IDF to the Rescue
There is little to say about the horrific earthquake in Turkey, except to pray for relief of their suffering. The American Jewish World Service (1-800-889-7146) is a member of the Inter Action coalition for disaster relief. They need cash NOW to purchase the most needed supplies. PLEASE contact them and make a contribution.
On the other hand, we do have something to say about Israel Defense Forces (IDF) disaster relief.
Managua 1982; Armenia 1988; Mexico City 1989; Buenos Aires 1992; Rwanda1996; Nairobi 1998; Kosovo and Albania 1999; and now Turkey.
There is little to say about the horrific earthquake in Turkey, except to pray for relief of their suffering. The American Jewish World Service (1-800-889-7146) is a member of the Inter Action coalition for disaster relief. They need cash NOW to purchase the most needed supplies. PLEASE contact them and make a contribution.
On the other hand, we do have something to say about Israel Defense Forces (IDF) disaster relief.
Managua 1982; Armenia 1988; Mexico City 1989; Buenos Aires 1992; Rwanda1996; Nairobi 1998; Kosovo and Albania 1999; and now Turkey. The IDF responds to humanitarian crises without regard to either the politics of the government in need or the political treatment Israel receives in return. Expertise – sniffer dogs, pneumatic lifts for moving rubble, search and rescue – acquired as a result of terrorism against its own citizens is placed in service to others. Then-Foreign Minister Sharon said as he dispatched the first international help to refugees fleeing Kosovo, “Israel is always prepared to extend humanitarian aid… This is the moral responsibility of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” As it should be, you say? Remarkable, we say.
The IDF Benyamin Brigade used the same skills in responding to the collapse of a building in Ramallah, in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank territory. There is an irony in the rescue. It would be appropriate to overlook the irony except for two things – who directed the rescue and how the PA responded. On 8 July, an Israeli news service reported:
Two Palestinians are dead and nine are injured… after a nearly completed four-story building collapsed… IDF Benyamin Brigade Commander Col. Gal Hirsch is heading the search-and-rescue operation. “We have brought in the best of our forces and equipment, and are tapping the experience we garnered in other tragic events of this sort around the world,” he said… De spite the Palestinian requests for Israeli help, the [seven ambulances from nearby Jewish communities] were delayed on their way to the scene of the accident by Palestinian policemen for close to an hour.
The next day, the news service reported:
Palestinian Television was careful to show only Palestinian uniforms in its coverage of the incident, and Voice of Palestine Radio did not mention the identity of the rescue forces. In reporting on the evacuation of the injured to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, Voice of Palestine said that they were taken to “a hospital in occupied Jerusalem.”
JINSA had the honor of sharing a bus ride with Col. Hirsch on the 1999 Flag & General Officers Trip to Israel. We learned there was a gap in his service to the IDF and, in fact, an awful gap in his life. While he was trying to rescue a comrade from rock-throwing Palestinians, a boulder thrown from atop a bridge struck him. There followed surgery, several months of paralysis – from which doctors never thought he would recover – then rehabilitation and finally a hard-won return to the IDF. He told the story in a matter-of-fact way with no suggestion of martyrdom or desire for revenge.
Many people have the ability to alleviate human suffering. Col. Hirsch and his comrades in the IDF have a moral code that requires them to use their ability to serve the grateful and the ungrateful alike. Remarkable, we say.