Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #3 Ukraine and Atlanta, 1997

(continued): Ukraine/Atlanta: January, 1997: Dr. Mark not only got the right Ukrainians lined up to make the trip—even on such short notice—but was also able to raise almost $7,500 in twenty-four hours to cover the airline tickets from Kiev to Atlanta. In addition to Dr. Ballantyne, we were able to secure Dr. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute, a prestigious, conservative think‑tank organization from Washington, D.C., and Mark Litow, a consulting actuary from Milliman and Robertson in Brookfield, Wisconsin. We are going to have a powerhouse symposium!

Dr. Mark was relentless on the phone, and I was tempted to buy some stock in AT&T as I watched his international telephone bill escalate. But everyone was amazingly available, and all the speaking participants were willing to come and charge no fee at all!

Friday, January 10

I arrived in Atlanta about 3:00 this afternoon and checked into the Sheraton Gateway Hotel. Before long the rest of the group began arriving. Our chosen group from the Ukraine includes Dr. Fedir G. Burchak, head of the Committee for Legislative Initiatives and the personal confidant of and legal advisor to the president of the Ukraine. Accompanying Dr. Burchak is his wife, Raisa, a very intelligent Ukrainian lady and editor for an encyclopedia company. Also attending the symposium are Dr. Alexander Korotko, the deputy minister of health for economic affairs, and Dr. V. G. Nicolaev from the R. E. Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology, and Radiobiology. He is also head of the academy of artificial organs and biomedical engineering as well as a member of the board of directors for the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Additionally, there are three Ukrainian translators.

The speakers for the symposium include Dr. Paul Ballantyne, head of the economics department of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Dr. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Mark Litow, consulting actuary for Milliman and Robertson in Wisconsin; Dr. Miguel Faria, editor of the Medical Sentinel and author of Vandals at the Gates of Medicine; and yours truly, Dr. James W. Jackson, representing Project C.U.R.E.

It is absolutely a miracle to have arranged for all these important people to get together in one place in the world. It is an even greater miracle to have gotten them all together on such short notice. Who would have dared to think it was possible.

Saturday, January 11

This morning we all met together and hit the ground running. Tape recorders were set up to capture the audio portion of the symposium.

Dr. Ballantyne had the responsibility of handling the first session of the symposium. His assignment was to explain the basic principles of economics in terms that can not only be understood but can also be conveyed to members of the Ukrainian Parliament. It will probably be the first time anyone has ever taken the time to explain the basic concepts of free-market capitalism to the Ukrainian delegation.

I was so confident of Dr. Ballantyne’s ability to share the simple, basic rudiments of economics that I found myself relaxing and thoroughly enjoying the presentation. He began by talking about wealth versus poverty and the importance of production factors like land, labor, capital, and the entrepreneur. He explained the gross domestic product (GDP) concept and asked why it is possible for the United States to produce $25,000 per person per year in output while the Ukraine produces only $1,600 per person per year. He went on to explain how the market system works as it does and how people benefit through voluntary exchanges.

He then explained the economic trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost and drew a graphic of the supply-demand curve, discussing how to determine “just the right price” for a commodity or service. Dr. Ballantyne, as usual, was nothing less than brilliant in his presentation. He has always had the ability to take complex concepts and make them extremely easy to understand and remember.

When Dr. Ballantyne finished laying the economic foundation for the free market system, Dr. Michael Tanner took over. He began to slowly build on the foundation Dr. Ballantyne had formed. I could see where he was going and chuckled inside. He methodically presented the concepts of health care as they relate to basic economics. He explained logically why long lines of people wait in the Ukraine to receive health care. He also showed with simple economic graphs why their system pushes people into criminal activities on the black market. He then presented the three necessary elements of a successful health-care delivery systems: (1) the recognition of the self‑interest factor, (2) the need for encouraging competition, and (3) the absolute necessity of including and honoring freedom of choice. He pleaded with them to allow into their new health-care system the right for patients to legally contract with the doctors of their choice so that there would be an accountable relationship established between the doctor and the patient rather than the doctor and the government, which would ultimately leave out the consideration of the patient. 

Dr. Tanner recommended the inclusion of three main elements in the new Ukrainian health-care system:

1. Ensure the right of contract between the patient and the doctor. 

2. Reform how payment is made (i.e., have the patient pay the doctor rather than having the government paying the doctor). 

3. Develop some rational formula for the people to purchase adequate health care.

By that time the Ukrainians were really beginning to understand the benefits of a free-market-system approach to health-care delivery. Dr. Tanner carefully explained the formula Va (actual value) and Vi (value to the individual) = C (cost). When both values (Va and Vi) are equal to the cost, the patient will purchase the optimal health care available. The Va (actual value) could be zero if the Vi (value to the individual) is equal to the cost. For example, if the doctor is very pretty, you may pay for the visit even if there is no actual medical value to you at all. The big problem is when the Va and Vi are greater than the cost, which encourages people to use too much health care. Then the people who really need the health care will be excluded because of the long waiting lines to see the doctor.

Dr. Tanner told them that when the formula for health care has to be reformed, there are really only three ways to do it:

1. The traditional way: The government intervenes and rations health care (e.g., “You can only see the doctor once a month.”) 

2. Managed care: The insurance company steps in and says, “You can only come in and see the doctor once a month.” 

3. Cost Increases: Take the control away from the government or the insurance company to arbitrarily increase the cost and allow the individual patient to pay with his or her own money for the cost of the service.

Several times the speakers cautioned the Ukrainians not to design their new health-care system after the current US system. The Ukrainians agreed. They had already proven that the centralized system of more government does not and cannot work over the long term. That’s why they are now demanding free-enterprise reform.

Dr. Tanner then patiently taught the group the concepts of insurance. The Ukrainians quickly agreed that they had been thinking of insurance as simply another way to prepay and finance their old centralized government system rather than seeing it as a way to spread out the risk among many people. The Ukraini­ans said they would have used insurance funds to cover known and routine problems rather than uncertain eventualities.

In recapping his session, Dr. Tanner encouraged the inclusion of four factors in the new re­form:

1. Link all the monies for payment of health care in some way to the patient. 

2. Allow patients the freedom to establish a contract with the doctor of their choice. 

3. For routine care and voluntary care, raise the cost of treatment and have the individual pay for part of it. 

4. Develop a private insurance market for spreading out the risk among a large number of people for high cost and nonroutine procedures.

By the time Drs. Ballantyne and Tanner were through with their first sessions, the concepts they had presented were making a world of dif­ference in the minds of the Ukrainian delegation. They began asking questions about the possibilities of including the creation of medical savings accounts for individuals and families. 

