Treating casualties of the Syrian civil war in Israel.

There is a great article this morning over at Legal Insurrection about the assistance the Israelis are providing to those wounded in the Syrian civil war, and who otherwise would not be able to find medical help in that devastated country.

As they say, read it all, but here is the director of the Israeli hospital, an Arab Christian, speaking of their work in the embedded video below.

   "Dr. Barhoum speaks with empathy of those patients who, all of a sudden, find themselves receiving help from a country they have been taught to hate.

The whole talk is worth listening to. Dr. Barhoum speaks well and is direct but understated. But here are three quotes that stood out:

• “Who are these wounded? These mysterious patients who travel in secret, the whole story is wrapped in melodrama, victims of war seeking medical salvation at the hands of their sworn enemies. Yet when they past through the gates of my hospital, the cease to be Syrians. Just as when we walk through the gates we cease to be Jews, Muslims, or, like me, an Arab Christian. They are patients, we are caregivers and nothing else matters.”
• “Arriving unconscious they awoke to a strange language and the sudden terrifying realization that they are in Israel. For every patient this fright, this mistrust is natural. They have been saved by the Israel they have been told to fear and hate. But I have seen this terror dissolve into trust, to appreciation and thanks for the Israeli doctors who saved their lives.”
• “… But still we help. Israel’s decision to provide medical care to Syrians in their time of need is recognition of a shared humanity and compassion. That to us has no race, no ethnicity, and no borders.”