Two Iraqi children treated in Israel for open heart surgery

Back in October, two Iraqi children were successfully treated in Israel for emergency open heart surgery, as part of an Israeli initiative to treat children from around the world who would otherwise not have access to such operations.

The 5-month-old girl and 11-year-old boy were selected from among 40 other Iraqi children during a one-day cardiology clinic held in Jordan earlier this week by the Israeli-based organization Save A Child's Heart(SACH).View an online image gallery of this news item

SACH has performed heart surgery on 35 Iraqi children and over 1700 children from 28 other countries since its inception in 1996. Nearly half of the children treated are Palestinians or residents of other Arab countries.

The children are treated at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon and are housed at the SACH Children's Home in Azur for the duration of their treatment.

Save A Child's Heart is an Israeli based, humanitarian organization and is one of the largest undertakings in the world providing urgently needed pediatric heart surgery and follow-up care for children from third world and developing countries.

All children, regardless of race, religion, sex, color, or financial consideration receive the best possible care that modern medicine has to offer. The entire surgical, intensive care, and nursing staff substantially volunteer their services and donate their time!

Editorial Comment
Israel makes up 0.1% of the world's population, it has no oil resources, and has been in an existential struggle for survival since its inception, threatened repeatedly by much larger surrounding Arab countries. And yet this humanitarian program, is one of the largest of its kind, with no comparable Arab program out there(despite hundreds of billions of dollars from oil revenue), and certainly no similar humanitarian program in the business of also saving Jewish children's hearts. Sadly, the approach in the Arab world is practically the opposite. Instead of humanitarian acts, demonization and indoctrinated hatred of Israel and Jews is too often common place across too much of the Arab world, where despot regimes and dysfunctional societies (see Yemen for example with 70% illiteracy amongst women), deflect the anger of their deprived masses by using Israel and the Jews as their scapegoat.

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