The United States is doing a great deal; President Obama has pledged 100 million in U.S. support. But some of the outstanding contributions, per capita, have come from smaller countries. The island nation of Mauritius, for instance, has committed $500,000; Morocco $1,000,000 and Norway $866,551.
While many countries, companies, and celebrities have made extravagant pledges, it remains to be seen who will live up to their promises. While such generosity will no doubt be vital in the months ahead, perhaps most precious has been the support–including that of tiny countries–who were on the scene within a day of the catastrophe.
After all, in an emergency situation time is of the element. Rescuers who can act quickly and competently are to be prized.
Last Wednesday, in the earthquake’s immediate aftermath, the Icelandic search and rescue team, known as the Icelandic SAR team, had already begun preparations for transporting 10 tons of rescue equipment, 3 tons of water , tents, and equipment for telecommunications and cleaning water. On Thursday, the Icelanders saved three women from the ruins of a four-story building at the Caribbean Market in Port au Prince. They also worked to find survivors in the rubble of the Montana hotel in Port au Prince where the UN staff and their families were staying, and in the town of Leogane, located at the epicenter of the quake, where 80 to 90 percent of the buildings had been destroyed.
The Reykjavik City Council has also unanimously voted to donate to Haiti ISK 100 per inhabitant of Reykjavik, which is the capital of Iceland-amounting to 12 million Kronur, or $ 95,000 in U.S. dollars. There 120,000 people in Reykjavik, so the gift is roughly 80 cents per resident of Iceland. It sounds thrifty enough, but it works out to be more money, per capita, than even the U.S. has pledged.
Nor is Iceland the only small country with a big heart. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrived on the scene January 15, Friday, and immediately set up a field hospital. It includes 40 doctors, 25 nurses, paramedics, a pharmacy, a children’s ward, a radiology department, an intensive care unit, an emergency room, two operating rooms, a surgical department, an internal department and a maternity ward.
The Israel Defense Forces reported Thursday that 455 survivors of last week’s earthquake in Haiti have been treated at the IDF field hospital, and 152 operations have been successfully performed. Additionally, Columbian doctors have teamed with Israel’s to perform medical procedures there.
On Sunday night, a resident of Port-au-Prince gave birth to a boy at the Israeli field hospital. In honor of the country that helped her, his mother decided to name the baby “Israel.”
2 Comments
Great article. It’s the only one highlighting the role of the small unheralded truely democratic countries which hold human life as paramount.
Wonderful closing story. Abraham,Isaac and Jacob (G-d given name was Israel) would be proud.
Great article showing which countries are really making a difference in Haiti.
As for Iceland and Israel, there appears to be some close connections that have developed lately:
Grapevine: Iceland’s Israel Connection
By GREER FAY CASHMAN
SECURITY PERSONNEL at Beit Hanassi were somewhat taken aback last week when the attractive woman accompanying Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, the President of Iceland, said a cheery “Shalom” and “Boker Tov” to all and sundry.
The words were uttered without any trace of a foreign accent, and those who were not in the know scratched their heads in wonder, because the woman had an air about her which indicated that she was not an employee.
Indeed she wasn’t. She was the First Lady of Iceland, who happened to have been born in Jerusalem as Dorrit Moussaieff and raised until her early teens in the capital’s Bukharan Quarter.
Although being the first lady gives her a certain status, she is no novice to nobility, and has rubbed shoulders with some of the most important people in the world. Her family roots comprise generations of jewelers, and her father, Shlomo, is one of the world’s most famous collectors of Judaica, with precious objects dating back to the First Temple period.
He established the Moussaieff Center for Research in Kabbala at Bar Ilan University, to which he donated his grandfather’s collection of rare Kabbalistic manuscripts, along with a collection of rare books.
Shlomo Moussaieff, his Viennese-born wife Aliza and their three daughters moved to London in 1963 when Dorrit was 13. Having grown up in the jewelry business, which has at one stage or another been a source of income for all the branches of her family, it was natural for Dorrit Moussaieff to find her own forte in jewels, and for many years she dealt in rare stones. She was also engaged in refurnishing ancient British buildings and contributed articles to various publications, mostly periodicals that deal with the arts. She also contributed and continues to contribute to The Tatler.
Her first marriage, at a young age, to Jewish designer Neil Zarak was short-lived, and three decades passed before she found someone else with whom she was prepared to spend the rest of her life.
The man in question was a widower, who happened to be the President of Iceland. They got married in 2003 on his 60th birthday, after a three-year engagement. He has another Israel connection in that he was born on May 14, which is the Gregorian calendar date of the birth of the State.
Because Iceland’s First Lady still has a large number of relatives and friends in Israel including a sister who lives in Tel Aviv, she comes to Israel from time to time to catch up with people on a face-to-face basis.
A visit here in 2006 almost caused a diplomatic incident. Since she was a minor when she left Israel and spent most of her life in Britain, Moussaieff never thought about taking out an Israeli passport. As far as she was concerned, she was a British citizen and traveled the world on a British passport. She continued to use her British passport even after she became first lady of Iceland, and in May, 2006, was detained at Ben Gurion Airport by security personnel who refused to allow her entry on a British passport. Immigration officials told her that because she was an Israeli, she was obligated under Israeli law to enter the country on an Israeli passport.
There was a rather unpleasant exchange between Moussaieff and the bureaucrats, and the media somehow got hold of the story.
However the incident did not deter her from coming back.
Her most recent visit to Israel with her husband was a private one, but even on private visits presidents and prime ministers like to get together with their counterparts, and President Shimon Peres was quite happy to welcome them.
When Peres questioned Grimsson about the situation in Iceland, he replied: “It depends on whether you believe what you read” and quoted recent newspaper headlines such as “Iceland is Melting” and “Iceland on Fire.” When he saw some of the published stories about his own country, he said it made him wonder about the reliability of other reports.
http://forum.stirpes.net/scandinavia-english/21895-grapevine-icelands-israel-connection.html
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