California Physicians Visit Palestinian, Jordanian Hospitals

By Pat and Samir Twair

The Southern California Medical Society of Arab Americans has made another of its ground-breaking missions to the Middle East and the results could improve health care in the region for years to come.

Hospitals in Amman, Jerusalem, Nablus and Gaza were targeted in the 12-day trip that began July 12. Non-Arab specialists who joined their Arab-American colleagues in volunteering their expertise were orthopedic surgeon Colin Moseley, chief of staff at Shriners' Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, and Dr. Yoshio Setoguchi, director of the Child Amputee Prosthetic Program (CAPP) at Shriners' Hospital.

It was an exciting trip for Drs. Moseley and Setoguchi who, as novices to the Middle East, found themselves in Gaza just as PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was preparing to make his historic return from exile. Nonetheless it was a shock to the visiting physicians to encounter piles of uncollected garbage in newly liberated Gaza.

Ear, nose, and throat specialist Dr. Kamal Batniji protested to Herb Tobin, president of the American Associates of Ben-Gurion University: "Gaza is no different than Rwanda. How could anyone allow this cesspool to occur? The Israelis, the Americans, the Palestinians should not be excused. Stop this nightmare."

Tobin immediately faxed Dr. Batniji copies of his messages to the Israeli government that expressed outrage over Gaza's garbage crisis. Whether by coincidence or not, Israel announced $15 million was being donated by Japan for garbage collection in Gaza.

Dr. Moseley said he was impressed by the spirit of the Gazans—especially the doctors—both in coping with the medical emergencies that had challenged them during the intifada and in coping now with the residue of shattered bodies in its wake. At an Anglican hospital, he heard how surgeons had operated without electricity and how relatives of patients couldn't leave hospitals under curfew for days because of Israeli police snipers. A bucket was brought to him full of the "rubber" bullets used by Israeli forces which had been extracted from the bodies of Palestinians. "Those 'rubber' bullets looked just as lethal as the regular lead ones," Moseley said.

When an earlier delegation from the California physicians group visited the occupied lands in 1989, its most important result was to convince Israelis that the international medical community would not stand for invasions of Palestinian hospitals by Israeli troops to arrest, beat and sometimes shoot wounded Palestinian patients.

Dr. George Madanat, a California pediatrician who headed the 1989 delegation, said that IDF troops thereafter refrained from raiding Palestinian hospitals. On that initial trip, some California Jewish physicians who had accompanied the Arab-American contingent voiced shock and shame over Israeli treatment of Arab patients.

On this year's visit, after meeting with the director of the Ben-Gurion University Medical School, the California doctors were told that promising Palestinian students will be able to study Hebrew there in preparation for entering medical school.

Dr. Madanat is working with Israeli medical centers to extend post-graduate training facilities to Gaza physicians on weekends—since they are too preoccupied with patients to leave for training during regular hours.

Proving that health care transcends politics, Ben-Gurion University has promised to facilitate efforts to send fax machines and laboratory equipment to Gaza hospitals in order to bypass a 30 percent duty charged by the Israeli government.

In Amman, Dr. Moseley diagnosed problem fractures of children and delivered lectures at the King Hussein Medical Center which, he predicted, is on the threshold of becoming an international medical center for the Arab world. Society members also met with Queen Noor at the royal palace and discussed prospects for opening a children's hospital in Amman.

As a result of the group's visit to Amman, two technicians will come from Jordan to observe recent developments in prosthetics at Shriners' Hospital in Los Angeles, and a Jordanian plastic surgeon will travel to Los Angeles for post-graduate work in reconstructive surgery.

Next year, the society will host an international conference for ear specialists in Amman, thanks to the agreement of Dr. William House, a leading specialist in cocklear implants, to be featured speaker.

Kelada Directs New Play

Asaad Kelada, Egyptian-American director of the TV sitcoms "Who's the Boss?", "Facts of Life," and "WKRP in Cincinnati," returned to the stage to direct the world premier of "The Disputation" at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset Strip.

Talmudic scholar and playwright Hyam Maccoby admits he was "taken back" when an Egyptian American was selected to direct his piece. Now he describes Kelada as a "director of genius."

The medieval courtroom drama is based on a debate in Barcelona in 1263 on the order of King James of Aragon over whether Jesus was the messiah.

Although Kelada admits he initially wondered if he was qualified to direct Maccoby's play, "the more I read the script, the more I realized it wasn't just a play questioning if Jesus was the messiah, but rather it portrays one man's attempt to make the world a better place."

RAND Conference Opens

More than 150 Middle East scholars and activists gathered at Santa Monica-based RAND Aug. 26 and 27 to explore "The Shape of the New Middle East." This year's fourth annual session was the first sponsored by RAND's newly formed Greater Middle East Studies Center.

