Comments on: Bill and Ben

By: Israelinurse

Israelinurse — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:00:13 +0000

Me -I can’t think of any off hand. I may be wrong, but then I’m a Clalit girl! Of course running a hospital is terribly expensive -much cheaper to buy services for your members than grapple with the overheads.

Lbnaz -aha! So even Carter can’t deny that Gush Etzion was bought with Jewish money!

By: Lbnaz

Lbnaz — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:55:39 +0000

OT Sorry but this is too priceless to let pass by. Jimmy "Peace Not Apartheid" Carter supports Israel retaining sovereignty over a Jewish settlement in the West Bank:

Former US President Jimmy Carter, generally known for being sympathetic to Israel's rivals, made some surprising statements to settlers on Sunday, during a visit to Gush Etzion. "I never imagined that Gush Etzion would be transferred to Palestinian hands," Carter said following a meeting with local council leader Shaul Goldstein. He explained that the area is very close to the 1967 armistice line and will likely stay part of Israel forever.

By: Me

Me — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:30:32 +0000

Israelinurse- one small point. It’s not only Clalit, is it? Don’t Maccabi & Meuchedet have hospitals?

By: Israelinurse

Israelinurse — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:57:14 +0000

Isy -one more point, and with this hopefully I will return to the theme of the original post (sincere apologies, Seismic).
Your comment regarding Mea Shearim captures what I find so problematic about the Left today.
If I had to distil the concept of Socialism into one word it would be ‘empathy’.
A socialist can empathise with others not belonging to his own political/social/ethnic/economic/gender/sexual orientation group and work to better their lot in life.
Empathy, however, is not conditional -otherwise it becomes sympathy -reminiscent of charitable Victorian notions along the lines of the ‘deserving poor’, but divorced from socialism.
In Israel and elsewhere we see that the Left has become sympathetic instead of empathic. Here in Britain the Left will demonstrate and fund raise for Palestinian causes, but not for the underclasses trapped in a cycle of poverty on its own council estates.
In Tel Aviv the left will happily demonstrate against the security fence, but cannot find a gram of empathy in its heart for the residents of Mea Shearim or the settlements of the West Bank- they have become ‘parasites’ or ‘barriers to peace’.

In my view this sympathetic Left is no more Socialist than the Right it so loudly criticises.

By: Israelinurse

Israelinurse — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:33:40 +0000

Me -I’m glad to hear it -mine has been awful! But I’m not basing my statement on personal experience -rather on measurable rates of things like cancer survival rates, hospital infections, teenage pregnancies, rates of sexually transmitted diseases, waiting times for tests and surgery and so forth.
Isy -you pay your health insurance to the company of your choice through your pay slip. For every shekel you pay the government also matches a certain amount. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Jew, an Arab, green or purple!
To be honest I know less about the standard education system because all my children were educated mostly in Kibbutz schools, but I can tell you that one of the reasons they got a decent education was because we always paid extra fees to suppliment the state funding. We didn’t have to -it was a lifestyle choice -and it came at the expense of other things.
Did you know that until very recently kibbutzniks were not entitled to unemployment benefits, despite paying National Insurance? Did you know that a kibbutznik cannot sue his own kibbutz as his employer in a work tribunal? Sure there are instances of discrimination and areas in which legislation must be improved, but on the whole I think we’re not doing too badly.
As for the residents of Mea Shearim; yes many do seem to live in a world of their own and they are sometimes hostile to the state, but they are still Israelis and whilst I may disagree with their views vehemently, it is still my right and my duty to defend them, take care of them, educate them, tend their sick etc. They are still my brothers, just like any other Israeli -Jew, Arab, Christian, Druze or Bedouin and I am still their keeper.

By: Me

Me — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:50:15 +0000

Isy-
the statement “I ain’t antisemitic, I’m Jewish” is nonsense. Fine, you are not antisemitic. But there are plenty of antisemitic Jews. Ever heard of Atzmon? There are many more I can think of.

