Following the disaster in Haiti, China, the US, Canada, Britain, Spain, Iceland, Portugal, Russia, Taiwan, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, France, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and of course Israel all have medical or rescue personnel on the ground there, or on the way. IDF medical teams who will set up a field hospital are already in the air.
The nations listed above and many others as well as international organizations, India, Australia, Norway, Italy, the EU, the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, and South Korea have all pledged tens of millions of dollars and Euros (the US is tied for the biggest pledge with the World Bank at $100 million each).
But what’s missing? How about the countries swimming in our petrodollars, Saudi Arabia, Iran? The UAE has promised fifty tons of supplies. Nothing so far from any other Arab or Muslim nations. Where is that great humanitarian Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, who was so concerned about the ‘disaster’ in Gaza, now that a real disaster has occurred? Oh, he’s sent Turkey’s ‘condolences’! Does he remember that after a deadly earthquake in 1999, Israel sent its rescue and medical teams to Turkey as well?
It is ironic that Israel, almost universally vilified on ‘humanitarian’ grounds, and despite its small size and lack of resources, is in fact always among the first to help in natural disasters worldwide!
Update [18 Jan 1931 PST] Various Turkish news sources now state that the government of Turkey has decided to send significant aid to Haiti.
This is just one of the many areas in which the true character and nature of Israel can be seen and understood by those who really want to. It is all so obvious to those who know the truth regarding the humanitarian values at the heart of Israeli society. But of course those who do not want to see this- are those who by and large lack such values themselves.
It amazes me how Israel, the U.S and the other countries you mentioned, drop everything (including politics) and rush to save our fellow man in times of crisis. WHY is it the Arab countries do not respond as we do?
Could it be because Haiti’s population is 80% Catholic? Does it go against Sharia Law to help a Christian country? Yet, when Kuwaite was invaded by Saddam, the Arab countries called out to our Christian nation for help.
Why doesn’t the “road” go both ways?
Six years ago Israel offered to send aid and recue teams to Iran after an earthquake. The Iranians of course refused to allow it. They’d rather their citizens die than accept help from the “Zionist entity”.
You should be blind and deaf if you say that Turkey is not helping people in Haiti. We send as one of the first countries 3 planes full of aid 1 million euros and one of our best search and rescue teams to this country. Our rescue team has already the nick name “the Not giving up Turks”. They have rescued several victims when other teams has given up for searching survivals. And this when the rescue team from Canada left Haiti after one day searching for Canadians and noting that there were no Canadians at all. When they were leaving one of them has said to the poor Haitians that if they want aid from other countries they should say that there are foreigners under collapsed buildings. This is a typical example of Western double face. A shame for human kind.
Sadrazam is correct. I found updates at Reuters, the Yahoo News and this link, http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-199084-100-number-of-turkish-aid-teams-in-haiti-increases-to-four.html
Are there any other Arab nations helping in Haiti? Just as we were wrong about the aid from an Arab country, Sadrazam is wrong about the Canadian effort. They are still there. It was good to see the Israeli Hospital featured on Fox, early on. We must all be vigilant when checking our sources for news these days, eh?
Grandma for your information, Turkey is not an Arab country. Check your sources. Turks traditionally don’t talk about their good deeds. The only reason why replied in this topic was the unjust information about my country.
For Israel there is more to do at their front door, before making some charity effort to get some positive image in world media. You guys should first stop shooting and killing innocent civilians at neighbouring countries.
Please don’t reply me with Kurds, Armenian’s etc… Your country is no match for such a comparison to Turkey.
Best Regards.
Israel was among the first to offer — and actually provide — aid. At the time I wrote the post on 14 January, there was no indication from Turkey or from almost all of the Arab states that they would do so.
Later, I did find a news item regarding Turkey, and I added an update to my post (18 January). At that time, there still was no word about any of the Arabs, except for the UAE. Recently even Saudi Arabia has claimed that they will send aid. Time will tell if they actually provide any; they haven’t fulfilled their promises to the Palestinians.
What prompted this post more than anything else was the vilification heaped on Israel for supposed rights violations by Turkish PM ErdoÄŸan. ErdoÄŸan is in a position to know the truth about what actually happened in Gaza, and his joining the chorus of liars places him squarely behind the terrorists of Hamas. If this is where he wants to take Turkey, he is not doing his nation a favor.
Please let’s not have a discussion about whether Israel committed war crimes in Gaza as ErdoÄŸan says. I’ve written numerous posts about the false accusations of the ‘human-rights’ NGOs and the Goldstone report.
Using phosphor bombs on civilians is a war crime. How many civilians die when ‘Hamas’ is shooting rockets to Israel? How many civilians die in Israeli raids over Gazze en Lebanon? Is there a just comparison possible in this calculation?
Are there any Israeli civilians missing medicine, food or any other basic needs to survive? Are there walls dividing Israeli cities?
I myself and in general Turks are no sympathisants of the Arabs. You can even say that sympathize more with the Jews. But it is tearing our hearts to see young children getting killed while trying to hide behind their fathers. It is making us furious to see that the rest of the world is not reacting against such inhuman acts.
We ruled those lands for more then 1000 years. It is not that long ago, I am 33 years old and still can listen to the stories from the region from my grand father. You guys are at this moment not more then guests in that region. You still need to earn your place in between us. Please act like a guest rather then uncontrolled savages. And please don’t let us remind you how many times we saved your ancestors along the history when all the rest was trying to slaughter you guys.