Nine panel discussions attended by U.S., Arab and Israeli authorities on the Middle East examined topics ranging from prospects for peace and economic development to arms control and the development of democracy in the region.

Experts didn't paint a uniformly rosy picture, however, as they predicted generations of jobless university graduates, increasing debt, and population growth out of control. The message seemed to be: "Get the Arab-Israeli conflict out of the way, and we can tackle the problems we should have been facing decades ago."

"Nearly everyone has heard of the Arab boycott, but few are aware of Israel's boycott of Arab trade," said Dr. Abdul Salam Majali, prime minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the keynote address.

"Since 1970, Israel has enjoyed unrestricted access to markets in the occupied territories while it prevented Palestinian investment [there]."

The Jordanian leader pointed out that, since 1972, Israel has had a trade surplus of $7.5 billion, which has cost Jordan a $2 billion deficit. Noting that it is difficult to attract foreign investment while it is burdened with debt, Dr. Majali said Jordan requires exceptional debt relief. He called on the United States and the United Kingdom to make an immediate positive response to this appeal. He added that the Jordanian dinar has been adversely affected by the peace process in that dinars have left the country for investment in dollars.

"This raises fears of devaluation and destabilization," he said, "and we need a bridge loan to avert destabilization."

Long-term international investment projects are essential, he added, and direct private investment is welcome as well.

Turning to other subjects, Dr. Majali said there have been 22 border disputes in the gulf during this century. He called for a forum to deal with contentious issues on boundaries.

"The military dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been counterproductive," he continued, "and has only benefited arms dealers. During the transition to peace, the role of the military must be reassessed," he said, emphasizing that Jordan has never had offensive weapons. He also expressed Jordan's hope to participate in peacekeeping functions with the aid of the United Nations.

Although Jordan has formally ended its state of belligerency with Israel, the Jordanian prime minister said that before Amman signs any final peace treaty the issues of borders, water and security must be dealt with.

Boundaries between Jordan and Palestine were demarcated by the League of Nations in 1922, he said. Distribution of the waters of the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers must be fairly allocated, he continued, and joint sea desalinization projects ultimately will be needed.

In closing, he commented that representatives of Amman and Tel Aviv have been meeting in Washington and both are beginning to take confidence that they can live side-by-side in peace.

Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh

Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh has a unique mission in life and he seems to be achieving it. The public health physician is based in the Galilee village of Shefa-Amr and refers to himself as a Palestinian citizen of Israel.

Dr. Kanaaneh and his Hawaii-born wife have completed a two-month residence in Los Angeles, where they have observed programs conducted by the School of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles.

In his capacity as president of the Galilee Society for Health Research and Services, the Harvard-educated physician might be called the watchdog for special health care needs of the nearly one million Palestinians living within the borders of Israel.

"We Palestinians in Israel look at our issues differently than those in the occupied lands who are struggling for self-determination," he explained. "Our struggle is for equal treatment under the law.

"This means about 65,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel do not have water or electricity," he said.

According to a 1965 zoning and building law, the 120 Palestinian villages were not incorporated because they lacked building permits. This exclusion then made it illegal for them to be hooked up for water and electricity.

"Health services are withheld from these villages," he stated, "and, incredible as it may seem, in many cases there aren't even roads leading to these enclaves."

The situation became so desperate that Dr. Kanaaneh took a film crew to the Galilee village of Hasaineah, where the lack of sanitation had led to an outbreak of hepatitis that caused at least one documented death.

In 1992, the determined doctor took his documentary and case histories to the International Water Tribunal in Holland.

"The Israelis sent an attorney to defend their policies and they [the Israelis] lost so badly the tribunal condemned Israel over the issue of unrecognized villages and ruled that the Israelis were to supply water," Kanaaneh said.

By the time of the June 1992 Israeli elections, the plight of the villages had become a media issue. Yitzhak Rabin made a coalition with the Palestinian Israelis promising them that, if he were elected, his government would supply the villages with water. Rabin was elected but, more than two years later, Dr. Kanaaneh says, "We're still trying to get the water to those villages."

Richard Haboush Remembered

One of the most dedicated contributors to the Southern California Arab-American community was Richard Haboush, a successful commercial television producer who volunteered his time and talents to educate non-Arabs about the richness of Arab culture.

Haboush was treasurer for the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and was a co-founder of the cultural group al-Fanun al-Arabiya.

He was born to Lebanese parents in Indianapolis, IN, in 1927. He and his brother, Victor, formed Haboush Company and won awards for their TV commercials at the Cannes Film Festival and numerous American industry competitions.

A quiet man with a penchant for mountain climbing, skiing, sailing and gardening, Haboush was first and foremost a family man who, with his wife, Yvette, raised three sons. He learned classical Arabic toward the end of his life and traveled to Lebanon with his uncle to see the country his parents had so fondly recollected. He died of cancer Aug. 18.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance writers based in Los Angeles.