Palestinians: What Is Wrong With Building a Hospital?

by Bassam Tawil • August 2, 2019 at 5:00 am

One would expect Palestinian leaders to have welcomed a new hospital that would serve the two million residents of the Gaza Strip. These leaders, however, have no problem sacrificing the lives of Palestinian patients on the altar of their hatred of the peace plan.
The Palestinian Authority leadership is right about one thing: one party in this conflict is indeed using the dispute for its own ends – but it is not the Trump administration. The only party that deserves blame is Abbas and his associates. They are rejecting a desperately needed medical facility solely in order to be able to continue to lay the blame for the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at the doorstep of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority is probably the only government worldwide that views establishing a modern hospital as a "conspiracy." It now remains to be seen whether the international community will cave in to Abbas's campaign and ditch the hospital project, or decide actually to help the Palestinian people, whose leaders know only how to help themselves.

Leaders of the Palestinian Authority have reached a new depth of obsession: they are now seeking to prevent the establishment of a new hospital for their people in the Gaza Strip. Pictured: The Erez border crossing in Israel, at the border with the Gaza Strip, near which Israel, Hamas, the United Nations, Qatar and Egypt have agreed to establish the new hospital to treat Gazan patients. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

It hardly counts as news that Palestinian Authority leaders are obsessed with US President Donald J. Trump and his administration. Yet, these leaders have actually reached a new depth of obsession: they are now seeking to prevent the establishment of a new hospital for their people in the Gaza Strip.

The new field hospital, consisting of 16 departments, is slated to be built near the Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The hospital was approved by Israel as part of ceasefire understandings reached during the past few weeks with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip under the auspices of the United Nations, Qatar and Egypt.

The 43,000-square foot hospital will rely on the infrastructure, expertise and resources of an international NGO named Friendship and is meant to ensure a significant improvement in medical services to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

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In Defense of Alan Dershowitz

by David Oscar Markus • August 2, 2019 at 4:00 am

In fact, former FBI Director Louis Freeh studied the allegations and concluded that "the totality of the evidence refutes the allegations against Professor Dershowitz."
The intent of The New Yorker seems to be to convince folks that Dershowitz is guilty even though there is not enough evidence to charge him, let alone convict.... This is where famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz finds himself: accused of a heinous crime without any real recourse or due process protection. As the accusations pop up on screens across the globe, they are assumed to be true even though Dershowitz has not been charged or convicted.
In fact, he has done the unthinkable and asked — in an op-ed with the Wall Street Journal — for the FBI to investigate him.
So what can be done to deter false allegations in the internet era? For starters, if a false accusation is made and proven, the accuser should be prosecuted and punished. There needs to be real consequences for falsely accusing someone of a crime.

Alan Dershowitz and his wife, Carolyn Cohen, on August 14, 2013. Dershowitz has been happily married for over 30 years, with three children. (Photo by Gail Oskin/Getty Images)

Our criminal justice system is built on the notion that the burden is on the prosecution to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt before one's liberty, our most valuable asset, can be taken away. And for good reason. We don't want innocent people in jail.

We are willing to live with some guilty folks going free so that we don't have the horror of an innocent person behind bars. Our system, with all of its flaws (including the concept that prosecutors who charge people with baseless claims cannot be charged), has clung to this bedrock principle of presumed innocence.

The system still affords defendants due process of law.

But what about a private individual falsely accusing someone of a heinous crime?

Today it seems that anyone can accuse another without any real fear of repercussions.

And this is most certainly true when a person makes an allegation in civil litigation.

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