Friday, November 13, 2015

13-Nov-15: In a hospital where a terrorist was being sheltered, Pal Arab fury

Most Israelis do. in fact, know the difference between a hospital and a
nightclub. We also know what connects them: the aftermath of the
mass-casualty Palestinian Arab bombing of the Dolphinarium,
a Tel-Aviv disco, June 1, 2001 [Image Source]
From a news report yesterday about events in Hebron, "Hamas’ main bastion in the West Bank":
About two dozen men wearing bulky jackets, woolen caps, hoodies and checkered kaffiyehs barged into a hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron before dawn on Thursday, pushing what appeared to be a very pregnant woman in a wheelchair. But they were not headed to the delivery ward. The people caught on the hospital surveillance cameras were, in fact, undercover Israeli security officers. About 10 minutes later, the Israelis were on their way out, leaving behind a Palestinian man whom they had fatally shot in the raid and wheeling out his cousin, a wounded patient whom they had come to arrest... Hospital officials were livid. “Hospitals are supposed to be the safest places on earth,” Jihad [sic] Shawar, the hospital director, told the official Voice of Palestine Radio. He said the relatives of the two cousins were “very angry.” Bassem Natshe, the hospital’s public relations director: “They terrorized the hospital, shooting in the department. We are talking about a hospital here, not a nightclub.” ["Israeli Hospital Raid in West Bank Angers Palestinians", New York Times, November 12, 2015]
A nightclub? When Bassem Natshe, the hospital’s public relations director, speaks with passion about people terrorizing his hospital and reminds his interviewer that they "are talking about a hospital here, not a nightclub", we're wondering if he means a nightclub like the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium.

As for us - 
We are talking about a pizzeria here, not a shooting gallery. We are talking about a school-bus here, not an APC. We are talking about a street-car here, not a video game. We are talking about unarmed stabbing victims in their eighties, not gangs of thugs indiscriminately firing lethal rockets. We are talking about mothers and children and infants here, not armed combatants.
And by the way, how many innocent patients, staff or visitors in the hospital, other than the knife-attackerAzzam Azat Shabadan Shalaldeh ("a minor figure in Hamas", but nonetheless the fugitive perpetrator of a stabbing attack on an Israeli civilian last monthwhom the Israelis arrested and his clansman Abdullah Azzam Shalaldeh who was shot when attacking the Israelis, were harmed yesterday? Would casualties have been greater or fewer if the terrorist knife-man had been seized at some other time and in some other part of Hebron? The answer is obvious.

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