Jeffery Goldberg has written this in The Atlantic:
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.
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.
So how does the right respond?
- Unreal… Leading Leftist Website Urges Liberals Not to Donate to Israel’s Fire Relief Fund (Gateway Pundit)
- Lefties Hate Israel (I Own The World)
- Jeffrey Goldberg: Let The Israelis Burn in Hell (Left Coast Rebel)
Do any of these “concern trolls” know anything about Jeffery Goldberg? This is a man who has done far more for Israel than the collective wingnut-o-sphere:
Goldberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Malverne, New York[3]. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian.[4] While at Penn he worked at the Hillel kitchen serving lunch to students. He left college to move to Israel,[5] where he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a prison guard during the First Intifada.[6] He later returned to the United States to continue his journalism career, and now lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and three children.[7]
All Goldberg did was offer his opinion for why he won’t give, and I must say that it’s a good reason. He isn’t urging people to “not give”, as Gateway Pundit is suggesting; he’s just offering his view. I also happen to agree with Goldberg. Israel, a country plagued by terrorism, has the money for adequate fire service and they should invest in it. They have the money to spend on fighting these fires, so why aren’t they? I’m not saying this as some “Israel hating Liberal”, but as a former firefighter, who also happens to be Jewish. The right always talks about “taking responsibility”. Well where was Israel’s responsibility in making sure they had adequate fire protection services? Let’s look at that:
Yishai told Israel Radio that during his time as interior minister, NIS 100 million were allocated to the fire system, but said it is not a large enough sum. He said that the fire services are unprepared, not for a normal situation and especially not for an emergency.
The Shas head added that in 2002, the fire services asked the government to reinstate the Air Force’s fire-fighting activities. Yishai claimed that the Shas ministers in the government at the time were alone in supporting the initiative.
The comments came after a Jerusalem Post report that Yishai refused fire truck donations from a US Christian group due to religious ideology.
Again – Israel screwed up on this by not being prepared. With all their money, the greed took over and they scrapped the basic services needed to combat this form of disaster and/or terrorism. Where’s the rights outrage over this lack of responsibility? Imagine if California decided to scrap their forest fire fighting services and got hit with a fire. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin would be on the air 24/7 blasting their “lack of responsibility” and calling to “let them burn”. Talk about a double standard. Sorry, but I’ll be giving Israel the “tough love” the right always preaches about.
Flashback… The right urged people to not give or help out Haiti following the earthquake, a country with a per capita GDP of less than $700.