The Spread of Coronavirus and the Lack of Equipment is a
National Scandal
Richard Horton – Editor The
Lancet
A Heartbreaking
Video from a New York Hospital - this is what happens to public hospitals when the private sector is in charge
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| An Israeli bulldozer enters Gaza to grab the body of a man they've murdered - treating his corpse as if he were an animal |
Whilst the rest of the world is doing its best to contain and fight the
Coronavirus pandemic, Israel’s military occupation forces have other
priorities. Forcing the Palestinians out of Area C in the West Bank and
pursuing ethnic cleansing is their highest priority. Israel’s so-called Civil
Administration (which is the military under another name) entered the
village of Khirbet Ibziq last Thursday morning in order to demolish a community
clinic and emergency housing.
Btselem said the villagers were building a first-aid community
initiative to deal with the Covid-19 crisis which has paralyzed large parts of
the southern West Bank.
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| The ruins left behind in 'Ein a-Duyuk |
What kind of a regime is it that uses a crisis such as Coronavirus to
pursue its desire to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population? Can there be any doubt that the Israeli state
harbours racism within its very DNA?
Yet we had a fake and confected ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign in the Labour
Party for the past 4 years which holds that anyone criticising Israel as a
racist state is themselves racist under the infamous IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism.
This is the Alice-in-Wonderland politics that we have been subjected to,
courtesy of ‘journalists’ like Jonathan Freedland.
What is truly shameful is that large sections of the Left in the Labour
Party, John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and leadership candidate, the truly pathetic
Rebecca Long-Bailey, have gone along with the idea that calling Israel racist
is itself racist. Truly Orwellian.
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| Eli Dahan - former Deputy Defence Minister - Palestinians are animals |
Indeed one should go further. The late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, an Orthodox religious
scholar and Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who described the
settlers and their military backers as Judeo-Nazis and who said they had a Nazi
mentality was absolutely correct.
Anyone who could demolish a clinic can only hold the view that the Palestinians
are not human, animals in the words
of former Deputy Defence Minister Eli Dahan. This is quintessential biological
racism of the Nazi variety.
During
the Coronavirus crisis, Israel confiscates tents designated for clinic in the
Northern West Bank
Bt’selem Press Release 26 March 2020
This morning, Thursday, 26 March 2020, at around 7:30
am, officials from Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank arrived with
a military jeep escort, a bulldozer and two flatbed trucks with cranes at the
Palestinian community of Khirbet
Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley. They confiscated poles and sheeting
that were meant to form eight tents, two for a field clinic, and four for
emergency housing for residents evacuated from their homes, and two as
makeshift mosques. The force also confiscated a tin shack in place for more
than two years, as well as a power generator and sacks of sand and cement. Four
pallets of cinder blocks intended for the tent floors were taken away and four
others demolished.
As the whole world battles an unprecedented and
paralyzing healthcare crisis, Israel’s military is devoting time and resources
to harassing the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank, that
Israel has attempted to drive out of the area for decades. Shutting down a
first-aid community initiative during a health crisis is an especially cruel
example of the regular abuse inflicted on these communities, and it goes
against basic human and humanitarian principles during an emergency. Unlike
Israel’s policies, this pandemic does not discriminate based on nationality,
ethnicity or religion. It is high time the government and military acknowledged
that now, of all times, Israel is responsible for the health and wellbeing of
the five million Palestinians who live under its control in the Occupied
Territories.
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The confiscated building blocks. Photo by 'Aref Daraghmeh, B'Tselem, 26 March 2020
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Israeli forces on Thursday entered a Palestinian village in the northern Jordan Valley to confiscate materials designated to build a clinic to deal with the novel coronavirus outbreak.
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In addition to the shocking destruction of the clinic
under construction, the Civil Administration is continuing its demolition
routine. Today, it demolished three seasonal homes of farmers who are residents
of Jerusalem, in the village of ‘Ein a-Duyuk a-Tahta west of Jericho.
Background
on Palestinian communities facing expulsion:
Scores of farming-shepherding communities, home to
thousands of Palestinians, dot the 60% of the West Bank designated as Area C.
For decades, Israeli authorities have pursued a policy aimed at driving out
these communities by making living conditions intolerable in an attempt to get
residents to leave, ostensibly of their own volition. This unlawful conduct is
motivated by the political ambition, publicly stated by various officials, to
establish facts on the ground and take over these areas in a de-facto
annexation that would facilitate actual annexation to Israel as part of a final
status arrangement.
