JERUSALEM DIARIES-read

From Barry Shaw: e-mail:netre@matav.net.il

It’s never a pleasant experience to go into hospital. It’s one of my
least favourite things to do.

But, when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

And so, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to Ichilov Hospital in
Tel Aviv for an operation I had tried to put off for too long.

The operation wasn’t too bad. The Israeli medical service is excellent
and the care is wonderful.

As I was wheeled from the recovery room to my ward I was still in that
euphoric state that only a trained anesthetist can induce.

The Trauma Ward on the fifth floor of Ichilov Hospital is a spacious
and modern complex. I was wheeled into a room where I was to be parked
until my release the following day.

In the next bed to me was an Arab boy, attended to by his mother
dressed in traditional Arab dress of what could be described as
moderate Muslim attire.

We were gracious and pleasant with each other, and they offered me
orange juice, figs, and nuts.

When I was sufficiently out of la-la land and back into the land of
the living I began to hear their story.

Sarim Shahub is twenty one years old, and from Gaza. In May, he was
shot in the face and arm and had been in intensive care at Ichilov
Hospital. He was now sufficiently well to move around in the Trauma
Ward while receiving treatment for his face wound.

One bullet had entered through his left cheek and exited through the
side of his mouth. The Israeli surgeons had put a breathing tube in
his throat, and he was temporarily unable to speak.

His mother told me that he had been caught up in the fighting between
Hamas and Fatah. This may be true. It could also be true that he had
been fighting for one of the factions.

The following day, when I felt strong enough to crawl around the ward,
I noticed that other rooms were taken up by Palestinians. I was told
that all had gunshot or shrapnel wounds inflicted in the Palestinian
in-fighting in Gaza. One room was out of bounds. Either the patients
were in intensive care, or they were people of significance, and
therefore kept isolated.

As I lay in bed next to Sarim I read an article about the intended
British boycott of Israeli academic institutions. I looked across at
Sarim as he lay in his hi-tech Evolution hospital bed.

Here was a Palestinian from Gaza receiving the finest medical care and
attention from Israeli doctors and nurses, all trained in Israeli
academic institutions. These are the very institutions that British
academics wish to boycott.

His treatment will consider for some time until he is healthy enough
to return home to Gaza.

I do not know what his fate will be. I only know that his immediate
past was damaged by corrupt and violent Palestinian leadership who
continue to reject creating a state of their own alongside the Jewish
state of Israel, and by the lawlessness and violence that is today’s
Palestinian society.

I do know that Sarim has been given another chance of life by the
dedication and professionalism of the Israeli medical profession.

Will somebody please tell me how a British boycott of Israeli
academics and learning institutions will have helped Sarim, and others
like him, in his moment of crisis?

From Barry Shaw: e-mail:netre@matav.net.il