How is it that people allegedly dedicated to the well-being of others have a blind eye when it comes to the suffering of certain groups of people? Safa Doost, a certified orthotist (CO), is a health care professional who received certification through the American Board for Certification (ABC) to manage comprehensive orthotic care. She has been a practicing medical provider for over six years and is based out of the San Francisco area. She is regularly featured in the O & P Edge magazine which caters to those with limb loss due to injury and disease.
Her latest article (April 2024) highlights Gazan and Palestinian health care. On the face of it, her concern for the Palestinians in Gaza seems genuine. And then, come the insidious lies that help perpetuate the hateful screeds about Israel. Doost writes:
Every time I see another video about a child having an amputation, I cannot help but think how their rehabilitative care will look, let alone how it could have been avoided.
Within any healthcare role, there is also a moral responsibility to stand in the face of injustice. The occupation of Palestine [emphasis mine] has always been a health issue and now we are seeing how it directly ties into health policies, disability justice, rehabilitation care, and O& P.
And thus, the ugly face of prevarication shows itself. Since 2005, Gaza has NOT, I repeat, NOT been occupied by Israel. It is Hamas that has created the challenges in medical care.
In fact, Israel executed a “disengagement plan” in 2005:
With the implementation of the plan, IDF installations and forces were removed and over 9000 Israeli citizens living in 25 settlements were evicted. By 22 September 2005, Israel’s withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip to the 1967 Green Line, and the eviction of the four settlements in Samaria, was completed.
Consequently, this happened:
In June 2007 Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority. Many thousands of rockets and mortar shells have been fired from the Gaza Strip onto southern Israeli towns and villages, terrorizing and destabilizing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens.
Where is Doost’s concern for the children of Israel who face a daily barrage of rockets, and who have experienced more than their share of pain and anguish from the very group about which she purports to care?
Doost, in good leftist and Islamic fashion continues:
Recognizing this impact is pivotal for fostering a just and equitable response, upholding the inherent dignity of all individuals, and promoting inclusivity in post-conflict reconstruction.
Leftist jargon such as “just and equitable” and “inclusivity” jump out at a reader.
And, finally, Doost asserts that “practitioners are encouraged to join initiatives like ProsthetistsforPalestine. Additionally [she recommends] connecting with local Healthcare Workers for Palestine groups and established organizations like the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund amputee project, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Jewish Voices for Peace [which] provide avenues for involvement.”
At Discover the Networks (DTN), a reader learns that the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) was established in 1991 “to address the medical and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian youths in the Middle East[.]” PCRF “consider[s] terrorist-fundraising groups like the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Global Relief Foundation to be its ‘assisting organizations.’” Also from DTN:
‘While the majority of PCRF’s work is devoted to organizing medical missions and humanitarian projects,’ NGO Monitor reports, ‘it does promote a clear political agenda, based solely on the Palestinian narrative of victimization.’ Specifically, the organization ‘presents a biased and distorted view of the conflict, omitting Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians, including rocket attacks and terror tunnels, as well as Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense.’
From 1991 through 2001, PCRF worked closely with its ‘assisting organizations,’ the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and the Global Relief Foundation (GRF), both of which eventually had their assets frozen by the U.S. government because of their funding activities on behalf of terrorist groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda. Another of PCRF’s assisting organizations, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), was raided by the FBI for funneling money to al-Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. Notwithstanding the well-established terror affiliations of HLF, GRF, and IIRO, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund proudly declared on its website that it ‘works with these organizations’ and expressed gratitude for their ‘support and cooperation.’
Ever since its founding in 1991, PCRF has been… supportive of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Hamas-inspired initiative that aims to advance the Hamas agenda of permanently destroying Israel as a Jewish nation-state.
The organization also claims that the “U.S. government, media, and citizenry are manipulated and propagandized by a powerful ‘Zionist lobby.’”
Then there is the group Jewish Voice for Peace:
Founded in 1996, Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) is a national nonprofit organization focused on supporting the Palestinians in the Mideast conflict through targeted sanctions against Israel [.] According to CanaryMission.org, JVP is ‘the largest and most influential of the Jewish anti-Zionist groups in the United States.’ As a Jewish organization, JVP regards itself as the ‘Jewish wing of the [Palestinian Solidarity]’ movement.
Moreover, JVP’s leaders have expressed a variety of hatred directed at Israel and Zionism. From Canary Mission:
JVP has relationships and partnerships with multiple other anti-Israel organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) as well as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
…
In 2019, CAIR-LA awarded JVP their ‘Champion of Justice’ designation.
JVP is also a member group of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a coalition of American-based anti-Israel organizations that lobby the U.S. Congress to adopt anti-Israel policies and end government support for Israel.
As is happening too frequently, organizations are uncritically accepting Hamas propaganda.
Factually incorrect, anti-Semitic to its core, these groups are like spiders who gather the unsuspecting into the web. The O & P magazine is geared to practitioners who want to assist people who now face daunting challenges because of limb loss. But now, they are drawn into a web of deceit with high-sounding phraseology that hides the Hamas projection of genocidal anti-Semitism coupled with leftist woke agenda.
How many people are even aware of the aid that Israel has given to Gaza over the years while Hamas was simultaneously building tunnels to infiltrate Israel? In 2017, Israel actively worked to support reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip:
Israel has taken these measures to support reconstruction despite the major security risks they posed. In the past, Hamas has diverted massive amounts of aid and imported goods for use in its terrorist infrastructure. For instance, building materials worth tens of millions of dollars were diverted for the construction of Hamas’ cross-border tunnels, which were used to attack Israel during the summer 2014 conflict.
Despite Israel’s best efforts, reconstruction was hindered by actions of Hamas and the conflict between the terrorist organization and the Palestinian Authority.
Most recently, the IDF have destroyed tunnels where troops “found caches of Kalashnikovs, mortar shells and other military equipment.”
Will Doost decry the fact that 75% of Palestinians support Hamas’s murder spree, including rape and beheadings, as opposed to only 13% who disapprove?
Safa Doost makes a mockery of her concern with moral responsibility as she joins hands with groups that spout the never ending libels against Israel, Zionism, and Jews.
Shame on the O & P editorial advisory board as they give voice to her hate and obfuscation of the facts.
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
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