Shavuot holiday
It’s the Shavuot Jewish holiday today, so an excuse for a family meal.
I don’t know much about this holiday, other than that it’s somehow connected with Pentecost, which I think is known as Whitsuntide (“white-Sunday-time”) in the UK; except that it’s not a Sunday. It seems to be one of those seasonal holidays, based on the agricultural calendar.
Although lots of milk products are consumed on this holiday, our meal was completely vegan and planet-friendly.
New sandals
Because I’m young and foolish, I purchased a pair of Xero sandals (thin-soled high-priced hipster huaraches) with the thought that when I do another long Camino like hike, I want to have those in the side pockets of my backpack rather than the usual flip-flops. More useful at the end of the day or, at the beginning of the day, I could actually hike in them, if the spirit moves me, or my socks didn’t dry. They look flimsy, but come with a 5,000 mile guarantee, so we’ll see.
Links of the Day
What’s the Story? Dr. Lina Qasem-Hassan on Israeli medical apartheid (link is through Invidious) This 7 minute video is testimony by a person at the head of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an important HR organization operating in Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. I think it could be more informative: obviously you can’t expect too much of such a short video, but what’s there overly relies on anecdotal evidence. If you want to challenge a truism, such as that “the Israeli medical system is an island of equality/peace in a situation of conflict”, you need to present hard facts, and maybe even those facts that support the accepted narrative if you wish to discount it.
My own experience of Israeli hospitals is seeing Palestinian and Jewish hospitals working together, and of mixed wards or rooms where there will be religious and secular Jews together with Palestinian patients. Does this apparent integration obscure other factors? Do Palestinian doctors enjoy equivalent professional advancement as their Jewish colleagues? Do Palestinian patients feel satisfied with their treatment at the same levels of Jewish patients?
The film points out that you can’t have health equality where there is wealth disparity and infrastructure inequality. But this affects the society as a whole. In a society where every fourth or fifth person is below the poverty line, there are underprivileged Israeli Jews who also suffer from these disparities: equally or differently? That would be important to know.
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza can sometimes access treatment in Israeli hospitals: it’s one of the fields in which PHR is active. But there have been stories in the news media about the ways in which Israel uses this apparently “good” policy for propaganda purposes and for gaining leaverage over Palestinians under occupation in various ways, such as rewarding or encouraging informants. In conclusion, this short video, though interesting, offers only a glimpse at a complex reality, and we cannot hope to learn from it “what the story” is, and gives a taste for more.
UK study of 1948 Israeli massacre of Palestinian village reveals mass grave sites Researchers analysed cartographic data and aerial photos to identify three possible locations in former fishing village Tantura. I have visited this holiday resort – at the time, I was not aware that it was the site of Tantura. Until the past is acknowledged and understood, we cannot hope for a better world. This is the same everywhere. See Wikipedia article on Tantura.