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NIZZANIM, Israel - As foamy breakers crash against the powdery sand, teenagers in bikinis stroll along the beach. Younger kids bounce down huge inflatable slides while their parents relax with the morning papers.It may be the world's most unusual refugee camp.
Since Israel and the radical Lebanese group Hezbollah began their hostilities three weeks ago, as many as 8,000 people from northern Israel have found safety from rocket attacks in a seaside tent city financed entirely by a Jewish Russian billionaire.
Refugees get three hot meals a day, with snacks in between. Sheets and towels are changed daily. Laundry is returned within 24 hours. Many of Israel's top entertainers perform live at night, near the big screens that show Israeli TV and popular movies.
"They give us treatment like in a hotel but everything is free," said Simona Alosh, who fled the city of Zefat with her husband, two children and several relatives.
The setting and amenities could not be in sharper contrast to the dire refugee situation across the border in Lebanon, where Israeli shelling and airstrikes have left thousands homeless and driven hundreds of thousands more into Syria and other countries.
A couple of points:
Why is it that we never see much in the media about Israeli refugees? Tens of thousands of people have been driven from their homes in Israel by Hezbollah rocket attacks. Where's the photos of them leaving town with whatever personal belongings they can carry in tow? Where's the reporting about the hardships created by Hezbollah's aggressions? It seems the media is much more concerned about covering staged, melodramatic Hezbollah propaganda productions than telling both sides of the story in this conflict.
Also, surely oil-rich Iranian government (not to mention the Syrian government) has billions at its disposal which could be used in relief efforts in Lebanon. If one Jewish billionaire can house thousands of Israeli refugees in a four-star manner surely Syria and Iran could provide some basic lodging, food, medical care, etc.
Do you think maybe Iran and Syria don't want to help because images of suffering Lebanese people are good fodder for the sort of propaganda that will eventually prompt the media/international political community to pressure Israel into ceasing its fight against Hezbollah's aggressions? This despite, of course, the fact that the suffering of the Lebanese people is the direct results of Hezbollah's actions (not Israel's reaction to those actions) in the first place.
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Comments: 2
I completely agree with this statement. Just as Hezbollah are setting up themselves in civilian areas (so Israel has no choice but to bomb these areas), Iran and Syria and any other country that supports Hezbollah are most likely not helping for the reason of making Israel look bad. They all hate Israel, but for what?
Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East. The tiny democracy of Israel is surrounded by feudal states and brutal dictatorships that control vast regions of land and oil resources. The presence of the Israeli Defense Forces brings stability to that part of the world.
The current conflict in the Middle East is not just about land; it's about Israel's right to exist as a nation. The land has never belonged to the people who now call themselves Palestinians. The area was named Palestine by the Romans, but there has never been a nation called Palestine, and there is no Palestinian language. Before 1948 these people were Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and citizens of other Arab nations who had moved to the region. They were displaced by the war of 1948, but Israel is not occupying their territory.
All other nations were created by an act of men, but God Himself established the boundaries of the nation of Israel. God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob a covenant of land that was eternally binding, and it's recorded in the book of Genesis. God also told Abraham that He would make Abraham's descendants into a great nation and through them He would bless all the families of the earth. In the same passage, God said He would "bless those who bless you" (Abraham), and "curse him who curses you" (Gen. 12:3). That gets my attention. I want to be blessed, not cursed, by God.