Tsunami Aid Packages Grow into Billions: Sri Lanka Refuses Most Israeli Help
by: Steve Yuhas
As of this writing 155,000 people are presumed dead in the tsunami that struck Indian Ocean coastlines the day after Christmas and aid packages for the area have grown into the billions of dollars. As nations race to be the highest on the list with respect to the amount of money they plan to send to the disaster zone, one nation that offered significant help was told not to bother. It seems that Muslim ministers in Sri Lanka would rather have watched her people perish than accept aid from Israel (with a few exceptions).
One day after the massive wave hit the coastline of Sri Lanka and while nations around the world were busy pointing fingers at one another to decide who would take the lead in the humanitarian disaster of Biblical proportion, Israel offered to send help. A 150 member team that consisted of search and rescue professionals, doctors who specialize in trauma, recovery and pediatrics along with medical and survival supplies was ready to leave Israel the day after the wave struck.
While tourists, children and Sri Lankan people were still clinging to palm trees and politicians and UN spokesmen were busy chastising America; Israel stepped up to the plate and offered the first plane load of aid that could reach the region in mere hours. It did not matter to Israel that she and Sri Lanka do not have diplomatic relations with one another – Israel was offering help because Israel is a kind nation that places human life above politics.
The day the plane was ready to depart with the team, Sri Lanka reversed permission for the team to land and President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s military secretary informed Israel, "We are not opposed to a plane loaded with medical supplies, food and blankets that will be accompanied by a medical team comprised of 50 IDF people.”
But, Israel could not send the original team of 150 to help rescue and identify people affected by the disaster primarily because a minority of Muslim politicians put pressure on the government to deny Israel permission to land a military plane in the country.
President Kumaratunga indicated on January 2nd that the death toll in Sri Lanka would rise to at least 42,000 people and hundreds of thousands of people in the country are at risk of contracting disease, starvation and death. He was still calling for more aid for the nation, but so far Israel was only allowed to send one plane of aid and an El Al jetliner to pick up survivors and the Israeli dead.
Sri Lankan Ambassador Tissa Wijeratne told journalists that Israel’s request was denied not because it was from Israel, rather because, "All our missions have been instructed to accept only supplies as we have been swamped with rescue teams from all over the world". Unfortunately, that was not the case the day after the disaster or the day the plane from Tel Aviv was scheduled to arrive.
On that day no planes had landed with aid from foreign nations and the plane from Israel would have landed within hours of the airport in Colombo re-opening. It may be true that Sri Lanka was bombarded with rescue offers from all over the world, but the day Israel was told not to bring her team of experienced search and rescue officials from the Israeli Defense Forces along with a plane full of medical aid, nobody was yet in the region performing the role of rescuer.
European nations were arguing amongst themselves and with the United States about who should take the lead in the operation and the United Nations was spending time insulting nations for not putting in enough money.
The first nation to step up to the plate for Sri Lanka was Israel and the first people Sri Lanka turned away were Israelis. It takes some history to understand why, but one cannot simply accept the ambassador’s remarks as true when the facts don’t support them. In the early 1970s diplomatic relations were severed when the issue of “occupation” came to the forefront in world politics. Since 1995 Sri Lanka has been blocked from resuming diplomatic ties to Israel because of Muslim ministers in the government.
One fact is incontrovertible: Israel was the first nation ready to help a nation in need and it was because of a vocal minority of Muslims in this 70% Buddhist nation that Sri Lanka revoked permission for Israel to send the team it wanted to send to rescue her citizens, provide aid for the Sri Lankan people and to bring home Israelis (dead or alive) affected by the wave.
Despite all of this Israel sent exactly what Sri Lanka allowed and a plane full of medical aid, blankets and doctors landed in the ravaged nation – with more material aid still to come.
The debate over who is not doing enough seems trivial when it comes to the fact that Sri Lanka refused to allow the first people willing to come in when people could still be found alive to help search and rescue them. When the time for finding survivors ran out (some days ago) other international teams began to arrive – this time, however, their mission was simply to collect bodies and to make sure no more people died from disease.
The sad thing is that when Israel offered help to find people who could have survived the initial destruction – Sri Lanka declined because 7% of the population doesn’t believe that the “Zionist Entity” has a right to exist. Apparently the same thing went for the people that that same entity could have saved, but Israel would not have made the distinction between saving a Buddhist, Christian or Muslim; they were ready and willing to save anyone they could.
Unfortunately being Israeli and Jewish was tougher to stomach for the Sri Lankan government’s Muslims than helping to rescue tens of thousands of Sri Lankan citizens who might have survived.
What a waste of human life. Even if the Israelis had only save one person – to Israel a life is a life, but to Muslims in Sri Lanka life is not worth saving if saved by a Jew and that is a shame. Someone should point out to Sri Lanka’s Muslim population that their Muslim brothers in oil rich kingdoms are at the bottom of the list when it comes to sending aid and that the majority of the aid money is coming from the Great Satan of America and her allies like Japan and Great Britain.
Who knows – maybe shame will help make sense of the senseless in 7% of the population in Sri Lanka, but I doubt it. Hate is too powerful an emotion to overcome with reason. |