Next Week: Changing a nation's health care system. 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #2 Ukraine & Atlanta, 1997

(continued): Ukraine/Atlanta: January, 1997: As soon as Mark returned to the USA, he called me and we talked. Who could help us? How would we get everyone together? Where would the money come from to finance such a project? It was the holidays; would anyone be available to get together on such short notice?

Everything had to be finalized for presentation to the Ukrainian Parliament in about thirty days. Would it be feasible to bring a group of the top Ukrainian leaders to the US for a symposium? We would have to do a crash course for them in basic democratic, capitalistic, free-market economics and make sure they understood the concepts well enough to debate them on the floor of parliament. A majority of the members would have to understand and buy into a new paradigm of economic thinking. It is one thing to talk about freedom. It is quite another thing to allow the consequences of freedom to move in and upset cultural institutions that have been established for many years. No other republic of the old Soviet system has ever been so bold.

But even if the Ukrainians overcame the boldness factor, they were faced with the awesome reality of logistics and implementation.

As Mark and I talked, we began to get excited about the historic possibilities of such an undertaking. We both encouraged each other and caught ourselves saying, “Let’s go for it.” If we could help implement the free-market changes into Ukrainian medical law, perhaps we could use the model to influence other former Soviet republics.

I had personally met many of the ministers of health from other Eastern European and Central Asian countries. Maybe we could just roll an adopted Ukrainian medical-law package right over into the other republics. It suddenly became a challenge worthy of our focus and efforts. With God’s help we would “go for it.”

Mark got busy working with Edward Gluschenko in Kiev on choosing the appropriate Ukrainian leaders to bring to the US. A national board of directors meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) was to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, January 11–13, 1997. The board offered to let us utilize some of their conference space at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near the airport in Atlanta. They encouraged us in our efforts and pledged to assist in any way they could.

I got busy on the economists. We really needed at least one heavy hitter with the recognized economic credentials. Immediately a person came to my mind: Dr. Paul Ballantyne, head of the economics department at the University of Colorado (CU) in Colorado Springs. He was my economics professor for several graduate courses I had taken at CU in the early 1980s. I have found him to be a wonderfully devoted Christian gentleman, and we have developed a warm friendship over the years. He encouraged me to become part of the Colorado Council on Economic Education and furthermore had offered his advice and helped proof my original manuscript for my gold award winning book What’cha Gonna Do with What’cha Got?

Dr. Ballantyne is also a good friend with internationally famous Dr. Michael Novak, author of many economics books, including The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. He had introduced me to Dr. Novak at an economic conference held in Vail, Colorado, in the mid‑1980s. If Dr. Ballantyne wasn’t available for our meeting with the Ukrainians, perhaps he could persuade Michael Novak to have mercy on us.

I had lost Dr. Ballantyne’s home phone number, and the university was on Christmas break, so I contacted the folks at the Colorado Council on Economic Education and finally weaseled the number out of them. When I reached Dr. Ballantyne, he and his wife were just on their way out the door to spend Christmas with their son and his family. I barely caught him.

In as short a time as possible, I tried to tell him about my involvement with the Ukraine and about Project C.U.R.E.’s humanitarian, spiritual, and economic mission. He quietly listened as I painted the picture of how I terribly and undeservedly needed his help, even though I knew there was really no reason for me to be optimistic about his assistance. I explained how I needed a real expert who could quickly and convincingly present the fundamentals of Adam Smith and free-market economics to a bunch of ex‑Marxists who are desiring to reform their health-care system.

When I shut up, he nearly knocked the phone out of my hand with his reply: “Jim, how very interesting that you would call. I have thought of you many times and wondered if you are still working with the Brazilian government on their debt repayments. Let me quickly bring you up to date on what I have been doing in addition to my work at the University of Colorado. I have been teaching free-market, democratic capitalism courses at Sumy State University in the Ukraine. In fact, my wife has been accompanying me and teaching English courses at the university using the Bible as her English textbook. We’ve had some absolutely wonderful opportunities to witness for Christ, and one family over there has adopted us and made us the godparents of their children.

“I would be pleased to help you in your efforts to aid the Ukraine, and I have the dates of January 9–12 open and available between my CU class schedule. Now I’d better run, or I’ll miss my plane to celebrate Christmas with my son and his family. Here’s my son’s phone number; let’s talk about the details.”

I hung up the phone and cried.

Continued Next Week: Historic Conference in Atlanta

© Dr. James W. Jackson

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #1 Ukraine 1997

(Note: These following Journal entries represent one of the finest episodes of the early life of Project C.U.R.E. We happened to be at the right place at the right time to providentially influence the scope and sequence of change in the health care delivery system in the country of Ukraine. Later, those seeds of change lapped over to influence change in other countries of the old Soviet Federation. My heart is again warmed as I share these journal entries with you. JWJ).

Ukraine: January 10, 1997:

Earlier in these writings, I chronicled the details of our involvement in the remarkable republic of Ukraine that had been a part of the former Soviet Union. Project C.U.R.E. had shipped literally millions of dollars’ worth of medical supplies to the cities of Vinnitsa and Kiev, Ukraine. In fact, Project C.U.R.E. had donated and shipped over eighteen tons of medical library books to the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University in Vinnitsa. The institution can now boast of having the finest English-language medical library in all of Eastern Europe.

I had the opportunity of meeting many of the high-ranking government officials in the Ukraine and toured a high percentage of their medical facilities while conducting our Needs Assessment Studies.

I returned to the old Soviet Union and the Ukraine in September of 1996, accompanied by Dr. Brian McMurray, Dr. Mark Johnson, and several other wonderful people from the Nashville, Tennessee, area. The trip was very successful, and Project C.U.R.E. followed up the visit by sending another approximately $750,000 worth of desperately needed supplies to the Ukrainian hospitals. I thoroughly enjoyed being with Dr. Brian McMurray. He and his wife became Christians only about a year prior to our trip. His high energy level and enthusiasm for doing something for God and helping the needy people in the Ukraine was contagious. It was refreshing to just be around him and watch his excitement focused on the medical needs of Vinnitsa.

But I was equally impressed with the young Dr. Mark Johnson. He was in his mid-thirties and had already gained a great deal of respect in the medical community as a urologist. It was Mark’s first venture away from the sophisticated hospitals of Nashville and the Vanderbilt medical community.

I will never forget as long as I live Dr. Mark’s first encounter with the university people the day he arrived in Vinnitsa. He had procured and taken along with him some state-of-the-art urology probes and scopes for bladder, prostate, and kidney procedures. His intent was to train the medical-university surgeons and professors in advanced urology techniques and then leave the high‑tech instruments with them. They would be the first in the whole area of the old Soviet Union to be trained in how to use the equipment and perform the procedures.

