As the first Israel Defense Forces emergency aid team (there is now a second) left for Haiti, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Given Israel’s security needs, we have accumulated much search and rescue experience over the years. We have applied this experience previously in disaster scenes throughout the world — in Mexico, Argentina, Armenia, Kenya, Turkey, and elsewhere. I hope and wish that the Israeli mission will succeed, this time as well, in saving as many lives — children, parents, and families — in Haiti as possible.”

There was no irony in his comment, but there could have been.

The “experience” to which he referred was, of course, experience pulling Israeli victims of terror out of buildings and buses bombed by Hamas and Fatah over the years. Israeli medical triage for large-scale trauma is a necessarily well-developed art, and ZAKA’s skill in handling gruesome wreckage with dignity for the victims — living and dead — is being put to good use in the devastation of Haiti. ZAKA is the Israeli volunteer, non-governmental rescue, life-saving, and recovery organization.

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