A good article which shows how an Arab views Israel as his enemy, but then changes his mind.
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Jewish and Arab Israelis are working together to aid Syria’s refugees. Does it matter?
By Amir Tibon
March 2, 2016 • 10:00 PM
This is the second of two articles by Amir Tibon about Syrian refugees. Read the first here.
The patient sat on a gray plastic chair and tried to warm himself by placing a heating bag on his stomach. He said he is 66 years old and that he comes from a ruined neighborhood of Damascus, the capital of Syria. His street was leveled by the Air Force of his own country. The bombs that fell on people’s houses, he said, were paid for with their tax money. “All these years we gave them our money, and we complained that no one knows what the government was doing with it. Now we finally found out,” he said with a wide grin. Hearing it the way he told it, I had no choice but to laugh.
The conversation took place at a small clinic—basically, a caravan 16 square meters large—in a transit camp for Syrian refugees escaping to Europe. The camp is located on the border between Serbia and Macedonia and is one of many stops on the refugees’ long journey to Western Europe. Two weeks ago, I published here at Tablet an article based on conversations with dozens of Syrian refugees I met at this camp, who described the horrors currently taking place in Syria. But the refugees weren’t the only people I met during my five-day visit to the place. I also got to spend time with the people who I’ve come to call “the painkillers”—doctors, nurses, social workers, aid workers, and others who come to places like this transit camp in order to offer help to those who’ve been betrayed by the entire world.
What they can offer doesn’t seem like much. As one aid worker told me, “What we’re doing is like giving Advil to a person with cancer.” In fact, some of the “painkillers” I met have come to the sad conclusion that what they’re doing is, at the end of the day, adding to the hideous total of suffering in Syria: Western governments are providing political and diplomatic cover to the Syrian regime and its allies, while at the same time they piously offer aspirin and tents to the refugees fleeing the carnage that they are sponsoring. It’s a cruel business, but when a nurse in the transit camp is standing in front of a mother who is asking for help because her baby is sick, the debate over “what are we really doing here?” seems secondary.
The man with the dark sense of humor, who laughed about his taxes, came to the clinic complaining about strong headaches, a bad cough, and outbursts of dizziness. The doctor who examined him said he had a fever and that the best thing for him would be to lie down for two days and get some rest. The transit camp includes a number of large, heated tents where refugees can stay for a night or two, but very few of them choose to do so: They want to keep going, toward Germany, always afraid that the borders will shut down because of political pressures. This is also what this man’s family wanted to do. The doctor, realizing there was no way to change his mind, said he would give him some pills for pain relief, and something for his cough.
Continue reading at:
Like Advil for Cancer: Jewish and Arab Israelis Are Working Together To Aid Syria’s Refugees. Does It Matter?
LIKE ADVIL FOR CANCER
Jewish and Arab Israelis are working together to aid Syria’s refugees. Does it matter?
By Amir Tibon
March 2, 2016 • 10:00 PM
This is the second of two articles by Amir Tibon about Syrian refugees. Read the first here.
The patient sat on a gray plastic chair and tried to warm himself by placing a heating bag on his stomach. He said he is 66 years old and that he comes from a ruined neighborhood of Damascus, the capital of Syria. His street was leveled by the Air Force of his own country. The bombs that fell on people’s houses, he said, were paid for with their tax money. “All these years we gave them our money, and we complained that no one knows what the government was doing with it. Now we finally found out,” he said with a wide grin. Hearing it the way he told it, I had no choice but to laugh.
The conversation took place at a small clinic—basically, a caravan 16 square meters large—in a transit camp for Syrian refugees escaping to Europe. The camp is located on the border between Serbia and Macedonia and is one of many stops on the refugees’ long journey to Western Europe. Two weeks ago, I published here at Tablet an article based on conversations with dozens of Syrian refugees I met at this camp, who described the horrors currently taking place in Syria. But the refugees weren’t the only people I met during my five-day visit to the place. I also got to spend time with the people who I’ve come to call “the painkillers”—doctors, nurses, social workers, aid workers, and others who come to places like this transit camp in order to offer help to those who’ve been betrayed by the entire world.
What they can offer doesn’t seem like much. As one aid worker told me, “What we’re doing is like giving Advil to a person with cancer.” In fact, some of the “painkillers” I met have come to the sad conclusion that what they’re doing is, at the end of the day, adding to the hideous total of suffering in Syria: Western governments are providing political and diplomatic cover to the Syrian regime and its allies, while at the same time they piously offer aspirin and tents to the refugees fleeing the carnage that they are sponsoring. It’s a cruel business, but when a nurse in the transit camp is standing in front of a mother who is asking for help because her baby is sick, the debate over “what are we really doing here?” seems secondary.
The man with the dark sense of humor, who laughed about his taxes, came to the clinic complaining about strong headaches, a bad cough, and outbursts of dizziness. The doctor who examined him said he had a fever and that the best thing for him would be to lie down for two days and get some rest. The transit camp includes a number of large, heated tents where refugees can stay for a night or two, but very few of them choose to do so: They want to keep going, toward Germany, always afraid that the borders will shut down because of political pressures. This is also what this man’s family wanted to do. The doctor, realizing there was no way to change his mind, said he would give him some pills for pain relief, and something for his cough.
Continue reading at:
Like Advil for Cancer: Jewish and Arab Israelis Are Working Together To Aid Syria’s Refugees. Does It Matter?