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| Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz who famously described the Israeli army and settlers as 'Judeo Nazis' |
JORDAN VALLEY, Wednesday, March 25, 2020 (WAFA) – The
Israeli military authorities today ordered residents of the Jordan Valley to
stop installing solar panels in their village, according to a local official.
Mutaz Bisharat, from the Tubas governorate, said
soldiers raided Khirbet al-Dir in the northern Jordan Valley and handed
residents an order to stop work on installing solar panels gift of the Italian
humanitarian aid and development group GVC.
He also said that the soldiers banned a resident
from installing a caravan for farming purposes on his land in the same village.
'For Lack of Choice,' Israel to Treat Asylum Seekers as Citizens in Coronavirus
Crisis
Because of
the CV crisis asylum seekers will be treated the same as Israeli citizens. Except, as the report makes clear, this is
not true. They will be able to access some unspecified help but they will be
expected to pay for health insurance at the cost of hundreds of shekels a month.
It is very
kind of the Israeli government to allow asylum seekers to withdraw their own
money to pay for this! Under another racist law, asylum seekers in Israel ‘illegally’
(nearly all asylum seekers in Israel are illegal since they are not Jewish)
have had 20% of their wages deducted and paid into a fund which they will
receive if they leave Israel. This is the ‘help’ they will be given it would
seem. Ha’aretz reports:
Unlike citizens, the 30,000 Eritrean and Sudanese
asylum seekers in Israel are not covered by national public health insurance
and depend on private insurance, if they are employed.
And if they
can’t find work they don’t receive medical treatment. This is the reality of
the ‘Jewish values’ that Israel espouses.
To most people these will seem to be the values of the anti-Semitic regimes
that Jews used to suffer under.
The article
does not explain what, if any additional measures will be taken to support
asylum seekers though even Israel’s racist authorities realise that CV knows
neither race nor nationality and if asylum seekers are not given some form of
social protection they will simply infect the Aryan I mean Jewish residents of
the Israeli state.
Other
reports on Israel’s racist measures include:
27 Mar by Ali Salam — Israeli forces, on Thursday, demolished a
farming shed and a water well in Deir Ballut town, west of Salfit
city, according to a local official. Governor of Salfit, Abdallah Kmeil Israeli
forces escorted a bulldozer into Wadi Sarida area, where heavy machinery tore
down a farming shed and a water well belonging to a villager. Kmeil noted that
Israeli forces were exploiting the coronavirus lockdown enforced on the
occupied territories to secure the implementation of the seizure of more
Palestinian land.
27 Mar by Ali Salam — Israeli forces, on Thursday, demolished three
Palestinian-owned homes in the village of al-Diyouk, west of the occupied West
Bank city of Jericho, under the pretext they were built without permits, local
sources said. Israeli soldiers and police accompanied bulldozers as they
invaded the village in the early morning, and proceeded to demolish the three
houses. Israel uses the pretext of a missing building permit to destroy
Palestinian homes, while at the same time denying Palestinians the permission
to build. [Palestinians rarely receive building permits in Area C – TG]
HEBRON, Tuesday, March 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli soldiers in control of
the old town of the divided southern West Bank city of Hebron today barred
Palestinian volunteers from disinfecting the neighborhoods and educating the
local population on the coronavirus pandemic, according to a local activist.
Muhannad Jabari the soldiers prevented the volunteers trained by the health ministry
from spraying the Palestinian neighborhoods with disinfectants and educating
the residents on the deadly disease. He said the soldiers forced the volunteers
to leave the area without completing their mission. Jabari said the volunteers
wanted to help the local population living under Israeli military rule in that
part of the city on how to deal with the disease and how to avoid it when they
were forced to leave the area.
The only conclusion one can draw
from this action, in the West Bank’s largest city is that Israel wants Coronavirus
to spread amongst the Palestinian population. This is Nazi like behaviour.
Half of the Arab villages in Israel itself are what is called ‘unrecognised’.
There is no Jewish community in Israel which is unrecognised. Most of the villages are in the Negev/Naqab
and when Israel decides, it issues demolition orders as happened to the village
of Umm al-Hiran when the authorities decided to demolish it
in order to make way for a Jewish only town of Hiran. The failure to provide
medical services because communities are ‘unrecognised’ despite formally being Israeli
citizens is usually known as Apartheid.
Tony Greenstein
HAIFA, Tuesday, March 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Adalah – The Legal Center for
Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent an urgent letter on 22 March to Israeli
authorities demanding access to essential medical services for more than 70,000
Bedouin citizens of Israel residing in unrecognized villages in the Naqab
(Negev) region in southern Israel. These citizens are not receiving urgent care
from Israel’s national emergency medical service.
