[Marxism] More evidence of Time Magazine disaffection with Israel

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/01/17/heartbreak-heartbreak-and-heartbreak-in-gaza/
Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Heartbreak, Heartbreak and Heartbreak in Gaza

Of all the tragedies to befall the Palestinians, few have been as 
utterly, utterly and utterly heartbreaking as the story that has been 
emerging in the last 24 hours of a Palestinian doctor who lost three of 
his daughters in an apparent Israeli strike in Gaza on Friday. A niece 
of the doctor was also killed, and another daughter and another niece 
were seriously wounded.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish has been speaking movingly on Israeli 
television of the loss of his daughters, Bisan, 20, a business student 
who had participated in a peace camp with Israeli youth in the U.S., 
Mayar, 15, and Aya, 14, and his niece, Nur, 17.

Fluent in Hebrew, Abu al-Aish had spent many years working with Israeli 
hospitals. During the three-week Gaza war, he has frequently been 
interviewed on Israeli TV about the conditions on the ground in Gaza. 
Abu al-Aish's home is in the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City 
and near the border. An Israeli army spokesman said that IDF solidiers 
had apparently been returning fire from Palestinian fighters who had 
fired on them from the area.

Israeli TV viewers witnessed a phone call from Abu al-Aish to a 
television journalist Friday night in which he wailed, "My daughters 
have been killed!" Visibly moved, the journalists proceeded to assist 
Abu al-Aish in getting injured family members across the Gaza border for 
emergency medical assistance in Israel.

Adding to Abu al-Aish's grief, however, he was jeered by several angry 
Israelis on Saturday while talking to reporters at the Chaim Sheba 
medical center in Tel Hashomer after making an emotional plea to 
Israelis "to live together" with Palestinians. The confrontation 
occurred hours before Israeli PM Ehud Olmert announced a unilateral 
Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, possibly bringing an end to the conflict.

Israel's Y-Net news site identified one of the jeering Israelis as the 
mother of three IDF soldiers serving in Gaza, and quoted her yelling, 
"Why is he engaging in propaganda? He's talking against Israel at the 
Sheba hospital. You should all be ashamed. All my children are serving 
in Gaza. Who knows what he had at his home? What's wrong with you, have 
you all gone crazy? My son is in the paratroopers, who knows what you 
had inside your home, nobody is talking about that. Nobody is talking. 
Who knows what kind of weapons were in your house. So what if he's a 
doctor? The soldiers knew exactly. They had weapons inside the home, you 
should be ashamed. I have three soldiers, why are they firing at them? 
All of you should be ashamed."

Afterwards, Abu al-Aish continued speaking about his daughters, 
according to Y-Net:

"They participated in peace camps everywhere. Were they armed when they 
were killed? They were not armed with weapons, but rather, with love, 
love for others. They planned to travel to Canada. I got a job in Canada 
and they wanted to come with me. Why did they ruin my hopes? My children.

"I turn to all of you, to the entire world, so you know that my children 
were the ultimate price, and I don't want anyone to taste what I 
suffered. I want them to be the ultimate price for a ceasefire, that's 
what I want. The Israeli government should tell the truth. I want my 
children to be the victims of peace…I am armed with love and peace. This 
is what I'm armed with. My children were armed with love and peace."

Abu al-Aish, 52, reportedly lost his wife to Leukemia four months earlier.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo



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