrovna - shows how I think some blogs substitute rational discourse for my 'serious debate' about controversial issues.
Alexandrovna responded to a squib I dashed off for the Wall Street Journal in which I mentioned "I am personally opposed to the use of torture."
That's OK, but only sometimes.
I do think torture might be used in some cases (the so-called "ticking bomb scenario"). I even quoted Bill Clinton and John McCain. I then dealt with the claim that torture never works.
Some say it never works - it only produces false information.
This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.
(Sorry, I don't have a single bit of evidence about that to quote, although I did underline the word factual in the very next paragraph).
Wogs do it, Jews do it
Even educated Yank-ees do it
Let's do it, let's fall in line
In Spain, the best upper sets did it
(See: Inquisition)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Larisa Alexandrovna replies here
Sunday, 18 November 2007
THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny.
Uri Avnery gets it right, as usual, and I can do no better than quote him in full:"Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back. The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the saying goes: One fool throws a stone into the water, a dozen wise men cannot retrieve it.
Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which would benefit them the most.
Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy, and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed. Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't that show who is the greatest of them all?
Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has achieved.
Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal partner.
This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if …
IF ALL these hopes were something more than pipedreams. None of them has any substance. For one simple reason: no one of the three partners has any capital at his disposal.
Bush is bankrupt. In order to succeed at Annapolis, he would have to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue.
But Bush is quite unable to exert the slightest pressure on Israel, even if he wanted to. In the US, the election season has already begun, and the two big parties are bulwarks standing in the way of any pressure on Israel. The Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.
Olmert is in an even weaker position. His coalition still survives only because there is no alternative in the present Knesset. It includes elements that in any other country would be called fascist (For historical reasons, Israelis don't like to use this term). He is prevented by his partners from making any compromise, however tiny - even if he wanted to reach an agreement.
This week, the Knesset adopted a bill that requires a two-thirds majority for any change of the borders of Greater Jerusalem. This means that Olmert cannot even give up one of the outlying Palestinian villages that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967. He is also prevented from even approaching the 'core issues" of the conflict.
Mahmoud Abbas cannot move away from the conditions laid down by Yasser Arafat (the 3rd anniversary of whose death was commemorated this week). If he strays from the straight and narrow, he will fall. He has already lost the Gaza Strip, and can lose the West Bank, too. On the other side, if he threatens violence, he will lose all he has got: the favor of Bush and the cooperation of the Israeli security forces.
The three poker players are going to sit down together, pretending to start the game, while none of them has a cent to put on the table.
THE MAJESTIC mountain seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the minute. It's against the laws of nature: the closer we get to it, the smaller it seems. What looked to many like a veritable Mt. Everest first turned into an ordinary mountain, then into a hill, and now it hardly looks like an anthill. And even that is shrinking, too.
First the participants were to deal with the "core issues". Then it was announced that a weighty declaration of intentions was to be adopted. Then a mere collection of empty phrases was proposed. Now even that is in doubt.
Not one of the three leaders is still dreaming of an achievement. All they hope for now is to minimize the damage - but how to get out of a situation like this?
As usual, our side is the most creative at this task. After all, we are experts in building roadblocks, walls and fences. This week, an obstacle larger then the Great Wall of China appeared.
Ehud Olmert demanded that, before any negotiations, the Palestinians "recognize Israel as a Jewish state". He was followed by his coalition partner, the ultra-right Avigdor Liberman, who proposed staying away from Annapolis altogether if the Palestinians do not fulfill this demand in advance.
Let's examine this condition for a moment:
The Palestinians are not required to recognize the state of Israel. After all, they have already done so in the Oslo agreement - in spite of the fact that Israel has yet to recognize the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own based on the Green Line borders.
No, the government of Israel demands much more: the Palestinians must now recognize Israel as a "Jewish state".
Does the USA demand to be recognized as a "Christian" or "Anglo-Saxon state"? Did Stalin demand that the US recognize the Soviet Union as a "Communist state"? Does Poland demand to be recognized as a "Catholic state", or Pakistan as an "Islamic state"? Is there any precedent at all for a state to demand the recognition of its domestic regime?
