Where’s the Coverage? Israel Sent More Manpower Nepal than Nearly Any Other Country

Israel frequently sends aid teams to countries hit by natural disasters such as post-earthquake Haiti and tsunami-stricken Japan. Nepal is no different. The Times of Israel reports:

Israel’s aid team to the earthquake-battered Himalayan nation of Nepal is one of the largest in manpower of any international aid mission.

Over 250 doctors and rescue personnel were part of an IDF delegation that landed Tuesday in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, in the wake of Saturday’s magnitude-7.8 earthquake that devastated large swaths of the mountainous country, killing at least 5,000 and leaving some 8,000 wounded and tens of thousands seeking shelter and food.

The Israeli group set up a field hospital with 60 beds that began operations on Wednesday in coordination with the local army hospital.

By comparison, according to the BBC, the United Kingdom has sent “a team of more than 60 search and rescue responders and medical experts” and Time magazine reports that the United States is sending “about 70 American personnel”. Remember, Israel has a population of approximately 8 million. The United States is a nation of roughly 350 million. In that context, the magnitude of Israel’s efforts is even more staggering.

But instead of lauding Israel’s extraordinary response to Nepal’s distress, the mainstream media seeks to cast Israel in a bad light, highlighting of all things the fact that a number of Israeli couples employ Nepalese women as surrogate mothers to carry their children. A Time magazine headline states that “Israel Evacuates Surrogate Babies From Nepal but Leaves the Mothers Behind” although, if a reader managed to make it to the sixth paragraph of the article, he would read that, of the women in Nepal still carrying Israeli babies:

The Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said he would allow the most heavily pregnant to be flown to Israel to give birth and outgoing Interior Minister Gilad Erdan promised to remove immigration hurdles for the rest.

Newsweek also chose to highlight the surrogacy issue with its article, “Israel Evacuating Babies Born to Surrogate Mothers in Nepal” as did UPI with “Israel evacuates surrogate babies and their Israeli parents but left behind expectant mothers”.

Worse still, instead of clebrating Israel’s herculean humanitarian efforts in a country half way around the world, as someone who cares about those in need would be expected to do, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, actually tweeted, “Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade!”

And here’s something else interesting that the media chooses to completely ignore: the commander of Israel’s field hospital in Nepal is a Druze, IDF Colonel Dr. Tarif Bader.

To keep abreast of Israel’s aid efforts in Nepal, follow Libby Weiss, the Head of the IDF Spokesperson’s North American Media Desk, on Twitter. You certainly won’t hear about it from the popular press because… Where’s the coverage?

May 4 Correction:Based on erroneous information provided by Times of Israel, and incomplete information provided by CNN, this post had originally reported incorrectly that Israel provided the most manpower out of any country for the aid operation in Nepal. In fact, India provided more manpower than Israel. We regret the error.