Keep your hands to yourself
Reading the article (“Nixing professional training for Gaza doctors,” August 16) on the problems encountered by the group of Israeli physicians who were trying to get permits for their Gazan colleagues to get training in Israel, I was quite sympathetic. After all, every doctor wants to save lives.
My positive feelings left me when I read the sentence, “After 15 years of Israeli blockades and repeated assaults, everyone who lives in Gaza knows that at any moment, Israel may decide to launch a renewed round of bombings and destruction.” That is an outright lie. After reading that, I began to suspect the truth of the entire article.
I may not live in Gaza, but, being a resident of Rehovot for about 50 years, I am quite aware of who begins the rounds of attacks and who defends. Yes, the Gazans need to know how to care for their sick and injured, but perhaps they should also learn what our parents taught us as children – keep your hands to yourself. And don’t say he hit me back first.
RHEA ISRAEL
Rehovot
Lee Caspi’s disingenuous op-ed exhibits: a)willful ignorance; b)selective memory or lapse thereof; c) hypocrisy; d)all of the above. But then, in Caspi’s cohort, Israel bashing needn’t be based on truth and reality. The reality we face is an implacable, fanatical foe in Gaza that seeks our destruction, and since we are not inclined to commit collective suicide, various security measures have been put in place, among them the legal naval blockade. (Remember the Karine A?)
Despite the writer’s claims, Gaza shares an open border with Egypt through which doctors may seek advanced training at any destination. If Hamas would earmark its money for building hospitals, medical schools, etc., instead of building rockets and terror tunnels aimed at wreaking death and destruction on Israel’s civilian population, Gazan doctors could be better trained at home.
Israel’s actions are not “repeated assaults,” but a response to the criminal Hamas and PIJ indiscriminate rocket attacks, usually from within their own civilian population, aimed at Israel’s towns and cities. A government’s singular responsibility is to the safety and welfare of its people.
Lee Caspi’s Physicians for Human Rights Israel enjoys the protection provided by our government. Hamas has other priorities, notably the annihilation of Israel and its Jewish population.
JOEL KUTNER Jerusalem