Where’s the Coverage? As It Goes With Israel, So Will It Go With All Of Us

When terrorists bomb a public place in Israel, injuring dozens and even killing children, or when an Israeli police officer is killed by terrorists, it is not all that jarring to most of the world. Though it should be.

Last week, radicalized Muslim terrorists reportedly bombed the Boston Marathon, injuring dozens and killing three civilians including an eight-year-old boy. Subsequently, they allegedly also murdered a young police officer.

In the wake of this tragedy, both victims and the admitted terrorist are being treated by doctors who were trained in Israel, and in the case of Professor Kevin (Ilan) Tabb, the director of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (the BI), an actual Israeli. Suspected terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being treated at the BI as are 24 people who were injured in the attack, among them 16 who are in serious condition.

According to an article in Ynet:

“Unfortunately, I have had a lot of experience with these types of injuries after years of treating people injured in terror attacks in Israel,” said the professor, who is a member of the board of Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, where he studied medicine and completed his residency. “We have a few Israeli doctors in the emergency room, and the director of the ER is also Israeli.”

[…]

“It was very similar to what I was used to in Israel in that we had to admit many injured people in a short period of time,” Professor Tabb said. “The fact that we are treating both the victims and the suspected terrorist also reminds me of similar situations in Israel. In Israel we had an injured soldier and a terrorist lying on adjacent beds. When an injured person is admitted to the ER, the doctor or nurse treats him without asking questions.”

These facts have not received much coverage, except in the Israeli and Jewish press. No surprise there. Even more important, however, is their broader implication. Israel is not just a great friend and ally to the United States. Israel is on the front line of our own battle.

The tragic events in Boston call to mind an article published in The Los Angeles Times on May 26, 1968, after Israel’s surprising triumph in the defensive war of 1967, known as The Six Day War. A career manual laborer and brilliant thinker named Eric Hoffer, frequently called the Longshoreman Philosopher, wrote a piece entitled, “Israel’s Peculiar Position” that read in part:

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

[…]

Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.

[…]

Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.

And this is a fact that is ignored by the media, academia, political and thought leaders alike. Israel is more than a friend and benefit to America and the West. Israel is the canary in the coal mine. And yet… Where’s the Coverage?

To read Hoffer’s brilliant and prescient piece in its entirety, please click here.