Remember when the Dubai Ports deal was killed, and Bush was all concerned about the Arab reaction? He was worried that the 'Arab Street' would be furious at our insulting the Emir?
He does not seem so worried about their anger when handling Palestinian issues. Dubai, with it's 150,000 citizens, is not seen as quite so important as the 3.9 million citizens of the West Bank and Gaza to the vast majority of the Arab world. Yet Bush was far more upset about potentially snubbing the Emir than about depriving Palestinians of essential medical supplies.
Bush and his ally, the Israeli government, have reacted to the democratic election successfully held in those areas by depriving them of income. Israel collects taxes and duties on behalf of Gaza/West Bank, and is supposed to turn over this money (about $950 million per year) to their government. As punishment for electing Hamas, Israel is withholding the money. In support of Israel, the U.S. Treasury department issued a decree in mid April that "U.S. citizens and organizations must cease all transactions with the Palestinian government, its ministries and institutions under their control."
Some of those "institutions under their control" are hospitals. Some are health clinics. Most of the health care administered there is done so by the Palestinian government. Hospital workers have received no salary for close to three months. They have been going to work, but most of them will soon be out of money for transportation to even get there.
The main hospital in Gaza is the Shifa Hospital. It ran out of Erythromycin over a month ago. it has reduced dialysis treatments from three times a week to two. So far, four people have died as a result. Some cancer patients have had no chemo for over a month. Ramallah Hospital in the West Bank is having the same kinds of problems, and is almost out of sterile dressings.
A charitable organization in California sends equipment, medicine, and doctors who perform pediatric surgery there two or three times a year. This is a private children's charity group, getting no support from our government, but it "is forced to cancel [these] life-saving missions" by the Bush administration's edict.
Snubbing the Emir of Dubai would definitely inflame Arabs around the world; depriving Palestinian children of medical care won't upset anyone.
Conclusion? Elect terrorists to govern; pay a price.
Posted by: Rick | May 17, 2006 at 08:17 PM