APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday October 22, 2020
Quotes of the day:
"As I cried, I could hear Saeb’s voice crack. I had known Dr. Erekat for years, a relationship that began
when he was the editorial writer of the Palestinian daily al-Quds, briefing Israeli reporters on Palestinian
politics while sharing a smoke on the steps of the newspaper’s East Jerusalem office. Over the years, we laughed a
lot together. Now we were crying...We realized that Yigal Amir’s bullets, the ones that that killed Rabin, were
also meant to kill the prospects for peace, and we understood that they could very well succeed. "
----Ori Nir, former Haaretz's West Bank and Washington correspondent, and now Americans for Peace Now's Vice
President for public affairs, was on the phone with Saeb Erekat when the announcement was made of the death of Yitzhak
Rabin by an assassin.**
"'And you helped the sick person wherever he was sick, whether a foreigner, a non-Jew or a citizen, whether
mild or respectable.'" ...These words were written as the oath of the Hebrew doctor. They are not worth much today.
Caring for a patient is a basic thing, which we have seen is disappearing. It happened in Hebron, with the
paramedic who left a Palestinian, whom Elor Azaria shot, to bleed to death. It happened in Umm al-Hiran, with
paramedics watching Yakub Abu al-Qiyan drown in his own blood. It turns out that this was too high a moral level
for us. We are now discussing whether saving lives is at all legitimate. Give us a few more years of occupation,
and we'll see where we get to."
--Former Meretz chairwoman, Zehava Galon, writes in an Op-Ed about Israeli right-wing opposition to giving medical
treatment to long-time Palestinian peace negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who is in intubated and on life support in
critical condition with COVID-19 and about Israeli left-wing approval for Erekat's medical treatment because it gives Israel
'moral superiority.'***
"There is a subset of liberal Jews, mainly in the United States and Canada, intellectuals who see
themselves as enlightened and progressive, who fight injustices all over the world, until it comes to Israel, which
in their eyes is above all suspicion. This is where they close their eyes and their consciences fall silent. They
see nothing...Turns out that one can be an expert on human rights, an enlightened intellectual raised in an
environment of Jewish liberalism, but at the moment of truth, their face is revealed, and it is nationalist,
racist, cruel and incredibly ugly."
--Gideon Levy writes in an Op-Ed today about Canadian-Israeli 'centrist' lawmaker from Kahol-Lavan party, MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh, who
called on Israel not to provide hospital treatment to long-time Palestinian peace negotiator, Saeb Erekat,
who is in intubated and on life support in critical condition with COVID-19, unless Israel got something in
return.*
In response to reports that the State Department may baselessly
label prominent human rights organizations ‘antisemitic,’ nine organizations from the Progressive Israel
Network released the following statement:
