[Imc-East.-Mediterr.] Abu Musa

[Angela Godfrey-Goldstein]

ABU MUSA JAHALIN IS SICK    

 

 

As Israel continues its harsh sanctions in the Territories, boycott of Hamas
and withholding of Palestinian tax monies, it also denies responsibility for
those under its occupation.  This criminal negligence under the Geneva
Convention is all too obvious.  Take the hospitals.  Take Abu Musa Jahalin.
Take today at Hadassah Mount Scopus Emergency Room.  It was chaos.  

The doctors aren't coping.  They can't cope.  They're turning away people
who don't have money for treatment (most Palestinians don't have work or
income by now).  They're turning them away, sometimes to die.  Which is
against the Hippocratic Oath:  "Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for
the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice.  I
will keep them from harm and injustice.  In purity and holiness I will guard
my life and my art."  Oh pity the doctors of Hadassah Mount Scopus and
Hadassah Ein Karem.  More and more are volunteering on days off as
volunteers with Physicians for Human Rights in the OPT.  Putting fingers in
dykes to stop the flood.  Putting out small fires, as pyromaniacs run around
with flamethrowers setting forests ablaze.  

 

Abu Musa had to go back to his shack, under threat of demolition and ethnic
transfer by the Wall and army (the very un-Civil Administration!), to find
20,000 shekels for treatment.  If he does, he can go back and try to save
his leg and life.  Then start saving $15,000 for a back operation he hasn't
been able to afford to undertake for the past 2 years, without which he
won't get back on his legs -- if one hasn't had to be amputated by then.
He's only 52.  His heart is starting to go.  Wouldn't yours?

Yet again, innocent civilians are caught up in megapolitics:  Jimmy Carter,
who knows the situation better than most and is the only person to have
brokered an Arab-Israeli peace, says Israel's current policy in the
territories is "a system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same
land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally
dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic
human rights." In a separate passage in his new book "Palestine: Peace Not
Apartheid", the former president says "Israel's continued control and
colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a
comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land."  Carter also aims at the
"pro-Israel" lobby: "Because of powerful political, economic, and religious
forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely
questioned or condemned."

Writing in The Forward, Jennifer Siegel quotes Rep. Steve Israel, a New York
Democrat leading House Democrat efforts to woo Jewish voters and donors.
"The reason for the Palestinian plight is the Palestinians. Their leadership
has no regard for the quality of life for their people and no capability of
providing security or enforcing peace, and they have no one to blame but
themselves."  Explain this to Abu Musa and look him in the eyes with his
death sentence.

Abu Musa was told long ago by an Israeli professor that he needed an
operation on his back.  Having been badly beaten by Israeli Border Police,
when homes - tin and cardboard shacks -- were bulldozed on his hillside.
Those shattered places in his body are returning now to haunt him.  He
hasn't walked for months.  All muscles in his legs have gone.  He's down to
36 kilos, a wasted shell.  The wounds are going septic; amputation a
possibility.  Not having money to stay in the Emergency Room, now he's in
sleepless pain in the tin hut on the hill.  Makassed, a Palestinian hospital
in Jerusalem, is so de-developed, so dried up, they say it's dangerous.

 

Abu Musa is mukhtar (leader) of a group of Negev refugees dumped in the West
Bank by Israel in the Fifties, when they were driven off their own land.  As
a West Bank ID holder, he can't go home and certainly can't be free in any
way, even though freedom for Bedouin is their most sacred value.  He can't
even go into nearby Jerusalem, to pray or work or seek a doctor or a
hospital - an Israeli smuggled him in this time (a hospital security guard
tried to evict him!).. Settlement expansion pushes his people into ever
tighter ghettoes.  The Wall slices through the area; a huge new police base
occupies the next hill.  

 

If we can't raise the shekels Israel should be responsible for, as occupying
power, thoughts of Abu Musa's future are pure theory.  (And as to global
warming warnings, they imply a need for specialists in desert survival, so a
day will probably come when we'll regret this folly of shortsightedness, as
we deculture indigenous people and "civilize" them.)

 

Please help.

 

Money may be sent to the following account which has been set up
specifically:

 

First International Bank (031), 

Talpiot Branch (074), 

A/c 309893

Account holder:  Angela Godfrey

SWIFT:   FIRBILITXXX

 

Cheques may also be sent to:

Angela Godfrey
POB 10039, 

Geulim, 

Jerusalem 91100.  



Please email notice of cheques posted or transferred to me 
angela at icahd.org

 

Thank you.

 

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