When Dr. Mark arrived to meet with the department leaders at the university, he discovered that there was no interpreter to translate the doctors’ Russian into English or his English into Russian. But true to his young American ingenuity, Dr. Mark never let the mishap throw him off beat for one minute. He simply unpacked all his urology equipment and medications, pulled out a large piece of clean paper, and began to draw pictures for the university doctors. After he had completed his masterpiece on the human anatomy, he began writing labels in English on all the appropriate body parts. When finished, he pushed the pictures over to the Ukrainians and motioned for them to label all the pictures in Russian. Next, they practiced saying the names of the body parts in both English and Russian. Equipped with pictures, urology instruments, and the names of body parts, Dr. Mark then proceeded to explain and illustrate the use of the new probes and scopes.

The Ukrainians were absolutely delighted, especially when they realized that Dr. Mark had brought all the equipment for them to keep and use.

After Dr. Mark had spent the entire day with the Ukrainian doctors, they took him to dinner to celebrate their new friendship. Fortunately, by that time the interpreter had caught up with them, and things went a lot easier. At dinner, with the aid of the interpreter, Dr. Mark gave the Ukrainian doctors an explanation of why he had come all the way from America to be with them. He explained what Jesus Christ had done in his life and how he had changed the lives of his entire family and their lifestyle. Now he was there to share Christ’s love and concern with them. 

The doctors arranged for Dr. Mark to operate on some of their patients the next morning. He was able to demonstrate the urology equipment and explain the latest medical procedures. I went into the operating room while Dr. Mark was doing the procedures. They had given him Russian operating scrubs and a tall stovepipe baker’s hat worn by the surgeons. I must admit, it was one of the proudest days of my life with Project C.U.R.E. What was taking place halfway around the world from Denver, Colorado, and Nashville, Tennessee, had to be making God smile.

The day after Thanksgiving, Dr. Mark Johnson and Dr. Brian McMurray went back to Vinnitsa and held free clinics at a Russian Orthodox church, a Pentecostal church, and several of the Baptist churches in the area. On that trip they each took with them their eleven- and twelve‑year‑old daughters. Their entire families were now locked into sharing the love of God through medicine with people they had never even known existed two years before.

While returning to the airport in Kiev for the flight back to the USA, Dr. Mark asked Edward Gluschenko, our English-speaking liaison in Ukraine, what we could do for them that would be uniquely helpful. Edward explained that the Ukrainian legislature was in the process of determining the direction of the health-care industry in their new republic. In the past, Ukrainian medical philosophies and practices had been sternly dictated by the Soviet designers in Moscow, as in all the other republics. Ukraine’s health-care delivery system was rigidly centralized. Doctors and other medical personnel were simply workers of the state assigned to take care of the sick people of the Soviet Union. There was no invitation for creativity and no tolerance for deviation from mandated procedures.

Now, with the collapse of the Soviet regime, Ukraine was facing a historic opportunity for change. Now was the time to change the philosophical direction of health care for the first time ever. Edward explained to Mark the desire to take full advantage of the fortuitous timing and build into the new system some basic cornerstones of free market, non-centralized medicine. The new laws were to be voted on by parliament in late January or early February of 1997. Those new laws would set the direction for the future of the medical profession.

The only problem was that no one in the Ukraine knew enough about free-enterprise economics to even begin to formulate the concepts, let alone articulate in a written proposal to the legislature the articles expected to be voted into the new law of the land. Edward asked if Dr. Mark might know of anyone who might be able to help them at this juncture.

Continued Next Week: A Bold and Crazy Plan

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #8, June 2002

Thursday, June 13th

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: At about 3:45 Thursday morning I woke up to the cleric’s call to prayer from the Muslim mosque. When I heard it, I started chuckling out loud. The episode that was playing through my head was another Muslim cleric wailing another early morning call to prayer. It was in the village of Diorbivol out in the Saharan Desert along the Senegalese River in the West African country of Senegal. I was laying on a woven straw mat listening to the call to prayer. Just on the other side of a fence from me was a scrawny rooster who had given up trying to wake up the sun and had gone to mimicking the cleric on the top of the tower with the loudspeaker. Perhaps it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. 

Thursday morning I wasn’t in Senegal. I was in Ramallah, West Bank. I couldn’t help laughing. Part of the laugh was from recalling the psychotic old rooster, the other part from the unspeakable joy I felt knowing that the tanks were leaving Ramallah, meaning I would be free to leave. 

We called a taxi and even before breakfast, Mohamed and I made our way through the torn up streets of the city to the ministry of health for the Palestinian Authority. The taxi driver had to make a number of different attempts and detours to finally get us to the right building, but we made it in spite of the leftover roadblocks. 

We had an exceptional meeting with the minister of health. I explained how pleased I was to have made the connection with Red Crescent, who would see to it that our medical goods made it into West Bank without all the problems we had previously encountered. 

The minister of health listened and asked a few questions about our previous experience in West Bank, Gaza, and Beirut, Lebanon. Then he said, “Look, I am really sorry that you had problems before. But, I guarantee you will not have any problems this time. Here is a list of the items that we desperately need in our small hospitals and clinics throughout the West Bank regions. Everything that Red Crescent brings in has to go through me right here in this office.” 

“Let me see if I am hearing you correctly,” I responded. “If I worked directly with you I could shortcut the whole process and not have to ship the donations in through Jordan? And you will guarantee safe passage and delivery to the hospitals we designate?” 

“That’s right,” he assured me. 

“If that’s the case,” I added, “then I’m sure we can help fill the list of your needs for the smaller hospitals and rural clinics as well.” 

Our time was getting very short. Mohamed, realizing that I had to get to Tel Aviv to catch my flight that evening, had decided that we could make one more set of assessments on our way. He had called Jerusalem and told them we would meet with the Palestinian Charitable Society at two o’clock. 

Mohamed’s brother-in-law took us down to the center of Ramallah where the taxi vans all gathered. We found a taxi that would take us to the military checkpoint at the edge of West Bank.

We were dropped off and checked by three groups of Israeli guards. We were cleared quickly when we showed them our US passports. We then walked about the length of two blocks through the concrete barricades over to the Israeli zone. Once on the other side we scrambled for a taxi with a yellow license plate, which would be authorized to take us into Jerusalem. 

Once inside the city we met up with Mohamed’s uncle who took us to the Arab section for our meetings with the Palestinian Charitable Society. There were several clinics that offered free medical services to hardship cases in the eastern section of Jerusalem and the outlying Arab communities. 

My suggestion to them was to work directly with the health minister in West Bank and with Mohamed as to the logistics of getting the needed supplies from Project C.U.R.E. delivered to the correct recipients. 

When we were finished with the needs assessments in Jerusalem I was escorted through the narrow streets of the old city and shown all the traditional sites including the Church of the Sepulcher, the Via Delarosa, the Dome of the Rock, the Mount of Olives, and the Jewish Wailing Wall.

