A Call for Human Dignity

September 14, 2006 - 8:10 PM by Allison

Yael shares the outrage of Israeli Arab protestors who lost friends and relatives in the Sinai last month.

Israeli-Arabs protested in front of the Egyptian embassy today, calling out for Egypt to “Learn from Israel what human dignity means. Human dignity is a primary value in Israel.”

They were protesting the bus accident in the Sinai that killed 12 Arab-Israeli tourists. Egypt refused to allow our (Israel’s) ambulances and medical personnel that were standing by just a few miles away to come to the scene to aid the victims and to evacuate them to Israeli hospitals despite the fact that they were not equipped to deal with the scope of the accident nor had a hospital in the vicinity to which critcally injured patients could be taken. At least one victim died simply because evacuating him from the scene to a place where he could receive medical care took them so long and the clinic injured patients were taken to did not have even the most basic equipment for emergency needs (e.g. blood supplies, operating room or equipment, beds –it was a walk-in clinic for everyday minor illnesses). Rather than in ambulances with medics, the victims were taken from the scene on the backs of vegetable trucks….

We had ambulances, hospitals and helicopters ready to spring into action. One of the things I didn’t post about because it became moot when Egypt wouldn’t allow us to get our injured citizens, is the blood drive that started immediately upon the news that the accident had happened. Israelis –Arabs, Jews, and Christians — flocked to donate blood that hospitals assumed would be needed for the victims. It of course went unused for them when we could not bring them home. Grrrrrrr.

To add insult to injury, the negligent bus driver whose reckless driving caused the accident has just been sentenced to a mere 12 months.

Arab-Israelis are mad and so are the rest of us Israelis!

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