After the horror of the tsunami, Israel immediately leapt into rescue mode. While most nations were dithering and making promises, or making promises to make promises, Israel sent medical and humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka, a planeload of blood products, as well as tons of supplies from private donors. On December 27, a medical team specializing in rescue work, trauma and pediatrics was dispatched carrying medicine and baby food. A ZAKA rescue-and-recovery team with specialized equipment for identifying bodies was sent and a Health Ministry group of doctors, nurses and members of IDF arrived in Thailand. Unfortunately, the American media, which the Arabs say is controlled by Jews, reported little of these extraordinary undertakings.
In addition to the help it had already sent, Israel offered to send 150 experienced military medics and support personnel to set up field hospitals. It was then that a light went off in the heads of at least three of the recipient nations – Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.
The leaders of these countries with substantial Muslim populations apparently realized that in their condition they best not bite the hand that fed them, and therefore either turned down or did not respond to offers of Israeli aid. They much preferred to have Uncle Sugar pay the bills.
And believe it or nor, when President Bush suggested an amount they did not feel to be sufficient, they had their public relations machines – the same outlets whose usual bill of fare is a panoply of propaganda condemning the United States, its foreign policy and anything remotely connected with Israel – complain that Bush was a cheapskate and that we should throw more money at them.
It should not pass without notice that the contributions to tsunami relief of fellow Muslim nations, particularly the oil-rich Arab states, were amongst the lowest.
Shouldn’t here should be a precondition that before these nations receive any aid, they must clearly denounce terrorism and, at the very least, discontinue the state-sponsored anti-American drivel heard throughout that part of the world?
An uncharitable question crosses our minds: If the reverse were true, i.e., had Israel suffered a catastrophe, would these nations have come to its aid? No one this side of a lunatic asylum could honestly answer in the affirmative.
We believe that as a nation, we should not, as a matter of national policy – at least until the private sector proves inadequate – fund these relief efforts. Does this sound harsh? Let us point out that the American private sector voluntarily coughs up 34 billion dollars a year in charitable aid that goes to foreign countries. This is more than virtually any other government spends for this purpose.
To use American taxpayer money means that the dollars of Jewish Americans, and of the parents of the very U.S. troops who are regularly reviled in the Muslim media as murderers, would be spent on nations and regimes they believe are antagonistic – to put it mildly – to that which they hold dear.
Proponents of foreign aid like to point out that the U.S. government spent over a billion dollars to assist Florida after the multiple hurricanes that struck the state. This reasoning, of course, nicely misses the point that these were American citizens helping other American citizens.