Don't donate money to fight Israel's forest fires?
Jeffrey Goldberg has been spending too much time listening to the lunatic ravings of his co-blogger Andrew Sullivan. He's urging you not to donate money to help rebuild from the ravages of the forest fire in Israel (Hat Tip: Shy Guy via Hot Air). Inevitably, the Jewish National Fund, which, among other things, plants forests in Israel, is asking for donations from Americans for its "Forest Fire Emergency Campaign," in response to the massive fire spreading across the Carmel mountains. But I'm not giving.By Goldberg's logic, I suppose Israel should not have sent any equipment to help out with Hurricane Katrina. For that matter, neither should anyone else outside New Orleans have helped. After all, it was well-known that the levees around New Orleans were at a risk of flooding. New Orleans is a rich city, and America is a rich country. The City of New Orleans should have dealt with the problem, and if it didn't, its residents should have paid the ultimate price.
Israel's per capita GDP is nearly $30,000. Israel is a rich country. The fact that it doesn't possess adequate firefighting equipment is its own fault. The fact that the leadership of its fire service is incompetent is its own fault (you can read more about that here). At some point, the good-hearted Diaspora Jews who still think of Israel as a charity case are going to have to tell their cousins to learn to fully-fund basic services like firefighting if they want to be thought of as citizens of an advanced country.
There are a great many good causes in Israel that deserve help, and a great many causes here in America that deserve our help. It seems to me, however, that Israel's national fire service should be funded by Israel's government, not by the people of Boca Raton, Potomac and the Upper West Side.
The same goes for the specialized equipment Israel sent to help after the earthquake in Turkey. They should be prepared for earthquakes - they're relatively frequent occurrences there. The same for tsunamis in Indonesia and Thailand earthquakes in Haiti (okay, they really are poor) and embassy bombings around the world.
In fact, why don't we just become isolationists altogether? You know - ignore everyone outside our own neighborhood/city/country. Ridiculous....
If this had been any country other than Israel, would Goldberg (or anyone else) even have suggested it?
Labels: Andrew Sullivan, arson, Carmel forest, forest fire, Haifa, Jeffrey Goldberg
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:09 AM
4 Comments:
Unfortunately, Sullivan writes for the UK Sunday Times, where he has half a full-size page to rant on! I don't know what Israel has got to do with him, a gay American with Irish ancestry, but he is totally fixated on it. I suppose while he is ranting about Israel, he wont be thinking about what a blot on the landscape HE is.
So, he is pointless as opinion, as everyone knows what his line is. Where is the value in that? He is a well-known Jew and Israel hater: end of!
This is horrible. In Britain people can donate in sterling to http://www.ukmda.org/donate/
(Please, everyone give as many £s as you can.)
It would be nice to donate to restoration too but I don't have a link for donations for that in sterling.
Israel has its share of problems and never find enough enough material resources to lick them all but its greatest asset is the one its critics dismiss - its people. They more than make up for whatever shortcomings exist in the Jewish State. And we've seen that over the past week. Israel is like Rodney Dangerfield - it gets no respect even though that never been in truth really deserved.
Carl, I agree with your points entirely. Isolationism is the valley into which Goldberg's slippery slope leads.
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