Two States, Yair?

This week at the UN, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid reiterated his support for a two-state solution and, like any good political propagandist, claimed most Israelis agree.

I doubt it after 30 years of murder and mayhem coming from the Palestinians.

Even I get tired of pointing out the duplicity of the PA/PLO, and the Western diplomats that aid them in their quest to wipe Israel off the map. It is mind-boggling that leftists have gotten away with the “land for peace” hoax for three decades. A lot of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of Bill Clinton. In his two terms, if he’d had the moral fiber to say a clear No to the Palestinian leadership, I think the two-state solution con would have died 25 years ago. Instead, he enabled it.

This is a multi-layered problem. On the one hand, we have the international community exerting tremendous pressure on Israel to comply and slice-up the sliver of land they have had since 1948. On the other hand, you have the terrorists on the ground within Israel, including Judea and Samaria. Their constant (and I do mean constant) lethal activities have also put enormous pressure on the Jews. So much so that Israel has to spend a tremendous amount of time developing new and better ways to combat terrorism.

In the last week, Palestinian terrorists carried out five shooting attacks in Judea and Samaria. In one, an Israeli officer was killed.

At three of these locations, IDF military installations were targeted. Terror commanders in Hebron and Nablus were detained; they were planning mass-casualty attacks. It is the smuggling of weapons that is a major part of the problem.

Now, there is something of a rivalry between the Palestinian Authority and the more militant group, Hamas. The latter has been in control of the Gaza Strip since the Israeli pullout in 2005, and the PA hasn’t had an election since the following year (after the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, Mahmoud Abbas has been “president” of the PA).

So it was this week that PA security forces captured a Hamas commander in Nablus. His capture prompted riots.

This proves what I have thought for a long time: while there are decent Palestinians in the Middle East, the vast majority of them have been radicalized, and not just for 30 years. The Arabs living there (I want to make this distinction, since the “Palestinians” were a political invention largely after the Six Day War) have been duped by their leadership for the last 100 years. At least.

What is most interesting about this latest round of violence is that it comes amid an effort to unify various factions. A Hamas delegation headed by Isma’il Haniyeh just got back from Russia. Another, led by Khalil al-Haya journeyed to Algeria for the same goal. Finally, Hamas announced a resumption of ties with Syria, after years of acrimony over the Syrian Civil War.

I doubt any lasting positive nature will come of this—the Arabs are good at maintaining their internal strife—but it does show a disturbing trend toward uniting against the Israelis.

Abbas spoke at the UN; he had promised an “extraordinary” speech, but it was anything but that. Just more bashing of Israel. But one more component of the Palestinians’ multi-pronged attack was their efforts in New York to get the international community to support their efforts to use only Arab curriculum in their schools (this curriculum has incited violence against Jews for generations).

With so many different kinds of attacks against Israel, it’s still difficult to understand why certain Israeli leaders insist on supporting two states.

It is a recipe for catastrophe.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Extraordinary Minds

Five years ago, I toured Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. I was stunned by the scope of the work there, and by the absolute commitment of all staff. The multi-acre campus is home to an eclectic blend of culture, medicine, innovation, and even history. We drove past a series of old barracks from early in Israel’s modern history, and then lo and behold we pulled up in front of a building housing research that is so cutting-edge, I wonder if we are still only in the 21^st century.

I also witnessed two wholly different realities that illustrate how complex Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians really is.

In one section of Sheba Medical Center, I saw small Palestinian children being given life-saving treatment by Israeli doctors. Precious children fighting for a chance at life. In their rooms with them were burka-clad mothers and grandmothers.

A few minutes later, I was on another floor, just down the hall from a very special patient. During one of the actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, an IDF soldier was running into a building when a shell exploded in a courtyard just behind him. A piece of shrapnel hit him in the head and left him between life and death, and, in a sense, he is still in that frozen moment in time.

The soldier’s brain injuries were so severe that they wouldn’t let me see him. In fact, I don’t know a lot of detail of his present condition, but I know they are learning how to help him and future patients. His mother did come out to speak with me; she is there with him every day, and will be for the rest of her life. Her advocacy for him, I was told by a doctor, has inspired all of them to push their own limits in order to give him some quality of life.

In the past five years, I’ve remembered him and his mother. Here they are, in the same facility as children of Palestinians that live in Gaza. Their political and religious and cultural differences melt away in some sense, as the goal among Sheba’s staff is to save and improve quality of life.

There is also a section of the hospital complex dedicated to Ariel Sharon and his beloved wife, Lily, who were supporters of the hospital.

I tell you these stories because I read this week in the Jerusalem Post that Newsweek has named Sheba Medical Center the 13^th best “smart” hospital. I’m not surprised.

“’We are committed to continuing to lead in the development and implementation of medical innovation, in clinical research and in treatment to meet the medical challenges of the coming decade,’ said Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, Director General of Sheba Medical Center. ‘This is how we can provide each and every patient with the most advanced, personal and best treatment.’”

The research even includes AI research!

“Prof. Eyal Zimlichman, Deputy Director General of Medicine and Innovation at Sheba, added: ‘We are proud at Sheba to receive the international recognition that all our employees deserve. Their hard work and dedication make the innovation and high quality of care at Sheba possible. The digital transformation process which started at Sheba a few years ago, and includes the implementation of Artificial Intelligence, telemedicine, robotics and digital tools for the patient, helps us achieve our goals of high quality, effective and efficient care.’”

Get this: Sheba sees one million patients per year! One million. The staff includes over 1,200 doctors and 2,300 nurses.

I applaud Sheba Medical Center for the recognition it receives, but more for the selfless and total dedication its staff gives to patients from a wide variety of backgrounds.

It is a leading light not only in Israel and the Middle East, but in the world.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com