Israeli Health Ministry guidelines prohibit patients with fever and
respiratory symptoms from leaving the home, except in medical emergencies.
After the symptoms associated with coronavirus develop, Israel’s Magen David
Adom national emergency medical service (MDA), under the guidance of the
district physician, is supposed to reach out to the patient for an at-home
examination and – if necessary – evacuation to hospital. However, residents of
unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab lack access to MDA urgent care services,
said Adalah…
Palestine Chronicle 27 Mar — Jewish settlers today [Friday] attacked
Palestinian herders and other civilians in the village of Al-Tuwani, south
of Hebron (Al-Khalil). According to a local activist. Fo’ad Amour, Jewish
settlers, along with attack dogs, assaulted herders in the village and injured
one of them in his abdomen and hand. The man was moved to a nearby hospital for
medical treatment. Illegal Jewish settlers are notorious for their attacks on
Palestinians, but assaults on Palestinian farmers and herders have been
frequent over the past few months. Armed settlers and soldiers often prevent
Palestinian shepherds from herding in the open pastures of the occupied West
Bank in order to force them to abandon the area.
IMEMC 24 Mar — Several fanatic illegal Israeli colonists attacked, on Monday
evening, a Palestinian shepherd in Ein al-Hilwa area, in the West
Bank’s Northern Plains, and attacked many homes in Madama village, south
of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinian human rights activist,
Aref Daraghma, said several colonists assaulted a young shepherd while herding
his cows in Ein al-Hilwa. Daraghma added that the young man, Moheeb Fathi
Daraghma, suffered several minor cuts and bruises. Also on Monday evening,
a group of colonists attacked homes in the southern area of Madama village,
south of Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official who monitors
Israel’s illegal colonialist activities in northern West Bank, said the
assailants came from Yitzhar colony, which was built on Palestinian
lands south of Nablus, and added that the locals intercepted them, and forced
them away.
Israeli settlers attack Palestinian motorist in north of
West Bank
JENIN, Monday, March 23, 2020 (WAFA0 – Israeli settlers today attacked with stones a Palestinian motorist in the north of the West Bank, causing damage but no injuries. A resident of Silat al-Dahr village, south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, told WAFA that settlers threw stones at his car near his village breaking its windows and hijacking the car after he and his family were able to get out of it and run away. He said he filed a complaint with the Palestinian police, who contacted their Israeli counterparts and got the car back.
JENIN, Monday, March 23, 2020 (WAFA0 – Israeli settlers today attacked with stones a Palestinian motorist in the north of the West Bank, causing damage but no injuries. A resident of Silat al-Dahr village, south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, told WAFA that settlers threw stones at his car near his village breaking its windows and hijacking the car after he and his family were able to get out of it and run away. He said he filed a complaint with the Palestinian police, who contacted their Israeli counterparts and got the car back.
It’s not true that Iran has been offered help by the United States. On the contrary Trump has used the crisis to
step up sanctions.
Tony Greenstein
WASHINGTON, Saturday, 28 March 2020 (WAFA) – Eight United States
senators urged the US Administration to provide assistance to the Palestinian
people in the West Bank and Gaza to help them overcome the coronavirus
pandemic.
President Trump recently offered assistance to other countries fighting
the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, including North Korea
and Iran. This principle of providing humanitarian aid to those in need should
also apply to the Palestinian people,” said the senators in their letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“We write to urge the Administration to take every reasonable step to
provide medicine, medical equipment, and other necessary assistance to the West
Bank and Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) to prevent a humanitarian
disaster.”
The letter was signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen,
Patrick Leahy, Tom Udall, Thomas R. Carper, Bernard Sanders, Jeffrey A.
Merkley, Thomas R. Carper and Sherrod Brown.
Unlike the case in Israel, migrants in Portugal will
be treated as residents with full access to public health and welfare services.
Although Portugal has a racist policy towards migrants, this isn’t based on racial
supremacy and the desire to preserve ethnic purity. In Israel racial purity trumps
every other necessity and when some protection for asylum seekers is
introduced, it is only in order to protect the native Jewish community.
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| FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a protective mask as a preventive measure against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks at Augusta street in downtown Lisbon, Portugal March 20, 2020. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante |
LISBON (Reuters) - All foreigners in Portugal with
pending applications will be treated as permanent residents from Monday until
at least July 1, authorities said on Saturday, to ensure migrants have access
to public services during the coronavirus outbreak.
Applicants including asylum seekers need only provide
evidence of an ongoing request to qualify - granting them access to the
national health service, welfare benefits, bank accounts, and work and rental
contracts.
