ISIS v. Israel

No, the title is not suggesting that this post has to do with a direct confrontation between ISIS (aka Daesh) and the nation of Israel.  I suspect that any unbiased writer would have no difficulty in predicting the outcome of such a conflict!  (Clue: Israel would not come out of it as second-best!!).

However, in the last couple of days, I have viewed two specific photographs that clearly display the difference between these two entities.  The first has also appeared in today's online Daily Express.

The executioner is in the act of beheading a 15 year-old boy - in front of a large crowd, including many teenagers.  Ayham Hussein was handed the death sentence after being tried in a strict Sharia law court.   ISIS thugs had found the teenager listening to a portable compact disc player inside his dad's shop in an open-air market in western Mosul, in Iraq.  Sentenced to death - for listening to music!  No words of mine could ever suitably describe such an act!  Those responsible will, in eternity, if not before, answer for such a crime - because their's was the crime; the boy was innocent of any crime - certainly in any civilised society.

The second picture was e-mailed to me from the Scottish Friends of Israel.

In his short life, Mohammed al-Farra has known just one home: the yellow-painted children's ward in Israel's Tel Hashomer hospital.  Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed's hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3½ year-old moves about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won't pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.  

Mohammed was rushed to Israel as a newborn for emergency treatment. His genetic disorder left him with a weakened immune system and crippled his bowels, doctors say, and an infection destroyed his hands and feet, requiring them to be amputated.   In the midst of his treatment, his mother abandoned Mohammed because her husband, ashamed of their son, threatened to take a second wife if she didn't leave the baby and return to their home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, al-Farra said. In Gaza, polygamy is permitted but isn't common. But it's a powerful threat to women fearful of competing against newer wives.  Now Mohammed spends his days undergoing treatment and learning how to use prosthetic limbs, while his 55-year-old grandfather cares for him. Mohammed's Israeli doctors, who've grown attached to the boy, fund-raise to cover his bills, allowing him and his grandfather to live in the sunny pediatric ward.

Two children; two cultures; two situations; two outcomes.   For ISIS/Daesh, death for listening to music; for another Arab Muslim boy, life because of the dedication, love, and concern, of Israel and its medical staff.

Such stories could, of course, be multiplied many times over.  Sadly, although ISIS/Daesh do have their evil actions publicised, you will rarely find the "western" media informing people of the situation of children such as Mohammed al-Farra.  To do so, of course, might cause the unthinking among us to realise that the bias against the State and Nation of Israel is unfounded.

I believe, as a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth - Himself born and raised as a Jew; tried and falsely convicted, as a Jew; crucified as King of the Jews (in accordance with prophecy: see Isaiah 53) - I have a moral, and even spiritual, obligation to support Israel.  I may not agree with every policy decision of the Israeli government (although I would gladly exchange the current incumbent of 10 Downing Street, for Mr Netanyahu!) but, as Corrie ten Boom's father reminded her at the time of the Holocaust: "They are still the apple of His eye"! (see Deut.32:10; Ps.17:8; Zech.2:8 - the reference is to the keen sensibility of the eye, and denotes the careful protection, and security, of Almighty God - HaShem).

If you have a heart for Israel, please do all that you can to publicise the truth and, of course, pray for the peace of Jerusalem - Sh’alu shalom yerushalayim.

Jewish & Arab Patients Save Each Other’s Lives

All too regularly, I read in a newspaper, or hear on a news programme, that the real problem in the Middle East is not the civil war in Syria; or the belligerence of Iran; or the tragic lack of human rights in Saudi-Arabia - but Israel!  Rarely do I come across a western-media report that does anything but cast Israel as the villain in the piece.  I do wish that the mainstream media would pick up on stories like this one!

Two patients at the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa, one Arab and one Jewish, both in need of kidney transplants, received the life saving donations they needed from each others families.  Each patient, one Arab and the other Jewish, managed to save the other's life by having one of their relatives donate their kidney to help the other patient survive! 32-year-old Mohammad Eckert’s wife, Rasha, aged 30, donated her kidney to 57-year-old David Ben-Yair, while David’s son Shmuel, aged 34, gave his kidney to Mohammed. The rare procedure was performed at Rambam Hospital’s Medical Transplantation Unit by Dr. Rawi Ramadan, an Arab physician who is the director of Rambam’s Transplantation Unit. Two men, who didn’t know each other prior to this, are now connected to one another through a bond of gratitude.

The procedure which was performed, known as a crossover transplantation, is not common in Israel and is performed whenever there is no match between a patient and his family members. “We test every patient that has a living donor in order to evaluate if such a transplant can be done within the family,” Dr. Ramadan told the Jewish Press. “But sometimes one of the patients has a blood type or antibodies that don’t match with the other family member. In this particular case, the Jewish father had antibodies in his blood that weren’t an exact match with his son.”  He continued, “With today’s medical technologies, we could have actually performed the transplant within the same family but we would have had to give them a lot of pre-operative medications, which come with both short-term and long-term side effects. Thus, it was better to do the exchange between the Jewish and Arab families, as both patients received the same quality of kidney and we were able to treat them with a minimal amount of anti-rejection medications.” Dr. Ramadan said that when the idea for crossover transplantation was discussed, the four Haifa residents didn’t hesitate: “To them, it didn’t matter who donated to whom. As far as they are concerned, they donated a kidney to a family member, and their donation saved a life.”

STORIES OF JEWS AND ARABS SAVING EACH OTHER
There are many cases of Jewish people and Arab people saving each others lives. An Arab paramedic saved the life of a three-year-old Jewish child who had been injured by a Palestinian rock thrower, while an Israeli couple donated a kidney from their son to save the life of a Palestinian boy. As a matter of policy, Israel has routinely put the conflict aside, in order to save Palestinian lives, as demonstrated by Rambam Hospital saving the life of a two-year-old Palestinian child, and Tel Hashomer Hospital saving the life of a disabled Palestinian child who had been abandoned by his family.

ARAB DOCTORS CONTRIBUTE TO THE ISRAELI MEDICAL PROFESSION
Dr. Rawi Ramadan is also not the only Arab to thrive in the medical profession in Israel. The head of emergency medicine at Hadassah Hospital, Dr. Aziz Darawshe, is also Arab, as is Dr. Rifat Safedi, who is the head of the Liver Unit at Hadassah Hospital and has uncovered the gene linked to liver disease.