THE AGE OF INEVITABILITY

God bless you Stephanie Guttman for correctly predicting the emergence out of the woodwork of elements that would question the well meaning efforts of the IDF in Haiti.

It was inevitable that there would be the spiteful bastardry of out and out racists like Salim Nazzal who can lie through his teeth that Israel is starving Gaza when it is not or T. West who makes even more outrageously racist allegations as it was inevitable that there would be naysayers among the Israelis such as Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz and a factually confused Sever Plocker who asks What about Gaza? and suggests that Israel would be better engaged looking after the children of Gaza than establishing a field hospital in Haiti. Right, except Israel did establish a field hospital for Gazans after Cast Lead and Hamas warned the Gazans off patronising it so it was closed down. Plocker has a short memory and Haitians don't usually gratuitously shoot at Israelis or have a pathological obsession with killing Jews as does the current Hamas leadersdhip.

It was inevitable too that the Melbourne Age would downplay the Israeli response. This article appeared in its sister paper, the Sydney Morning Herald (After five days of despair, mother is reunited with baby son) but not at all in the Age. Consigned to the blank page (except for a fleeting incidental mention in the article discussed below). Shameful but not surprising.

And it was inevitable that the once prestigious British medical journal The Lancet which has become nothing less than a propaganda arm for Hamas since being infiltrated by Palestinists would weigh in on the issue of aid in Haiti. An article in today's Sunday Age Aid groups accused of putting publicity first tells of a report from The Lancet accusing aid bodies, governments and the UN of "failing Haiti by competing for publicity instead of getting on with the job of disaster relief."

The article does not mention whether The Lancet singled out Israel in that group but I think it might have a problem if it did because:-

(a) it would be too obvious and blatantly propaganda given The Lancet's already outrageous politicising of the Israel/Arab conflict in the past, and

(b) while many groups are bungling the job of providing relief to the disaster-hit Haitians, the Israelis are doing a sterling job and drawing praise from everywhere but the bitter contrarians who know nothing about the organisation of the relief effort but exist primarily to blacken Israel's name at every opportunity.

Still, this is a massive example of chutzpah from The Lancet because twelve months ago it bent over backwards to give space to the dubious work of publicity seeking medicos Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse who went to Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, parked themselves in front of as many cameras they could find and spewed out as much bile as they could accusing Israel of any number of alleged and unproven war crimes. In a number of instances they were interviewed inside Al Shifa Hospital, the basement of which served as their Hamas host's command centre. The Lancet had no hesitation in giving these publicity seekers The medical conditions in Gaza publicity for their cause.

Hypocrisy. Thy name is Lancet.