Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Palestinians Forced to Spy For Israel in Exchange for Medical Treatment

By Manila Ryce
Published Wednesday, August 6th, 2008, 4:42 am
Filed under: World: Asia, Human Rights, Health, World Issues

Physicians for Human Rights has reported that in keeping with its policy to cause as much pain and misery as is humanly possible, Israel has been forcing sick Gazans to trade intelligence information about Hamas for medical treatment. The 80-page report lists 32 Gaza Palestinians who were offered such a deal at the border before being allowed into Israel for treatment.

After the democratically-elected Hamas government prevented a US-backed Fatah coup in the Gaza Strip, Israel declared the occupied territory a “hostile entity” and sealed its borders, only allowing residents needing urgent medical treatment to leave with Israeli permission. When taken with the understanding that the situation in Gaza is the worst it’s ever been and that hospitals in the occupied territory are without power for up to 12 hours a day due to the blockade, the exploitation of those in need of medical attention is all the more disgusting.

Bassam Waheidi, one of the residents named in the report, is a 28-year-old reporter who focuses on women’s issues, social affairs, and workers’ rights. Waheidi is going blind and was referred by Gaza doctors to Israel for urgent treatment. When at the Erez border crossing he says he was led to an underground room and interrogated in an hours-long session to provide Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency information on militants in exchange for medical treatment to save his sight. Waheidi refused - choosing his dignity over his vision. Israel has not granted him a permit since. Now Waheidi has gone blind in his right eye and is losing sight in the other.

Israel is committing a horrendous crime against humanity by imprisoning a million and a half civilians, half of which are under 15 years of age. What were already dire health concerns in Gaza related to the legacy of occupation, underdevelopment, power cuts, reduce fuel supplies, untreated sewage, groundwater contamination, and reduced access to basic health and medical facilities have worsened significantly under the ongoing siege - an undeniable form of ethnic cleansing manifested through an official policy of collective punishment.

Unsurprisingly, Israel has denied the allegations of forcing Palestinians to spy for medical treatment, citing security concerns as the reason several Gaza residents have not been allowed into Israel. Meanwhile, the “Jewish State” continues to reject its responsibility as an occupier to provide Palestinians with the most basic of human needs under international humanitarian law. This core minimum obligation includes the right to health - a right which would only concern Israel if they wanted to keep their captives alive.

source

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18 Responses to “Palestinians Forced to Spy For Israel in Exchange for Medical Treatment”

  1. This is just sick.

    Bernie
    08/6/08 at 11:21 am

  2. Maybe they should learn the old addage, don’t bite the hand that feeds you!

    Jack
    08/6/08 at 1:16 pm

  3. @Jack

    No doubt you’re talking about Israel, the undemocratic proxy state which is completely reliant upon American taxpayers to maintain their occupation.

    Manila Ryce
    08/6/08 at 2:06 pm

  4. Manila,

    Nope, I’m talking about the Palestinians who expect a democratic government to freely provide all of the necessities needed to sustain life, but do everything in their power to kill the people who provide these services. The Palestinians could declare the intifada over and agree to live peacefully beside Israel, policing their own citizens activities and prosecuting those that launch attacks on Israel, but they’d rather play the martyre to the rest of the free world by claiming that Isreal is hurting them by retaliating….retaliating, let me say it again, RETALIATING against the Palestinians for attacks on Israel. They deserve the sh@thole they live in and all the consequences of their actions.

    Jack
    08/7/08 at 9:26 am

  5. Jack,

    You’re so right ! Or are you ? Have you ever been to the area ?… I didn’t think so.

    Cheers,
    k

    k
    08/7/08 at 9:52 am

  6. k,

    I’ve never been to Somalia either, is that relative? Duh!

    Jack
    08/7/08 at 10:14 am

  7. That is a crime against humanity, for which the architects could be tried and convicted at the Hague. Ironic, isn’t it?