Seismic-
I tried to post a statement on Ben’s blog disagreeing with his moonbat theories. My post appeared, and was then removed within 90 seconds.

Israelinurse-
The Israeli healthcare system is good, but I have to say that my experience of the NHS has been also excellent over a number of years.

By: Isy

Isy — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:50:06 +0000

Dose allocate money equally to the healthcare companies without regard to nationality? (I’ve got to tell you, it isn’t like that in education – a school will get less money for each Arab student than for Jewish students). I think though there is huge discrimination against Etheopian Jews. I remeber reading in the newspaper once of a school in Petach-Tikva where the principle didn’t allow the Etheopian students to enter the school (he said it was because they bring down the school standard). And (oy vey I started a sentence with “And” ;D ) there’s also the religious Jews (like in Mea Shearim) who practicaly live in their own planet, where there is bigotry of other sects of JEwdaism on top of exteemisms.

By: Israelinurse

Israelinurse — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:36:04 +0000

Isy -I obviously didn’t explain my point clearly enough. The point about the healthcare system is not that the government is powerless, but that the public healthcare system is not run by the government. Yes, there are a number of hospitals run by the ministry of health (as opposed to others either private or run by the Clalit) but I honestly can’t think why anyone could suggest that there is any sort of discrimination in those institutions.
The government allocates money to the various private healthcare companies (Kupot Holim) on the basis of the number of members holding insurance in that company -not on any ethnic basis. The government stipulates the ‘Basket of Services’ (sal sherutim) which the healthcare companies must provide for all their members, regardless of ethnicity.
Compared to the NHS here in the UK, the Israeli system is far superior, both in terms of actual medical care and accessibility.
I too care deeply about Israel, but whilst it is obviously important to try to constantly improve things, we must also not loose sight of all the many wonderful things we have acheived in only 61 years.

By: Alec

Alec — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:18:34 +0000

Wait a minute, is Bill really a gay Catholic from Canada?

By: Lbnaz

Lbnaz — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:16:44 +0000

Isy, FN is an abbreviation for for First Nations, which, along with Natives, is one of the ways in which Aboriginals as a collective are respectfully referred to in Canada. In the Province of British Columbia, First Nation Bands are legally entitled by the Supreme Court of Canada to claim and demonstrate what is called ‘Aboriginal Title’ which basically means full ownership of land and its resources.

Moreover, many First Nations are seeking to exercise powers of self-government on their land and title that Provincial and Federal governments are reluctant to accommodate. To date, since its joining into confederation with the Government of Canada in the 1870’s, the Government of BC can only count one fully ratified treaty and land claim settlement with a single First Nation out of about 120 or so First Nations in the province.

In the meantime, while Aboriginal bands go further and further into debt in the courts and in treaty negotiation meetings trying to establish and realize their claims to land and self-governance vis a vis Government prosecutors and negotiators who follow the instructions of their political masters, corporations are given a green light to extract and transport resources from land whose title and ownership are uncertain in the courts.

I was asking you whether to your mind this situation is more, or less discriminatory than the way Israel treats minority populations.

It’s a wonder why the International Left doesn’t hold Canada, as a Western state and more specifically and accurately, the Province of British Columbia, up to any level of vitriolic scrutiny whatsoever over this. All scrutiny of Western states is apparently reserved exclusively for the US, Israel and to a lesser extent the UK.

So the Government of British Columbia, despite of its continued deployment of facts on the ground like mining, fishing, salmon farming, lumber, gas, oil and hydroelectricity corporations to extract whatever non-renewable resource wealth they can from land and waters over which First Nations eventually may very well be legally able to assert exclusive title and with which they will have to generate most of their wealth for their communities’ well being get a pass.

Maybe, First Nations in Canada aren’t willing enough to pursue relentless violence against Canadians to attract attention from much, if not all of the International Left. Maybe far too many left wing British Columbians who live on land claimed by First Nations don’t savour the idea of a Palestinian Solidarity Campaign type of response to the situation.