Health Treatment

The Observer (sister paper to the Guardian) tells how evil Israel is for sometimes hampering the entrance of Palestinians from Gaza into Israel in order to be treated in Israeli hospitals.

There is an assumption in this article that Israel owes this to the Palestinians. I don't know where the assumption comes from, and I severely doubt the British health system would offer a similar service. Actually, I seem to recollect that the awful service and especially waiting lines over in the UK are a perennial subject for election-time bashing of the other party. I don't even want to think about the US, where tens of millions don't have access to full-fledged medicine even without belonging to a society that is proudly at war with the US.

The weirdest thing about the story, however, is that in most cases, Israel does give medical services to Palestinians (even according to this story). Unfortunately I have been spending quite a bit of time in hospitals recently, accompanying a family member, and there is never a case where fewer than a quarter of the patients are Palestinians; often the ratio is much higher.