The demand is ridiculous per se. But this can easily be shown by analysis ad absurdum.
What is a "Jewish state"? That has never been spelled out. Is it a state with a majority of Jewish citizens? Is it "the state of the Jewish people" - meaning the Jews from Brooklyn, Paris and Moscow? Is it "a state belonging to the Jewish religion" - and if so, does it belong to secular Jews as well? Or perhaps it belongs only to Jews under the Law of Return - i.e. those with a Jewish mother who have not converted to another religion?
These questions have not been decided. Are the Palestinians required to recognize something that is the subject of debate in Israel itself?
According to the official doctrine, Israel is a "Jewish and democratic state". What should the Palestinians do if, according to democratic principles, some day my opinion prevails and Israel becomes an "Israeli state" that belongs to all its citizens - and to them alone? (After all, the US belongs to all its citizens, including Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, not to mention "Native-Americans".)
The sting is, of course, that this formula is quite unacceptable to Palestinians because it would hurt the million and a half Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. The definition "Jewish state" turns them automatically into - at best - second class citizens. If Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues were to accede to this demand, they would be sticking a knife in the backs of their own relatives.
Olmert & Co. know this, of course. They are not posing this demand in order to get it accepted. They pose it in order that it not be accepted. By this ploy they hope to avoid any obligation to start meaningful negotiations.
Moreover, according to the deceased Road Map, which all parties pretend to accept, Israel must dismantle all settlements set up after March, 2000, and freeze all the others. Olmert is quite unable to do that. At the same time, Mahmoud Abbas must destroy the "terror infrastructure". Abbas can't do that either - as long as there is no independent Palestinian state with an elected government.
I imagine Bush tossing and turning in his bed at night, cursing the speechwriter who put this miserable sentence into his mouth. On their way to heaven, his curses must be mingling with those of Olmert and Abbas.
WHEN THE leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine were about to sign the Declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, the document was not ready. Sitting in front of the cameras and history, they had to sign on an empty page. I am afraid that something like that will happen in Annapolis.
And then all of them will head back to their respective homes, heaving a heartfelt sigh of relief.
THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny.
Uri Avnery gets it right, as usual, and I can do no better than quote him in full:"Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back. The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the saying goes: One fool throws a stone into the water, a dozen wise men cannot retrieve it.
Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which would benefit them the most.
Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy, and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed. Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't that show who is the greatest of them all?
Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has achieved.
Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal partner.
This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if …
IF ALL these hopes were something more than pipedreams. None of them has any substance. For one simple reason: no one of the three partners has any capital at his disposal.
Bush is bankrupt. In order to succeed at Annapolis, he would have to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue.
But Bush is quite unable to exert the slightest pressure on Israel, even if he wanted to. In the US, the election season has already begun, and the two big parties are bulwarks standing in the way of any pressure on Israel. The Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.
Olmert is in an even weaker position. His coalition still survives only because there is no alternative in the present Knesset. It includes elements that in any other country would be called fascist (For historical reasons, Israelis don't like to use this term). He is prevented by his partners from making any compromise, however tiny - even if he wanted to reach an agreement.
This week, the Knesset adopted a bill that requires a two-thirds majority for any change of the borders of Greater Jerusalem. This means that Olmert cannot even give up one of the outlying Palestinian villages that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967. He is also prevented from even approaching the 'core issues" of the conflict.
Mahmoud Abbas cannot move away from the conditions laid down by Yasser Arafat (the 3rd anniversary of whose death was commemorated this week). If he strays from the straight and narrow, he will fall. He has already lost the Gaza Strip, and can lose the West Bank, too. On the other side, if he threatens violence, he will lose all he has got: the favor of Bush and the cooperation of the Israeli security forces.
The three poker players are going to sit down together, pretending to start the game, while none of them has a cent to put on the table.
THE MAJESTIC mountain seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the minute. It's against the laws of nature: the closer we get to it, the smaller it seems. What looked to many like a veritable Mt. Everest first turned into an ordinary mountain, then into a hill, and now it hardly looks like an anthill. And even that is shrinking, too.