    Paul
    08/7/08 at 10:38 am

  8. @ Jack,

    Oh please, don’t give us this “they deserve it” crap. Palestinians are living under an illegal occupation (yes, it literally is illegal, this is undeniable). The fact that some Palestinians engage in violence and terrorism (which are not always the same thing) is to be expected. To give a parallel example: what is your judgment of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? I mean, yeah, they did some terrible things, but we understand that there were legitimate reasons for this.

    Bernie
    08/7/08 at 12:30 pm

  9. @ Jack

    Under UN laws what Israel is doing is illegal. Not that it matters much, because the US breaks any laws they want. It easy to pretend they aren’t people though, isn’t it? I know you could care less because you get your basic needs met, but how would you feel if someone came into your country and killed your neighbors and forced your family into a “sh@thole.” Insert whatever smart or clever remark you have to make, but if you treat people the way Israel has treated Palestinians, then you should expect exactly what is going on right now.

    Sam
    08/7/08 at 1:10 pm

  10. Jack,

    As an Israeli from Haifa I can easily tell by reading your post that you are missing a great amount of information regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    There seems to be a great hole in your knowledge regarding the region as well.

    The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under a military occupation. If you live in Europe or North America, think Martial Law. That should give you an idea of what it’s like.

    Now, the West Bank and Gaza aren’t Israel’s to begin with. But, Israel continues to build Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank on Palestinian land. The land is usually taken by force, the family is threatened with arrest and is often arrested anyway when members resist.

    So, what’s left of the West Bank is what can only be described as Swiss cheese, blocks of settlements dividing Palestinian land, separating towns from one another and making life for the Palestinians unbearable.

    Now, if you’re a reasonable and smart human being and I assume you are, you can easily see why the Palestinians are upset.

    To make matters worse, Israeli governments over the years have been claiming that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians, but in practice they continue on building new settlements and expanding old ones.

    Bush, who’s been an adamant supporter of Israel, has asked the Israeli government to stop their settlement program, because it’s an obstacle to peace and is destabilizing the region. Israel brushed it off and went on with its business as usual.

    Daily life for Palestinians can be summed as follows:

    A farmer, whose only source of income is his crop, can’t go to his land that’s 400 feet away because his house and his land have been separated by a 25 foot concrete wall. To get there, he has to travel 10-20 miles to the nearest checkpoint. At the checkpoint, it’s up to the soldiers to allow him to pass. It’s as arbitrary as roulette.

    A college student who needs to travel 20 miles to her/his university will have to go through 7 or 10 roadblocks, with each roadblock having it’s own traffic jam. At these roadblocks, soldiers can again refuse passage for anyone. It can take 8 hours to get from point A to B, despite those two points being a mere 20 miles apart.

    A family can wake up one morning and find bulldozers coming down the street towards their house while military Jeeps with loudspeakers order the residence out. The family must comply or else they are arrested. Once outside, they are told they have a few minutes to gather whatever they want from inside the house. A few minutes later the house is demolished and bulldozers run over whatever is left of family’s belongings. This is done just to make way for more settlement construction.

    Peaceful non-violent protests or marches are usually disrupted by the Israeli military with both tear gas, and live ammunition. Many Palestinians are killed this way as well. To justify their use of force, the military will often have police officers or soldiers in plain clothes joining the protesters and throwing rocks. There are many documented cases in the press and if you prefer video evidence, you can check YouTube. Israel calls those cops, “Mista’aravim”; that’s Hebrew for “pretending to be an Arab”.

    Now, I know what you’re going to say, you’re going to claim that Israel “retaliates” to Palestinian terrorism by building more settlements and if the Palestinians just stopped “terrorizing” Israelis, there would be peace. But, the truth can’t be farther from that.

    In fact, Israel has always continued with its settlement construction, even during times of relative calm, even while peace negotiations were taking place.

    If you want to learn more about the conflict, then do yourself a favor and watch this 30 minute interview with a Jewish Israeli professor who teaches at Ben-Gurion University in Israel…..and no, he’s not a self-hating Jew.

    He happens to be a very educated, knowledgeable and articulate man.

    http://www.alternatefocus.org/Shows2.html

    There are other videos on the daily life in the West Bank and Gaza that might interest you, but the interview I referenced above is a Must See.