We ended up on a very narrow street with high stonewalls on either side. We paused in front of a small metal door easily unnoticed if it were not familiar to you. Mohamed’s uncle reached into his pocket and retrieved a key and unlocked the small door. I was ushered in and to my surprise there were six additional doors waiting on the inside of the wall. The small homes within the old walls of Jerusalem were over 500 years old and presently occupied. The uncle and his wife lived in one of the units three days a week; the other four days they stayed in Ramallah. 

I was served another cup of strong Arab tea and we sat out in a little porch area inside the old wall. I let my imagination run the gamut wishing the old walls of Jerusalem could reveal to me their secret stories of days gone by. 

It was time for me to leave for Tel Aviv and the Ben Gureon Airport. Mohamed’s uncle used his cell phone and called a family friend who owned a taxi. We walked from the narrow streets to a parking lot near the old Wailing Wall. The taxi had the correct registration numbers allowing its movement out of Jerusalem and into Tel Aviv. There on the street corner in old Jerusalem I said goodbye to some newfound friends from the Palestinian corner of the world. 

As I flew Air Canada flight #887 back to Toronto and then on home to Denver, I had some time to reflect on where I had been and what Project C.U.R.E. was becoming. Not many people had had the opportunities afforded to me. I had been able to get acquainted and live with people in their own environment and culture, not as a tourist or stranger, but as a friend. It had been from that position that I could feel and observe their hopes, their disappointments, their anger, their concerns for their families, their beliefs, their religious practices, as well as their love for me. I had greatly valued the privileges of my life. 

I was sure I should have been able to come up with something really intelligent to say about the Middle East’s historical situation since I had now been intimately involved in it for over 15 years. The truth was I didn’t know what to think. I had cataloged a lot of observations, read a lot of background material, tried to stay current on the present happenings, and asked a lot of people for their opinions. I had no assurance at all that there would be any satisfactory arrangement until the end of times. I couldn’t help but wonder as I was making my way back home if we were not already a part of those end times. 

But, above and beyond all that, it had been a rich experience to be able to share help and hope with countless numbers of people who needed to see the everyday working out of God’s love in a real world. What an outstanding privilege!

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #7 from June, 2002

Tuesday, June 11

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: At 3:45 a.m. the Muslim holy man would usually mount the prayer tower at the local mosque and sing out his call to prayer. When there was no call to prayer, I knew that Tuesday was going to be another troublesome day.

How could he give a call to prayer?  How would anyone respond and go to the mosque for early prayers if they couldn’t leave their houses? The tanks and soldiers still held Ramallah under siege.

There was no way to get to the e-mail store. Besides, there would be no one there anyway. I kept trying to reach Anna Marie by telephone. Finally I was able to contact her and assure her that I was all right even though the situation was quite tense.

Tuesday was a frustrating repeat of Monday. Nothing moved outside. No dogs barked, no voices of children, no honking of horns … only the sounds of shelling and tanks and helicopters.

About sundown the loudspeakers announced that the curfew would soon be lifted so that people could go out and get food and more water. Everyone waited but the announcement of the lifted curfew never came. It would mean another long night.

The electricity was returned, and the local television news reported that a large number of Ramallah residents had been taken captive and arrested. It apparently had been a very well planned operation to extract known terrorists. Until they got the ones after whom they had come, they would simply stay. They were obviously in no hurry to leave.

While we were just sitting inside the house waiting for something to happen and hoping that nothing would happen, I had lots of time to talk to Mohamed about what he felt it would take to bring peace and why Arafat had rejected the peace initiative of Israeli Prime Minister Barak. One of the underlying contentions held by the Palestinians was that the United Nations had no jurisdiction in the first place to disenfranchise the Palestinians and allow the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. So, the state should be dissolved and the land should revert back to the rightful Palestinian owners, who were now displaced refugees, and reparations should be paid for the past grievances.

Over the hours we had some pretty frank and insightful discussions. Meanwhile, outside there was no confusion as to who was in charge.

Wednesday, June 12

No wake-up call to early prayer by the holy man on the tower at the mosque. It was not a good sign. I jumped out of bed to see tanks still in the streets. After showering and dressing, I went to the room where Mohamed was sitting and joined him in a cup of real strong tea.

“Well,” Mohamed said with an uncertainty in his voice that questioned his own statement, “they have announced that they will lift the curfew this morning from 8 to 11 a.m. for the people to go out and buy bread and get fresh water. But the checkpoints are not allowing any delivery trucks into West Bank or particularly Ramallah, so there will not be anything for sale that is fresh anyway.”

Mohamed’s brother-in-law had agreed to come by and pick us up in his car. He wanted to go as quickly as possible to the center of Ramallah to see if anything had happened to his business during all the shelling. It would give us a good chance to see what had taken place the first three nights and two days of the siege.

It seemed to me that everyone wanted to go downtown to check on their businesses. By 9 a.m., everyone was trying to make it through the central roundabout. The army tanks had not worried much about going around the roundabout, just up and over it.

The streets were a scarred mess and the sidewalks and curbs broken. Lots of cars were smashed with tank track marks over their hoods or right up over the center of the car. Most of the side streets were blocked off with huge mounds of dirt and rocks, which had been dumped sometime within the past 60 hours. We stopped at the outdoor market, which had been quickly assembled, and bought some stale bread.

Mohamed’s brother-in-law’s business had escaped any damage, but an entire two-story building close by had been blown up and burned. “They claim al Qaeda terrorists were hiding in there and were using the building to store explosives and weapons.”

One of the saddest things happened as we passed Mohamed’s old high school. On Saturday he had pointed it out with pride and told me stories of when he had attended. Wednesday morning the walled fence had been broken down and the school lot was full of tanks and personnel carriers. “Look at that. That’s where we used to play soccer when we were boys in Ramallah. Now it’s a parking lot for the Israeli army!”

But as I listened even during the highly charged emotions of the day, I never heard any remorse for the suicide bombings or condemnation of Hamas, al Qaeda, Islamic jihad, or other terrorist groups. Rather, many referred to them as the “underground resistance” groups for the ultimate freeing of the Palestinians.

Eleven o’clock came all too quickly. We had made it home safely with a little time to spare. But some cars were still speeding back to their places of safety as the shelling started up again.

Our conversation Wednesday took a little turn. We had faced the fact earlier that we would have to scrub the idea of visiting Jenin, Nablus, or even Bethlehem. Now the problem was: “How would I catch my flight back to Toronto and on to Denver when I was in a virtual lock down in Ramallah?” We had come to the conclusion that if the tanks were not moved out and the curfew not lifted so I could freely get back to Tel Aviv by Thursday morning, then we would call the US embassy in Tel Aviv and have them come and escort me out of the West Bank.