First the participants were to deal with the "core issues". Then it was announced that a weighty declaration of intentions was to be adopted. Then a mere collection of empty phrases was proposed. Now even that is in doubt.
Not one of the three leaders is still dreaming of an achievement. All they hope for now is to minimize the damage - but how to get out of a situation like this?
As usual, our side is the most creative at this task. After all, we are experts in building roadblocks, walls and fences. This week, an obstacle larger then the Great Wall of China appeared.
Ehud Olmert demanded that, before any negotiations, the Palestinians "recognize Israel as a Jewish state". He was followed by his coalition partner, the ultra-right Avigdor Liberman, who proposed staying away from Annapolis altogether if the Palestinians do not fulfill this demand in advance.
Let's examine this condition for a moment:
The Palestinians are not required to recognize the state of Israel. After all, they have already done so in the Oslo agreement - in spite of the fact that Israel has yet to recognize the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own based on the Green Line borders.
No, the government of Israel demands much more: the Palestinians must now recognize Israel as a "Jewish state".
Does the USA demand to be recognized as a "Christian" or "Anglo-Saxon state"? Did Stalin demand that the US recognize the Soviet Union as a "Communist state"? Does Poland demand to be recognized as a "Catholic state", or Pakistan as an "Islamic state"? Is there any precedent at all for a state to demand the recognition of its domestic regime?
The demand is ridiculous per se. But this can easily be shown by analysis ad absurdum.
What is a "Jewish state"? That has never been spelled out. Is it a state with a majority of Jewish citizens? Is it "the state of the Jewish people" - meaning the Jews from Brooklyn, Paris and Moscow? Is it "a state belonging to the Jewish religion" - and if so, does it belong to secular Jews as well? Or perhaps it belongs only to Jews under the Law of Return - i.e. those with a Jewish mother who have not converted to another religion?
These questions have not been decided. Are the Palestinians required to recognize something that is the subject of debate in Israel itself?
According to the official doctrine, Israel is a "Jewish and democratic state". What should the Palestinians do if, according to democratic principles, some day my opinion prevails and Israel becomes an "Israeli state" that belongs to all its citizens - and to them alone? (After all, the US belongs to all its citizens, including Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, not to mention "Native-Americans".)
The sting is, of course, that this formula is quite unacceptable to Palestinians because it would hurt the million and a half Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. The definition "Jewish state" turns them automatically into - at best - second class citizens. If Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues were to accede to this demand, they would be sticking a knife in the backs of their own relatives.
Olmert & Co. know this, of course. They are not posing this demand in order to get it accepted. They pose it in order that it not be accepted. By this ploy they hope to avoid any obligation to start meaningful negotiations.
Moreover, according to the deceased Road Map, which all parties pretend to accept, Israel must dismantle all settlements set up after March, 2000, and freeze all the others. Olmert is quite unable to do that. At the same time, Mahmoud Abbas must destroy the "terror infrastructure". Abbas can't do that either - as long as there is no independent Palestinian state with an elected government.
I imagine Bush tossing and turning in his bed at night, cursing the speechwriter who put this miserable sentence into his mouth. On their way to heaven, his curses must be mingling with those of Olmert and Abbas.
WHEN THE leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine were about to sign the Declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, the document was not ready. Sitting in front of the cameras and history, they had to sign on an empty page. I am afraid that something like that will happen in Annapolis.
And then all of them will head back to their respective homes, heaving a heartfelt sigh of relief.
Peace Talks?
Annapolis won’t directly lead to progress, but it will force Israel to embarrass the Americans in public, an action which the Israelis know will be the beginning of the end of the weird special relationship, especially in this climate where it has become commonplace for vassal states to disrespect the United States. When the state that depends the most on the United States for its very existence chooses to make Americans look like weak fools, the patronage won’t last much longer.
Sunday, November 18, 2007 Irrelevantization
Peace Talks?