    Videos: http://www.alternatefocus.org/Screeningroom.html

    Adam
    08/7/08 at 11:57 pm

  11. Dear Adam,

    The reason why the Arabs been able to so successfully pull off the hoax of Palestian nationhood is not because there is any historical evidence to back such a claim. It is because of Jews like you.

    There are no Arabs publicly criticizing the Arabs. They have no Arab traitors. But we have so many Jewish traitors like you and your professor. Jews who feel psychologically compelled to dig the grave of their own people.

    You are a person, you are a psychological disease. You are the result of a 2500 year old exile. The psychological result of living as a hated minority in fear for one’s life from the majority at all times. One cannot be psychologically normal after living as a minority for 200 years let alone 2500 years. The Zionist claimed they were going to create a “New Jew”. A Jew who stood up for himself and was normal and sane and acting like a normal nation does. Needless to say, they failed miserably. Not only do frightened sniveling traitorous Jews like you still plague us, but the entire Israeli nation acts dysfunctionally.

    If the mexican army fired a thousand missiles at California and Texas, the US army would do the normal thing and demolish northern Mexico. But the Israeli nation sits by and watches thousands of missiles fly at their cities from Gaza and does worse than nothing. They fret about how the Arab residents of Gaza are doing. Are they Ok? If we treat them nice, will they love us then? Will we have peace?

    Also, Jews are in complete denial about the nature of the Arab people. The culture of the enemy that openly calls for the finishing of Hitler’s job. Adolph Hitler is spoken about in the most glowing terms by Arabs and their media. Many people do hear about Jews killed by Arabs in Israel, but they don’t hear about HOW THEY ARE KILLED.

    Many of the victims of the lovely sweet peaceful Arab and Islamic fascists are castrated, some have their skin peeled from their bodies, many have their eyes gouged out, many are beated to death so badly that only dental records can identify them.

    These are the enemies you would have us appease. This is the nature of Ishmael whom the Bible calls a wildman, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him and he shall live in enmity with all of his brothers.

    Adam from Haifa. The 1500 Jews killed by Arab terror since Oslo are your fault. It is you and people like you who have weaked the body politic of Israel that allowed these atrocities to be perpetrated. Their blood is on your hands. I don’t know how you sleep at night.

    Judea
    08/8/08 at 4:05 am

  12. Bernie, your “parallel example” is a blatant farce. First, it was Jewish civilians arming themselves and fighting against MILITARY units. The Palastinians don’t fight against Israeli military, the fire rnadom rockets or explode bombs amongst civilian populations. Secons, the Jews were forcibly removed from their homes and moved to the ghettos. Meanwhile, especially in Gaza, Israel vacated the territory and the thugs instead of using their new land for good, use it to fire rockets against Israel. No one is forcing the Palestinians into ghettos, the PLO failed for years to use international aid to produce decent facilities for their own people, but rather, they spent the money on more weapons for the intifada. The Palestinian people are caught between their own elected thugs and Israel. They have no one to blame but themselves.

    Sam, I would treat them the same way they were treating me. The Palestinians have for decades waged a war against a civilian population. Can you blame Israel for walling themselves off from these barbarians? Act like a civilized person and I’ll treat you like a civilized person. Act like a terrorist, send you teen sons and daughters to commit suicide (murder) bombings against civilian populations and I will treat you like the swine you are.

    The Arab nations started this in 1947 and Israel has been on the defensive ever since.

    Jack
    08/8/08 at 10:48 am

  13. Israeli security forces killed by Palestinians since 2000: 244 in the Occupied Territories, 90 in Israel. The Palestinians are living under a military occupation, and so much of their resistance is, naturally, directed at military targets. And I would say that refugee camps are very much like ghettos, and so in that sense Israel is forcing Palestinians into ghettos. Oh, and Gaza is basically one giant ghetto/prison - “occupation by remote control” according to Israeli officials.

    But you know, every single oppressive régime in history ALWAYS tries to blame the victims. This is, of course, morally disgusting.

    Israel is on the “defensive”? Give me a break, they’ve been acquiring territory constantly for the past half-century. I’m sorry, but acquiring territory by war (completely illegal under international law) does not count as “defensive.”