Later Wednesday afternoon Mohamed called the minister of health’s office and asked if we could have an early meeting on Thursday morning if by any chance the curfew were to be lifted. The minister agreed. 

Next Week: Out of West Bank and into Jerusalem

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #6 Israel 2002

Monday, June 10
 

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: I guess my e-mail to Anna Marie was a little premature and positive. About 2 a.m. I stirred a bit in my bed. In a state of being mostly asleep my mind was trying to reconcile the strange noises with where I was sleeping. I was always in so many different places and so many different hotels and so many different beds that in the twilight of consciousness I had to really concentrate on where I was at that given time.

It seemed to me that I was in an old hotel room somewhere and the steam pipes to the heat register were going “bang-glub, glub, bam, bam, pock, pock, bang.” That was my murky mind trying to determine what it was that I was hearing. I had just recently been in Tbilisi, Georgia, and was thinking, “Why don’t these old Soviets ever fix their steam heaters?”

Then, suddenly, I was totally awake and up on both elbows. What I was hearing was definitely not steam banging in the pipes of some rust-riddled hotel. I was hearing cannon fire and shots from some very big caliber guns.

I jumped out of bed and opened my window to the darkness. The roar of the engines of armored military machines flooded into my room. I could see the silhouettes of men standing on their garden walls and porches atop their houses trying to see what was going on. As I watched, I saw that the streets of Ramallah had suddenly filled up with tanks and armored personnel carriers. They moved quite quickly, seemingly in groups of four units. First in line would come a very large, wide-tracked, Israeli-made tank. They handily fit within the curbs of some of the streets. When they came to a roundabout or sharp corner they would simply rev up the engines and roll over anything in their way. 

Not being too familiar with tanks, I couldn’t tell you the model or the caliber of the rotating cannon on the top, but it was huge. Following the large tank were two armored personnel carriers. They had small machine guns mounted on the front and on the very back was a vertical door where the troops entered and exited.

Behind the tracked personnel carriers was a smaller, more conventional tank. Those tanks had a large movable gun at center-top and smaller, mortar-type guns and machine guns mounted at various spots. As they sped along, I could hear their cleated tracks tearing into the asphalt and chewing up the curbs and sidewalks.

I was so fascinated with their proceedings into the city that I just stayed glued to my open window watching and listening and smelling the spent powder from the continual volleys of large and small gunfire. Overhead, guarding the entire entry were large attack helicopters, which would randomly open fire at some pre-planned target.

About 4:15 a.m. all the lights in the city went out. Then, all that could be seen were the headlights and spotlights from the crawling machines and whining helicopters. The shooting increased continuously and it seemed that the shots were coming from all different directions at one time. The tanks were pretty much deployed to nearly every intersection.

Ramallah was built on a series of small mountains and valleys, which made it difficult to follow the lights of any set of tanks. Even though the tanks seemed to have an assigned intersection or area, they didn’t stay in one place very long, but instead, kept moving back and forth on the streets.

Ramallah was not my first visit to a city that was under military siege. But, the awesomeness of the incredible show of force was enough to send a shiver up my spine every once in a while. And I couldn’t help thinking about all the shots that were being continually fired. Where were the stray or ricochet bullets or bombs going? Even if a shell were shot straight up in the air it had to come down somewhere.

Another thought dancing in my head as I stood at the window was the irony of Anna Marie and me being such friends with many Israelis and actually serving on the board of the Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tel Aviv and now, I was in the West Bank trying to take help and hope to the hurting Palestinians. Meanwhile I had gotten caught right in the middle of the crossfire of history. I could only pray that I had not bumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Many times before the Israelis, I had been told, would blitz into a West Bank or Gaza city, grab the person or persons they were after and be gone by 8:30 the next morning. I felt certain that by the time I had showered and taken a cup of hot tea out on the patio under the lemon trees that things would be back to normal and we would simply carry on with our scheduled appointments in the cities of Jerusalem and Nablus. But the tanks never left and the shooting was increasing, not decreasing.

Israeli trucks crossed the streets using bullhorns to announce a total curfew. No one was to move; no one was to leave their house even for emergencies, giving birth to babies, or keeping medical appointments. The city was under total lockdown.

The hours of the day dragged on. The electricity was restored for a while but by nightfall all was dark again. 

The Jodeh family just looked at each other communicating fear and anger, and concern for other members of their family and their business dealings. When the electricity was on they gathered around the television set to learn as much as they could about what was going on. There was more coverage on the local Ramallah or Nablus stations, but, of course, the reports were in Arabic and I had to depend on Mohamed passing on any new information to me.

Monday evening Mohamed and I sat on the front veranda

and enjoyed the cool breeze after the scorching hot day. We watched as the Israeli troops were deployed to certain blocks. None of the soldiers worked alone. They were going door to door. Their walk, with their automatic weapons brandished, seemed to say, “We told you to stop the suicide bombing of innocent Israeli citizens and you did not. We told you and gave you sufficient time to rout out the known terrorists from your towns and you wouldn’t. So, now, we are here to do the job you wouldn’t do. Don’t underestimate our determination.”

The soldiers never knocked or rang the bell. They walked to the door and use the butt of their gun to pound on the door. If no one answered they would affix an explosive device on the knob or lock and take cover behind a wall or tree or another building. Soon the device would detonate and blow the door open and the soldiers would enter, sometimes shooting.

The soldiers were also deployed to barricade certain streets. We watched as they used trash dumpsters, stones, pieces of fencing, tree stumps, or anything else they could get their hands on to block the streets. Usually, three soldiers would sling their guns on their backs and work while one soldier crouched in a shooting position to protect them.

Monday night I went to sleep listening to a cacophony of gunfire. Perhaps, overnight, they would pull out.

Next Week: When will all this be over? 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #5 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: There were a few Palestinian police stationed outside the military complex in half-destroyed, forty-foot shipping containers, which they had tried to make into guard shacks. We drove right in as the guards waived us through. 

As I climbed out of the car, I was struck by the awesome thoroughness of the destruction of the entire facility. The preventative security palace had been completed in 2000 with the help of millions of dollars of donations from the other Arab states. It was really the pride of Arafat and the entire Palestinian Authority. It had represented military and intelligence sophistication fitting a new Arab country, even if they were not yet recognized as such.

We walked around the large, four-floored main building. It had been a magnificent facility with fine architectural appointments. Carved marble eagles had been perched on spheres representing the world and adorned the grand glass and marble entrance to the main building. Now, everything was blown to bits. The domed glass roof on the entry atrium was mostly on the marble floor with a few remaining pieces dangling precariously from the original framework overhead.

Israeli tanks had encircled the facility and meticulously aimed their cannons at every strategic inch of the building while attack helicopters fired rockets from above.