Annapolis won’t directly lead to progress, but it will force Israel to embarrass the Americans in public, an action which the Israelis know will be the beginning of the end of the weird special relationship, especially in this climate where it has become commonplace for vassal states to disrespect the United States. When the state that depends the most on the United States for its very existence chooses to make Americans look like weak fools, the patronage won’t last much longer.
Sunday, November 18, 2007 Irrelevantization
Isn't War Fun?
Read the ongoing story about Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller, a country boy from Kentucky, in Am I to blame for his private war?Maybe it will make you think a little bit more about the real victims of the Great War on Terror on both sides.
Excerpts:
"'Blake Miller is a flipped-out, 22-year-old former Marine who was involved in a major battle,' Armstrong said. 'He's been through a lot, seen a lot. I can't endorse the quick fix. It's a common pattern that vets are in and out of therapy for years.'
"They drove me to the secluded mountain top outside Pikeville to show me the spot where Miller had asked Jessica to be his girl, just days before he shipped out to Iraq. They laughed, embarrassed by the story. Miller sipped root beer and Jessica Nehi orange soda."
"It was 9 November 2006, two years after I took the famous picture of Miller and a year after he left the Marines. In his empty apartment, Miller took his wedding picture from the wall and replaced it with a Meritorious Mast, a certificate detailing his valour in combat. He drank beer for comrades living and lost. He spoke the names of the dead: Brown, Gavriel, Holmes, Ziolkowski.
'I didn't cry then and I won't now,' Miller said. 'I just can't.'
"Miller lives in a refurbished trailer behind his father's house. Two TVs provide constant background chatter. The refrigerator is bare. A hound called Mudbone spends most days tied in the yard."
Definitions of cannon fodder on the Web:
- An expression used to denote the treatment of armed forces as a worthless commodity to be expended. Fodder is food for livestock - the livestock ...martiallaw911.info/glossary.htm
- soldiers who are regarded as expendable in the face of artillery fire wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
- Cannon Fodder is a short series of two war (and later science fiction) themed action computer and video games developed by Sensible Software, initially released for the Commodore Amiga. Only two games in the series were released, but were converted to most active systems at the time of release. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon Fodder
- Cannon fodder is an informal term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to fight against hopeless odds, such as occurred during trench warfare in World War I. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon fodder
Isn't War Fun?
Read the ongoing story about Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller, a country boy from Kentucky, in Am I to blame for his private war?Maybe it will make you think a little bit more about the real victims of the Great War on Terror on both sides.
Excerpts:
"'Blake Miller is a flipped-out, 22-year-old former Marine who was involved in a major battle,' Armstrong said. 'He's been through a lot, seen a lot. I can't endorse the quick fix. It's a common pattern that vets are in and out of therapy for years.'
"They drove me to the secluded mountain top outside Pikeville to show me the spot where Miller had asked Jessica to be his girl, just days before he shipped out to Iraq. They laughed, embarrassed by the story. Miller sipped root beer and Jessica Nehi orange soda."
"It was 9 November 2006, two years after I took the famous picture of Miller and a year after he left the Marines. In his empty apartment, Miller took his wedding picture from the wall and replaced it with a Meritorious Mast, a certificate detailing his valour in combat. He drank beer for comrades living and lost. He spoke the names of the dead: Brown, Gavriel, Holmes, Ziolkowski.
'I didn't cry then and I won't now,' Miller said. 'I just can't.'
"Miller lives in a refurbished trailer behind his father's house. Two TVs provide constant background chatter. The refrigerator is bare. A hound called Mudbone spends most days tied in the yard."
Definitions of cannon fodder on the Web:
- An expression used to denote the treatment of armed forces as a worthless commodity to be expended. Fodder is food for livestock - the livestock ...martiallaw911.info/glossary.htm
- soldiers who are regarded as expendable in the face of artillery fire wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
- Cannon Fodder is a short series of two war (and later science fiction) themed action computer and video games developed by Sensible Software, initially released for the Commodore Amiga. Only two games in the series were released, but were converted to most active systems at the time of release. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon Fodder
- Cannon fodder is an informal term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to fight against hopeless odds, such as occurred during trench warfare in World War I. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon fodder
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