    Bernie
    08/8/08 at 2:03 pm

  14. Jack,

    You don’t know what you’re talking about. Better fold that lawn chair of yours and go home.

    It must be convenient for you to ignore a post that appeals to logic and reasoning. I feel sorry for you, but it only shows that you are incapable of debating facts and instead rely on your cliched talking points.

    Your “defensive” comment is pure nonsense. For you, certain events exist in a vacuum. Why? Because it makes it ever so convenient for you to spin your argument in favor of whatever talking point you’re spewing.

    I have no idea where you live, but it might do you some good to go and visit a refugee camp in the West Bank sometime. Unless of course, you’re morally bankrupt. Yes, morally. And unless you march in there with an Uzi, people will welcome you into their own homes and offer you tea or coffee. But, then again, for you the Palestinians are “barbarians”. Perhaps you are projecting your own barbarity.

    You are a pure ideologue with an extremely fanatical perspective, albeit ignorant at best. Keep on preaching, but your nonsense is as old as sand.

    Bernie’s data is very accurate. Most Israeli casualties are military. It’s just that the media, especially in the U.S., only report attacks on civilians to give the impression that Israel is the defenseless, while the Palestinians are the “barbarians”.

    I’m not condoning violence or defending anyone here, but the numbers really do speak for themselves. From September 2000 until July 2008, 123 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians.

    On the Palestinian side, 1050 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis.

    People who have actually seen what goes in the West Bank and Gaza with their own eyes and have read about the history of the conflict in well regarded history books, not tabloid newspapers, know what’s going on.

    You can keep your head in the sand for all I care.

    Adam
    08/8/08 at 11:54 pm

  15. See why not the Israelis may force some Arabs to spy for them if they want to have a perfect medical treatment. The Israelis have no any obligation to give medical care for their Palestinian enemy. If any Palestinian wants to benefit from the Israeli generosity and cooperation he might pay with counter cooperation. Each sane country is doing and will do the same and would have done the same.

    Abe Bird
    08/9/08 at 12:37 am

  16. There had never been any “Palestinian” people but the Jews. There had never been any Arab state on Israel land. Palestine is the British occupier name for the land of Israel which includes the east bank of the river Jordan (Kingdom of Jordan) and the west bank (the phony arab WB - Jewdea and Samaria + pre 67 Israel). The Arab Falsetinians demand ALL Palestine for themselves (code name: “a state for all its citizens”), because the MuslimFaschists deny the non-Muslims rights for their own states in the “Islamic” Middle East. Their clear intention is to wipe Israel of the map and sunk the Jews in the sea. The current dilemma is not the 67 border’s withrawl suggestion, but the very existence of the Jewish state in the turmoil Middle East.

    Abe Bird
    08/9/08 at 1:08 am

  17. So a state is what defines a people? By that logic, the massive genocide of Native Americans, the greatest in human history, was all totally legitimate.

    Bernie
    08/9/08 at 7:12 am

  18. What I hear from many of you is that since these Arabs are living under military rule, their acts of savage murder are certainly understandable.

    This military rule started in 1967. I always wondered why Arabs were slaughtering Jews in 1936. And now I realized it is because of the occupation of 1967.

    I always wondered why the Arabs massacred Jews in 1929, and now I realize it is because of the occupation of 1967.

    Thank you very much for clearing this up. I always wondered why Arabs have been massacring Jews since the birth of Islam, and now I realize, they were angry over the occupation of 1967.

    Alot of people have said that the “chickens came home to roost’ on 911. Well, I agree. But it was not for the mistake of mistreating Arabs. America had spent the last ten years pressuring Israel to commit suicide and had fought two wars on behalf of Muslims in Kuwait and Bosnia. Bombing innocent serbs on behalf of Muslims. The chickens came home to roost on 911 when the Arabs showed their gratitude by killing 3000 americans.

    That is what America gets for sucking up to Arabs. That is what America gets for refusing to recognize Arabs for what they are. Murderous Savages.

    Judea
    08/10/08 at 1:13 am

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