We walked through the rubble and broken glass and marble right into the main part of the complex. Desks, office equipment, a newly framed oil painting of Arafat … all lay in ruins on the floors. Nothing in the building had been older than two years. Now everything lay in burned heaps of charred rubble.

We made our way cautiously to the grand marble stairway to the upper floors being careful not to accidentally step on any unexploded rockets or bombs. I reached down and turned over the tail fin of a high-tech “smart bomb” with all the burned wires still dangling.

The main intelligence department had been located in one corner in the upper floor. As we approached that area the texture of the ash and rubble changed. I don’t know what kind of incendiary missiles must have been shot through the thick walls of the building and into the intelligence headquarters. But the heat that was created must have been exceptional. Where the banks of computers and high-tech equipment once sat there was absolutely nothing. On the floor, however, was about six inches of very fine white ash, the only remains of the department’s contents. It was my understanding that the Israeli forces had notified the Palestinians to evacuate the buildings before the strike so that there would not be intentional loss of life.

Outside, and behind the complex, stood the remains of Arafat’s armed security vehicles. They were just like President George Bush’s armored Chevy Suburban SUVs. Bush’s were black, Arafat’s had been white. Systematically, the tanks and helicopters had blown up or totally disabled the fleet of prized vehicles. I would guess that about 100 vehicles had been destroyed. 

It was getting dark on Saturday night as we left the preventative security palace, and Mohamed’s uncle returned us to the old home place of the Jodeh family in Ramallah. It had been an incredible day of learning and emotion. The Middle East tensions and conflicts had gone on for centuries. Today, they remained complex and very serious, perhaps more complex and serious than ever before in history. There was no question that it was a literal life and death struggle.

Sunday, June 9

The Jodeh family had lived at the same location in Ramallah for over 50 years. Mohamed had grown up at the same address and had attended the local Arab schools. In subsequent years, most of the children had moved away. However, just a few years ago three of the sons decided to pay to have the family home enlarged so that they could eventually move back home. On top of the old original structure, which had been constructed of native Holy Land white stone, they built three additional levels. Each level contained a residence for each son. Mohamed’s mother was still alive; one of the single daughters now lived with and assisted her.

On the south side of the old home were two lots about one-third acre each. About fifty years earlier Mohamed’s father had started planting fruit trees and grapes on the two lots. Over the years the trees had matured and enlarged into quite an outstanding orchard and garden.

Before going to bed Saturday night, Mohamed asked me if I would like to get up early Sunday morning and tour the garden. Sunday morning, just as the sun was coming up we were out picking plums, apricots, almonds, figs, lemons and two different kinds of berries, which were growing on trees instead of prickly bushes. The grapes, pomegranates, and apples were not quite ripe but there were plenty of chickpeas to pull up and take to the house.

When we were finished, we sat under the shade of a beautiful lemon tree located on the patio and enjoyed a cool breeze and a cup of hot espresso coffee. It was difficult to believe that I was sitting so peacefully within the heart of one of the most explosive and strife-torn regions of the world.

Our first appointment Sunday morning was at the Red Crescent headquarters building. As we traveled by taxi across Ramallah we once again saw scores of automobiles lining the streets that had been run over by the Israeli tanks. The rules were that if an Arab car was left on the street and impeded the destination of an Israeli tank or tracked personnel carrier, the Army vehicle simply would run over the top of the vehicle. Once destroyed the vehicles were worth nothing, so they were left along the streets or pushed off onto a vacant lot.

Red Crescent’s headquarters were situated in an adequate three-story building, completely surrounded by white ambulances with the organization’s logo, a bright Red Crescent moon, on each side.

The director general, Feyeq Hussein, warmly welcomed us into his office. He had been a schoolmate with Mohamed. I explained that Project C.U.R.E. had worked closely with Red Crescent in Iraq, Senegal, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, and other Muslim countries around the world. The director general told me that he was already familiar with the fine work of Project C.U.R.E. and understood that we worked with Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and others on a non-political basis. I assured him that our interest was in taking help and hope to the medically needy all over the world.

I went on to explain that in the past I had been disappointed that we had met with difficulty when we tried to deliver donated medical goods into Lebanon, West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

“I sincerely apologize to you for any occasion where your efforts were hampered when trying to deliver needed goods to the Arab communities.”

“Well, Mr. Hussein,” I shared, “I really need your help in order to successfully deliver Project C.U.R.E.’s donated medical goods into West Bank. Will you help me?”

“I will not only help you, I will guarantee that you will no longer have problems even if we have to ship the goods in through ports in Jordan instead of Israel and truck the containers to Ramallah with our own vehicles,” he replied.

We talked about the desperate needs experienced by the small hospitals and clinics in West Bank. I told him that we would like to specifically donate some of the goods to the places where we had already finished the needs assessment studies, but in the future Project C.U.R.E. would also be happy to consider donating medical supplies additionally to Red Crescent. We had tea together, and Mohamed and I left with the assurance that it was now possible for our goods to arrive in Ramallah unhindered.

The rest of the day was filled with more meetings and about 9 p.m. we were driven to the lovely home of Mohamed’s brother-in-law and sister, where we ate an absolutely incredible dinner meal of rack of lamb, rice, cooked vegetables, and desserts. Of course, you will never find any alcohol in the home of a Muslim and when one of the five daily prayer times roll around, you stop doing whatever you were doing while they get out their prayer rugs, face Mecca, and pray with their foreheads on the ground.

Following dinner Mohamed walked with me to a cyber shop where I paid to get on the Internet and send an e-mail home to Anna Marie letting her know that everything seemed very peaceful in Ramallah, West Bank.

My message was premature and way wrong!

Next Week: This isn’t Tbilisi, Georgia 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #4 June 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: Our next meeting proved to be quite interesting. There were four different officials representing different groups or municipalities needing medical supplies. Dr. Mofleh Nadi of the Palestine Arab Front also represented the Palestinian National Authority’s ministry of local governments. He explained how the regional hospital of Joresh was desperately in need of everything from examination tables to forceps to autoclaves for sterilization. I told him I believed we could help him. He then presented me with a handwritten list of the most urgently needed items for his region.

Ibtisam Zeidan was a middle-aged Arab woman who attended our meeting. Somehow she had been able to obtain an American passport in the past and had spent some time in the Ohio area. She was telling me how she had also learned Hebrew and that by showing the Israeli guards her American passport and speaking the Jewish language, she was able to move about the West Bank quite freely.

Ibtisam represented the Palestinian Women’s Committee. It was really quite interesting to talk to her about what her committee was doing to influence the Arab women in the old occupied areas.

