A new, fashionable way to blame Israel for, well, everything is sweeping throughout the PalArab media and it is only a matter of time before the Western blame-Israel crowd jumps on the bandwagon.
According to PalArab Gaza sources, we are now up to 20 people who have died in the past few weeks from not being allowed to travel to Israel to get medical treatment. The rate of these deaths has skyrocketed in the past few weeks though, beforehand you would only read about one every couple of weeks or so.
Apparently, the PalArabs have latched onto these deaths as a great propaganda weapon against Israel. So now, all deaths in Gaza for any reason, no matter how far-fetched, is being blamed on Israel.
Number 19 is especially telling. Palestine Press Agency (Arabic) reports that a 46-year old man who had gone to Egypt 6 months ago for medical treatment got stuck there when Hamas took over and as a result the EU was not able, by their own rules, to open the Rafah crossing. (It will be recalled that Israel did let the people stranded in Rafah to arrive through Keren Shalom crossing, against Hamas wishes. I am not certain why this man did not return then.)
Anyway, this man, Abdul Kader Salih Abu Amer, decided two days ago to go back using an illegal weapons smugging tunnel from Egypt to Gaza.
He made it, but the trip was so strenuous that he died this morning.
So, if you need a scorecard: Amer went to Egypt to get medical treatment, couldn't come back because of the Hamas takeover , went through an illegal tunnel by his own choice, and died in Gaza.
And it is Israel's fault!
The other deaths are more along the lines of people who could not get dialysis and the like. Notice that no one (even the Fatah-supporters) is blaming Hamas for these deaths even though Hamas has looted hospitals in Gaza; and no one is blaming Egypt even though they could let people through Rafah. And certainly no one is invoking the story of Wafa al-Biss, the Gaza woman who was being treated in Israel's Soroka hospital and tried to blow it up, specifically wanting to kill women and children.
But blaming Israel is easy!
