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Israel's Medical Diplomacy

(Tablet) Jeff Moskowitz - In the past year, Israeli physicians have treated the daughter of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the President of Zambia Michael Sata, Syrian rebel fighters and civilians, and Kurdish and Jordanian children. Every Tuesday children from Gaza and the West Bank arrive at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon for surgery and check-ups. Dr. Joseph Schenker, a fertility doctor at Hadassah Medical Center, noted: "I have patients from Egypt, Lebanon - all these countries." He said he helped the niece of Ayatollah Khomeini with reproductive issues, and she and her husband even traveled secretly to Israel for the procedure. He has also dealt with the wife of a Muslim president who had trouble conceiving. Schenker told a story about his father, who was chief surgeon and commander of the army hospital in Safed during the '48 war. "The Druze were against us [at the time]....One of the Druze leaders was wounded and drove to the hospital in Safed. He was afraid that the Jews would kill him. But my father operated on him and he survived. That leader got better and he changed the Druze [under his command] from supporting the Arabs to supporting the Jews."
2015-03-27 00:00:00
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