Exclusive:
Ministers were warned that the NHS could not cope with a pandemic three years
ago but 'terrifying' results were kept secret
Telegraph 28 March 2020
This is shocking. An article in The
Telegraph of all papers tells us that
‘Ministers were informed
three years ago that Britain would be quickly overwhelmed by a severe outbreak’.
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The modelling for the fictional pandemic was supplied by Imperial College London, the same group of academics now tracking Covid-19 Credit: Peter Summers/Getty Images
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The NHS
failed a test of its ability to handle a severe pandemic but the “terrifying” results were kept secret
from the public.
Ministers
were informed that Britain would be quickly overwhelmed by a severe outbreak
amid a shortage of critical care beds, morgue capacity and personal protective
equipment.
The report
on Cygnus’s findings were deemed too sensitive by Whitehall officials to be
made public. It found:
·
The NHS lacked adequate “surge capacity” and would
require thousands more critical care beds to cope with a severe pandemic
·
Health bosses would need to “switch off” large parts
of the NHS to cope with demand
·
Medics would need to adopt a “battlefield”
mentality, with frail patients denied critical care
·
Mortuaries would be quickly overwhelmed
·
Potential failings in the supply of PPE to doctors
and nurses
·
Officials even discussed preventing midwives from
delivering newborn babies so they could be sent to care for the critically ill
The Telegraph
reported that
Despite the failings exposed by Cygnus, the
government never changed its strategic roadmap for a future pandemic, with the
last update carried out in 2014.
The findings of Exercise Cygnus remain classified because of “biosecurity concerns”.
“There has been a reluctance to
put Cygnus out in the public domain because frankly it would terrify people,” one senior official added.
The modelling for the fictional pandemic was supplied by Imperial
College London, the same group of academics now tracking Covid-19.
The verdict
was clear - a pandemic of that scale would quickly overwhelm the NHS due to
major shortages of intensive care beds equipped with lifesaving ventilators.
Morgues would swiftly run out of space with a dearth of doctors to certify
causes of death. Problems were also identified in delivering protective masks
and gowns to medical workers on the frontline, senior sources said.
Despite the damning verdict, Cygnus was largely kept quiet with only a
passing reference made during the NHS England board meeting in March 2017.
NEVER AGAIN: After the Coronavirus Pandemic is over, we will
see Austerity on Stereoids as the poor will be expected to pay the bills for
rescuing Branson and co.
Just a day ago, I wrote in paper for the Labour Left
Alliance that after the Coronvirus crisis is over, we would see ‘austerity on
stereoids’. The £330 billion rescue package of the government would have to be paid
and of one thing you can be sure, the price will be paid by the working class and
poor unless we fight back.
The Idiots of the North, as I call
them, the ones who voted for Boris Johnson because he is ‘just like us’ in the words of a Grimsby fish market worker, will be
the first to be forced to pay for the Tories self-inflicted crisis. As the Report in The Telegraph above makes
clear, the Tories knew that the NHS would be unable to cope in an emergency and
yet they deliberately decided to run down services.
Our slogan needs to be NEVER AGAIN.
Never again must the NHS be run down. Never again must it be privatised. The
Health & Social Care Act 2012, a joint effort of the Tories and Lib Dems,
which allowed a massive intrusion of the profit seeking private sector into the
New Statesman must be repealed.
If the Tories want to reclaim the
extra money spent then they should seize the untaxed unearned income of the
wealthy in British offshore tax havens like Jersey, the Isle of Man, the
Bermuda islands etc.
The trade unions and labour movement
have to stand up and say that the working class refuse to pay for the crisis of
capitalism. I am therefore pleased that
Craig Murray, our former
Ambassador in Uzbekistan, who Jack Straw sacked when he was Foreign Minister
for revealing the horrific torture that the Uzbek regime engaged in (including
boiling people alive) agrees with my analysis and you should read his take on what
will happen if we allow it.
Tony Greenstein
It’s Not Socialism. It’s Another Mega Wealth Transfer.
It is fashionable to write articles at the moment
stating the Government has discovered the value of socialist intervention. I
suspect history will show that nothing could be further from the truth. ‘austerity
will soon be back but with bells on this time.’
The taxpayer will ultimately pick up the tab through
what may prove to be another decade of austerity imposed as a result of another
transfer of wealth from us to banks, financial institutions and big companies.
The small and medium companies which will go to the wall – and a great many
will – are going to provide rich pickings in a few months time for the vultures
of the hedge funds and other disaster capitalists.