When we left that meeting Mohamed’s uncle drove us straight to Arafat’s Palestinian government headquarters compound. Mohamed’s uncle had been born in Ramallah, and since he knew nearly everyone, we just drove right through all the checkpoints and stopped very close to Arafat’s main residence building.

Just two nights earlier, in retaliation for the suicide bus-bombing incident, the Israeli tanks, attack helicopters, and troops had converged again on Arafat’s compound knowing that he was sleeping there. The devastation that had occurred just two nights earlier was just amazing. This raid wiped out several large buildings on and near the compound that had escaped destruction during the March and April retaliatory raids by the Israelis. 

The landscape looked like an earthquake had hit and leveled the area. There was not a lot of difference between what I was looking at and the flattened and demolished buildings I had viewed just weeks earlier at the epicenter of the super earthquake which had hit northwest India in Gujarat state.

There was still the fresh smell of burned gunpowder and spent explosives. It reminded me of sitting near the firing pit at a July 4th fireworks extravaganza and smelling the residue of the cannon-fired jumbo sparklers.

As we got out of the car I carried my camera in plain view and began snapping pictures. No one bothered me. I strolled right up to where the Palestinian Authority’s uniformed guards were probing around in the rubble. Scores of Palestinian Authority vehicles sat burned out or run over by Israeli tanks. I had definitely entered a war zone.

I continued to be amazed that no one seemed to be concerned that I was taking pictures and freely walking around inside the bombed-out executive compound.

Two of the main buildings were joined at the second level by an enclosed bridge way. From that bridge way there was a great view of the entire compound and of the lower end of Ramallah. That was where Arafat’s formal dining room was located. That was where he hosted the Arab country leaders when they visited. That was where Arafat held most of his interviews with BBC and CNN.

But the tanks had rumbled into the compound and successfully blown huge holes right through the middle of the swank bridge way. Mohamed’s uncle asked if I wanted to try to get an interview with Arafat. He was just inside the landing of the main building, no more than a hundred feet away from me conducting other press interviews. I declined the uncle’s suggestion saying that I did not think it appropriate nor did I feel comfortable with requesting an audience at such a tense time. 

I walked on continuing to take pictures. There were two Palestinian bulldozers trying to push around the rubble and broken buildings and clean up the mess from the previous nights.

I was just in the middle of trying to count the demolished vehicles inside and outside Arafat’s compound when Mohamed reminded me that we were about late for our next appointment.

I had not remembered from my previous visits to the West Bank that Ramallah was as large as it was. Well over 500,000 people lived there. Many of the residents traveled out of the city and out of West Bank to work every day in the Israeli areas. The Palestinians didn’t really have much industry or employment of their own. Their economics were dangerously dependent on the Israeli economy. Likewise, the Jewish economy depended heavily on the Arabs for laborers.

When we finished our other appointments, we stopped by the headquarters of Red Crescent, the Muslims’ counterpart to the West’s Red Cross. There we registered our confirmation for our meeting with the director general for the next morning.

Apparently, my interest in photographing the remains of Arafat’s governmental compound caught the attention of Mohamed’s uncle who was driving us around Ramallah. “How would you like to go look at Arafat’s preventative security palace, which the Israeli army destroyed about 60 days ago? I think I can drive there.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I would very much like to go and see it. Are you sure you can get me in to see it? Isn’t that where the elite Palestinian guards and intelligence forces are stationed?”

“Yes,” Mohamed’s uncle answered, “but no one is even there anymore. It is completely destroyed.”

Next Week: The Arab’s Preventative Security Palace in ashes 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #3 from June 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: The bus had barely stopped burning when Sharon retaliated by sending in Israeli attack helicopters and tanks into the suicide bomber’s hometown of Jenin and into Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah. Earlier, the Israelis had devastated the headquarters compound of Yasser Arafat, but the soldiers found plenty of new targets to blow up, including shooting high-caliber shells into where Arafat slept and ate. The exercise was not intended to kill or capture Arafat but the message was once again made very clear that if Arafat could not control the violence of his people against Israel then the Israelis would once again come in and capture and punish the terrorist perpetrators.

In fact, just the day before the bus bombing, George Tenet, the head of the US CIA had told Arafat that if he did not prevent attacks, he would stand alone in facing Israeli reprisals, an apparent threat that the United States would give Sharon a freer hand in retaliating.

Well, that was the Ramallah and West Bank into which I entered to do the needs assessment studies on Friday, June 7, 2002.

Our taxi van took Mohamed and me to the front gate of the Jodeh family home. It was a handsome, four-storied structure made of traditional, native, tan, Holy Land stone. The parents had lived on the main floor, and then in subsequent years they built three more floors hoping to accommodate three additional sons and their wives when they retired and moved back to Ramallah.

The Jodeh home was built on a hillside. Directly up the hill and across the street, Arafat had built his Palestinian Authority Hospital. Arafat’s government headquarters compound, the fancy new preventative security palace (housing his elite security forces and new intelligence technology), and the new hospital were the three symbols of pride and joy for the strutting Palestinian authority. They were badges of identity. 

After a fine Arab dinner, it was time to actually lie down and try to sleep after the two straight days and nights of constant travel.

Saturday, June 8

Mohamed had done an excellent job of setting our itinerary for the days of my visit. We would spend Saturday and Sunday in Ramallah. Monday we would travel to Jerusalem and possibly Bethlehem and perform needs assessments and meet key Palestinian health officials. Tuesday we would travel to Nablus in the north. Wednesday would be spent in the hotbed of most recent radicalism, the town of Jenin, then, back to Jerusalem for meetings before taking a taxi from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv for the midnight flight back to Toronto.

Our first meeting Sunday morning was with Friends of Patients Rehabilitation and Therapy Hospital. Steve Socabe, with whom I had worked before in Gaza Strip, West Bank, and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, was associated with Rehabilitation Hospital in Ramallah. Ninety-four percent of the patients of that facility were there with war-related injuries. They handled a lot of cases of spinal cord injuries resulting from gunshot wounds or shrapnel fragment wounds resulting from the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts. The hospital served as a referral hospital for patients from all over the West Bank. Within just the past 60 days there had been 10,700 wounded Palestinians in the region, resulting in 1,500 patients with permanent disabilities requiring rehabilitation. Forty percent of all injuries happened to kids under age 18. 

Dr. Bitawi Ahmed was the medical director of the facility. He was a very qualified orthopedic surgeon and along with the chairman of the board of the center, gave us a very thorough tour of the institution and helped us with our needs assessment questions.

During the tour of the recovery rooms in the hospital, I was impressed with the number of young boys, in their teens and early 20s, who had been disabled by gunshot wounds or explosions. Many of them were permanently paralyzed either from their neck or waist down. I spent a little time with a tall thirteen-year-old boy and his father who was attending the boy’s bedside. The boy was a sharp, bright-eyed fellow with curly hair and a quick smile. A bomb explosion had severed the spinal cord in his lower back. He would not have use of his lower body for the rest of his life. His father really appreciated my taking an interest in his son. He could hardly believe that an American would travel to Ramallah to try to help them with their medical situation.

