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Editor's Letter
Air EktrItordi
Family Event
Help Chikhe
with Disabit
and Their Faun'
Bill Davidson's Impetus
A
rab kids within the Gaza Strip and West Bank
are taught that it is noble to strap on a bomb and
explode for Allah as long as Jews also die in the
gallant" cause of striving to claim Israel as part of a new
Palestinian homeland. Israeli kids learn the value and moral-
ity of extending succor and refuge to everyone in the region:
Israeli, Arab, Druze, Bedouin.
Therein lies a crucial difference
between the Palestinian and Israeli
cultures. I want peace in the belea-
guered Middle East as much as any-
one, but I don't hold out that it will
come anytime soon given the storm
clouds that Israelis live under.
This came to mind as philanthropic
superstar Bill Davidson of the Detroit
Jewish community delineated why
he gave $75 million to Hadassah,
the Women's Zionist Organization
of America, to support the new 14-story, in-patient tower
at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. He and his wife,
Karen, gave the gift on behalf of Guardian Industries, his
Auburn Hills-based maker of float glass and fabricated glass
products for the architectural and automotive industries.
Davidson, 84, talked proudly of having the new $210-mil-
lion, 500-bed facility named the Sarah
Wetsman Davidson Tower to preserve
the memory of his mother, a founder of
Hadassah's Metro Detroit chapter. His
grandparents started the family tradi-
tion of standing with Hadassah, which
goes back to 1912 and sent its first two
nurses to pre-state Israel a year later.
But in talking about improving the .
infrastructure of the Hadassah Medical
Center at Ein Kerem, Davidson cited the quality of care
administered by the umbrella Hadassah Medical Organization
to all patients — Jewish, Christian or Muslim.
While Jews would have every right to fear for their lives in
a Palestinian hospital, Palestinians can expect the same level
of service as Jews in an Israeli hospital. And it's not unusual
to find Arab doctors in Israel. Religion is irrelevant when it
comes to Israeli health care — stunning in the wake of anti-
Jewish fervor sweeping the Palestinian Authority and border-
ing states like Syria, Iran and Lebanon.
In the case of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat's
sorry legacy, it sees its booming population as a means to
sacrificing more young lives in hopes of destroying the Jewish
state and resurrecting Palestine, this time no longer a biblical
expanse but a sovereign state for all "displaced" Palestinian
refugees. That Jordan was designated the Palestinian ancestral
homeland in the shadows of Israel's statehood in 1948 seems
a distant memory.
((
Today, Gabriel promotes Israeli values against the currents
of terror-riddled Islam. After moving to Jerusalem in 1984 to
anchor the Arabic evening news on Middle East television,
she discovered the clash between the radical world and Israel
— barbaric vs. civilized, theocracy vs. democracy, evilness vs.
goodness. Gabriel soon realized that Muslim-inspired terror
in the Middle East had spread worldwide.
Radical Muslims had infiltrated Lebanese military bases by
1975, when Gabriel was 10. Her family ended up in a bomb
shelter for 10 years to escape the wrath of their homeland's
new ruling regime. Robbed of her youth, Gabriel learned by
example that Lebanese Christians weren't going to be killed
by Israelis, who provided weapons, support and later security,
but by jihad-driven Muslims bent on slaughtering Christians
and ultimately Israelis.
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Abrupt Awakening
Gabriel experienced an epiphany in 1982 after her mother
was wounded in front of their bomb shelter. "Israel was our
only lifeline:' Gabriel told 300 of us in the audience at her
Dec. 5 talk in Farmington Hills. "That is where anybody who
needed medical treatment went free of charge"
Gabriel was surprised by the congeniality of the Israeli
ambulance driver who drove her and her mother from the
border to a hospital in Haifa. At the hospital, she saw Jewish
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in the invitation.
Compassion, good will, honor and a sense of
universality continue to propel the Jewish spirit.
This undeterred spirit is what Bill Davidson
admires and embraces so fiercely.
Gabriel's Warning
In December, Brigitte Gabriel, TV producer, Zionist and
author of Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic
Terror Warns America, visited southeast Michigan to tell
her story of growing up the only child of Lebanese Christian
parents in south Lebanon. She witnessed the gradual trans-
formation of Lebanon from an open-minded Christian nation
to a Muslim state that branded non-Muslims the "infidels."
Questions?
Contact Eric Adelman
248.538.6610 x343
ericadelman @jarc. org
doctors and nurses treat Christians, Muslims and Jews with
equal aplomb. The Israeli humanity, after years of being told
that Jews were pigs and monkeys condemned by Allah, over-
whelmed her.
Gabriel recounted: "I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought
to myself, `I can understand why they are helping me — a
Christian, their ally. But why the heck are the Israelis helping
the Palestinians and other Muslims?' I knew little about the
character of Israelis. The doctors treated everyone according
to their injury. They did not see religion, political affiliation
or nationality. They only saw people in need and they helped.
The doctor who treated my mother did so before treating the
Israeli soldier lying next to her!"
Compassion, good will, honor and a sense of universality
continue to propel the Jewish spirit. This unbridled spirit
is what Bill Davidson admires and embraces so fiercely.
Sadly, it is antithetical to Palestinians, whose "democratic"
government is a thinly veiled theocracy run by terrorists.
Palestinians, just like Israelis, who favor real peace are in for a
long and grinding wait.
c e
Do Arab leaders care that Israelis
medically treat Palestinians?
5 0
What will it take to span the
Israeli-Palestinian cultural divide?
0
V1
I— Ca
Z Z
a. a-
SUNDAY
APRIL 29 •
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to children with any
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families, including in-
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1200430
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March 15
Q
2007
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