As we have noted in a previous blog post, Israel's response to the earthquake in Haiti was very fast and efficient, moblizing a state-of-the-art field hospital that was – for over a week - the most sophisticated on the ground. The efforts of other Middle East countries have been notable mostly by their absence, as the following articles note:
Givers And Misers
Claudia Rosett, Forbes.com
01.22.10, 12:01 AM EST
The earthquake in Haiti has brought out the best and the worst of the so-called international community. It has especially highlighted the contrast between the generosity and capabilities of the free world and the miserly, self-serving ways of the oil-rich tyrannies of the Middle East.
In the race to rescue Haitians stricken by the Jan. 12 quake and its aftershocks, two countries immediately stood out. One was Israel. Thanks to a mix of democratic enterprise and decades of suffering terrorist attacks, the Israelis have become experts in swiftly responding to destruction. While most of the rest of the world struggled to get organized, the Israelis had landed a modern field hospital and staff in Haiti and were busy saving lives.
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Israel's Disproportionate Response
Peggy Shapiro, American Thinker
Jan. 18, 2010
In the midst of the tragedy and chaos in the Haitian capital, Israeli doctors, part of IsraAID -F.I.R.S.T. (the Israel Forum for International Aid), delivered a healthy baby boy in an IDF field hospital. When the baby's grateful mother, Gubilande Jean Michel saw her newborn son, alive and well, she named him Israel in gratitude to the people and nation who brought her this blessing.
Little Israel is one of the hundreds who have been saved by Israeli doctors or rescue teams. A search and rescue team from the ZAKA Israel's International Rescue Unit pulled eight Haitian college students from a collapsed eight-story university building. Despite its small size, Israel sent a large contingent of highly-trained aid workers to quake-stricken Haiti. Two jumbo jets carrying more than 220 doctors, nurses, civil engineers, and other Israeli army personnel, including a rescue team and field hospital, were among the first rescue teams to arrive in Haiti. In fact, they were the first foreign backup team to set up medical treatment at the partially collapsed main hospital in Port-au-Prince. Yigal Palmor, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "It's a large delegation and we're prepared to send more."
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