Dr. Ahmed shared with me his big dream. As an orthopedic surgeon he was pushing for a new orthopedic operating theater at the facility. At the time of our assessment, he was in the practice of going to another Ramallah hospital to perform patients’ surgeries. They were then moved to the rehabilitation center. The board of directors had already given him permission to extend the size of the main building for the surgical room, but none of them had any idea of how they would get the needed pieces of operating equipment or supplies for the new project. You could only imagine how excited he was when he learned that it might be possible to get Project C.U.R.E. to help in supplying the necessary pieces of medical equipment, surgical supplies, and orthopedic devices.

Before we left the facility, Dr. Ahmed compiled a very extensive list of items needed and presented it to me in hopes that Project C.U.R.E. could be of assistance in the future.

We then traveled across the city of Ramallah for an interesting meeting with an organization called “Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.” Dr. Jihad Mashal, the director general, explained how their organization tried to represent the needs of a large number of facilities within the West Bank and Gaza. Their primary concern was with the rural clinics and small town hospitals where it was extremely difficult to arrange for any medical assistance from the outside. The health ministry was stretched in their capacity to serve the larger hospitals in the major cities of Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron. Most of the secondary hospitals and clinics had to go begging for assistance.

The mayor of one of the smaller towns presented me with a list of desperately needed medical goods for the Qabuan municipality. His hospital and his clinics were trying to do their best but had no way to access basic medical goods to meet the general needs of the people. 

Once more we climbed into the small car driven by Mohamed’s uncle and re-crossed the city of Ramallah to our next appointment. As we drove, I remarked about the many buildings that had been damaged or destroyed by what appeared to be bombs or tank fire. Many of the streets and curbs had been torn up by tracked vehicles traveling through the city of Ramallah.

Mohamed asked, “When we are finished with the next appointment would you like to take a little tour and get a better look at the damage to our city?”

“Yes, of course,” I answered.

Next Week: Personally observing Arafat in his bombed out headquarters and home 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #2 from June, 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: Peace seemed unattainable and the world opinion seemed to shift to accept the growing fear that Arafat didn’t really want peace at all, that he had more to gain by seeing how close he could come to a final accord then slipping away from the table. It was feared that the other Arab states would continue to financially support the arrangement in place when the Arab refugees were contained in camps rather than being integrated into a new state or into the borders of the other areas of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc.

The fear that seemed to startle the outside world was that the Arab and Palestinian forces would never be satisfied with any concession other than the dissolution and disappearance of an Israeli state in the Middle East and a return to a status prior to 1917.

Accompanying the growing fear emerged a new frustration. Arafat didn’t seem capable of controlling the violent acts of terror carried out by his groups of Hamas and other Islamic jihad organizations. World opinion raised the question as to whether Arafat was the one to be at the negotiating table at all.

Prior to our traveling to West Bank the terrorist situation had escalated to an almost unbelievable level. Nearly two years had seen the second round of intifada produce numbers of suicide bombers, where Palestinian individuals with belts or backpacks stuffed with explosives would walk into a crowded establishment where Jews had gathered and trigger a detonator to blow up themselves and everyone else in the crowded area. Young teens and even schoolgirls were being recruited as lethal human bombs. Other Arab countries would even pay the children’s families large sums of money for their “brave acts of martyrdom.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that if Arafat could not call in the terrorists, then the Israeli military would go back into the West Bank cities and root out the pockets of terrorists. His tanks and helicopter gunships went into Ramallah and completely destroyed Arafat’s newly built and equipped preventative security palace of his elite guard. Following another suicide bombing where many Israelis were killed, Sharon sent his tanks and helicopters right into Arafat’s headquarters compound and destroyed a large percentage of the facility while Arafat was in residence. Then Sharon left his troops there and confined Arafat to the shelled out headquarters for nearly four months. Arafat finally agreed to verbally condemn the suicide bombings and Israel let him go free.

Thursday, June 6

Thursday morning Anna Marie took me to the airport to board Air Canada #582 to Toronto, Canada. My flight would take me to Toronto, and then I had a non-stop flight Air Canada #886 right into Tel Aviv. Mohamed had already flown into Tel Aviv and it was agreed that he would meet me at the airport when I arrived.

Friday, June 7

Per our agreement, Mohamed met me at the Ben Gurion airport. He had hired a van with the correct color of license plate on it to transport us into the West Bank. Our trip from Tel Aviv to Ramallah was not as complicated as it could have been. At the military checkpoints I simply showed my American passport, told them I was a visitor and humanitarian and the Israeli guards waived me through.

The night that I was traveling, Sharon gave orders to the Israeli military to retaliate for the latest suicide bombing. The incident by the Hamas had taken Arab terrorism to a strange new level.

In the early days of intifada the Islamic jihad groups like the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine used cars packed full of explosives. They would park the cars near the targets to be blown up or along the street where the intended victim would be traveling and detonate the car bomb by timer devices or remote control detonators. Those bombs were effective in blowing up the intended targets but also struck fear in the hearts of the Israelis. 

But the car bombs advanced to more lethal and more frightening methods of terror. People who were radically active in the Palestinian cause were recruited to be trained on how to use their bodies to deliver the deadly explosives. The terrorist group of Hamas became very brazen and prolific at selling, especially young people in their teens and early twenties, on the glories of suicide martyrdom. The young suicide bombers were very difficult to detect and quick and eager to take risks. They took on the mission knowing, but probably not fully understanding, that they wouldn’t be coming back to receive accolades after their daring mission.

About 8 a.m. Thursday, as I was in Denver preparing to leave for Israel, the Islamic jihad ratcheted their insidious terrorist methods up one more notch. Never before had they employed the use of a young teenager to drive a small van totally packed with explosives into another moving object. A suicide bomber driving his bomb into a moving bus was unthinkable.

The Israeli bus had left Tel Aviv at 5:50 a.m. full of sleepy passengers headed for Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee. Many of the fares were military passengers headed for their assignments. As the bus passed through the town of Megiddo (Hebrew for Armageddon) a sixteen-year-old boy pulled alongside the back portion of the bus and detonated enough explosives to lift the bus and flip it over twice before coming to rest totally engulfed in deadly flames.

At least 17 people died immediately. Thirteen of those incinerated were Israeli soldiers. Many more were taken to the hospital in critical condition. “It was timed to mark the 35th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” said the spokesman of Islamic jihad, which quietly claimed credit for the bombing.

Next Week: Community health needs . . . plus war-related injuries 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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