Israel’s humanitarian relief

The IDF is in the Philippines, and Filipinos are reaping those rewards. A reporter for NBC is harshing the narrative of the IDF, though.

Smart. Sophisticated. Secure. This was what I had experienced with the IDF before. But now I was impressed with something else: the place they had selected. This wasn’t a site where trauma surgeons were needed — those injuries in other towns were being addressed. What the people of Bogo needed was good, solid medical care. They were already living in poverty when the typhoon decimated their fragile infrastructure.

I asked the IDF Surgeon General in charge why they chose Bogo. He said it was because they were poor and their needs were great. As I left, I walked away in awe of this group of doctors: physician humanitarians, and medicine at its very best.

Oh, come on. They’re brutal, racist murderers who deliberately target civilians. Just ask any Palestinian spokesliar. Who are you going to believe, those who slam the IDF or your lying eyes?

Lt. Col. (res) Dr. Ofer Merin, a heart surgeon who otherwise serves as deputy director of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, said that Israel’s scout team, sent to the country last week, had decided to establish the field hospital in a remote area that lacked medical facilities. “We established our field hospital here, in Bogo City, alongside a hospital that usually has two-three physicians per shift,” Merin said.

The hospital serves a city of nearly 80,000 people and an island of 250,000, and Merin said he had not seen any other international medical teams in the region.

[…] He estimated that the Israeli team would remain in place for a total of two weeks, treating upwards of 2,000 patients. “We will give medical assistance to the most acute cases,” he said, noting that word had spread fast, with dozens of patients lined up outside the hospital at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning. “Unfortunately, in this region, if we stay here for two months, or even for two years, we will have medical work every day.”

The U.S. Marines and Navy are in the Philippines, but I don’t think there’s any other Middle East nation sending rescue teams. And they have so much oil money, too. I wonder why that is.

As usual, the world media mostly ignores the good that Israel does. This is all I could find from the AP.

Israeli army medics have delivered a baby in the typhoon-hit central Philippines, and the grateful mother named him Israel.

About 150 members of the Israeli Defence Forces Home Front Command set up a field hospital in Bogo city on Cebu Island after Typhoon Haiyan killed thousands of people.

Color me unsurprised. But the Filipinos on that island will be talking about the Israelis for years to come, and remembering them with fondness.