18-Nov-13: When Hamas insiders need the best care around, to which Zionist Entity do they turn?

One of the Rabin Medical Center facilities

While Hamas and the Palestinian Authority never miss an opportunity to pour official scorn on those who have anything to do with the despised Israelis and the "Zionist Entity", things can be a tiny bit different when their own personal interests are involved.

Some nineteen months ago, Hamas prime minister Ismail Hanieyeh’s brother-in-law was rushed to one of Israel's major medical facilities, Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah's Rabin Medical Center, for urgent cardiac treatment. This was reported months after it happened, presumably because of the acute embarrassment that might be expected to result from the sheer hypocrisy on display.

An Al Arabiya article, published 8 August 2012, reported that the husband of Suhila Abed el-Salam Ahmed Hanieyeh, who is Ismail Hanieyeh's sister, had suffered a serious cardiac episode which was beyond the professional capabilities of any Gaza hospital to treat. The well-connected Gazan couple could have placed their fate, the article said, in the hands of medical professionals in a more advanced medical center in Egypt. But they chose to go to the Israeli hospital instead. Presumably no one on the Israeli side had a problem with this. There is no sign that getting approval from the Gazan authorities caused anyone any problems.

A Palestinian ambulance brought the couple to the Erez Crossing. There he was transferred into a Magen David Adom ambulance and taken to Beilinson where he stayed along with his wife for about a week. Once his condition had "stabilized", the couple returned to Gaza. End of story.

All of this colors Hanieyeh moderate to mellow in relation to Hamas' relations with Israel, right? Not so right. Some Hanieyeh sound bites:

• “The Hamas movement has always stressed the need to oppose and combat all forms of official and popular normalization with the Zionist enemy" [Official Hamas statement quoted in Times of Israel, November 1, 2012]
• Hamas would never acknowledge the Israeli state, said Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian movement in Gaza, on Friday in Tehran. "They (West) want from us to stop resistance and acknowledge Israel but I herewith announce that this will never happen...  [Haaretz, February 11. 2012]
• Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh thanked Egypt and Iran on Thursday for their support in helping make “Israel scream with pain...”  [Times of Israel, November 22, 2012]
• The only path in the Palestinian struggle against Israel is the path of armed resistance, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said during a visit to Iran on Monday, adding that the "gun is our only response to Zionist regime." [Haaretz, February 13, 2012]

Now, according to an Arabic news source published today (H/T KAT), Ismail Haniyeh's grand-daughter was brought to Israel for emergency medical treatment "due to blood poisoning and after doctors in Gaza failed to establish the cause".

We sincerely wish the child a speedy and complete recovery.

And we wish the people of Gaza a complete and rapid separation from an iron-fisted, ideologically-crazed leadership which never hesitates to impose cruel hardships on their own society while reserving to well-connected insiders the privilege of engaging with the Zionist Entity when it suits them personally.