You might recall that we mentioned Israel’s offer to send emergency aid personnel to help in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Well, the US rebuffed Israel’s kind offer, but Jews… you know how pushy they get! Turns out an Israeli NGO called IsraAID managed to sneak in an 18-member team of physicians, mental health professionals, trauma specialists, logistics experts and a special unit of Israeli police divers.
“We had tools like Jack the Ripper,” said Gal Lusky, a diver who founded Israeli Flying Aid, a non-governmental organization that undertook the mission along with the IsraAID relief group. “We had plenty of stuff and we had to justify it at immigration. When we were asked what is all that equipment, we said we were going to the Jewish community to teach youth groups how to prepare summer camps.”
You can read more about this remarkable story at the JTA. Or maybe you want to read about how the United Jewish Communities Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund has raised $14 million so far (with $1 million to help evacuees in Houston), or read about the Chabad Telethon for the hurricane victims, or… or we could all just return to our usual self-righteous, condescending and alienating programming, brought to you by a cacophany cacophony of self-aggrandizing self-important jerks in our own insular world. Heh.
michael
9/27/2005
You forgot to mention the reason for the US’ refusal of Israel aid, which was apparently so as not to cause wealthier Arab nations to rescind their offers of aid. Apparently if Israel sends in medics to hurricane disaster areas Saudi Arabia won’t pony up the benjamins.
DiGiTaL
9/27/2005
Hey but didn’t the Zionist world order cause this whole meshugas? With their super evil environmental weather destroying machine. Made by the evil Jewish scientists.
encino yeled
9/27/2005
How do you know that? This business with the Saudis? Link per favore…
michael
9/27/2005
Damn. I read it somewhere, but I can’t remember. Of course, the article’s source was “an anonymous person in the US State Department,” so of course it could be untrue. The government has no official line on why it turned down Israeli aid, although various theories have been bandied about.
ck
9/27/2005
Michael, see the Jewish World Review article where it mentioned:
Read the full article for the scoop. Gross.
Joy
9/27/2005
Israel babe, why do you have to be like that: going around embarrasing the U.S of A like that; don’t you know he’s the man. Granted, you’re trying to help but it don’t look good. Just sit and look pretty n let the man be the man.
Seriously though, why the fuck would anyone refuse help??
michael
9/27/2005
See? I knew I didn’t make it up. I just have a…really bad memory.
encino yeled
9/27/2005
Wonder what that comes from…Thx for commentin on me blog, btw.
And when are we gonna read another chummus/tehina/babaganoush fiasco?
michael
9/27/2005
Yeled, I’ve definitely commented on your blog before. I like that whole Ginsburg-meets-Lenny Bruce-meets…uh…the Grizzly Man thing. You know, poetic, amusing, hairy Jew meets the wonderful world of shiksas.
As far as hummus fiascos, well, I did fry my food processor’s motor by making one too many batches of hummus and it started shooting black crap at me. Does that count?