JewishPress.com regular contributor Elder of Zion pointed out this morning:
The haters are out in force, loving this excuse to label Israel racist, even though most Israelis are viscerally upset at this news story. Message boards are filled with people trashing Israel over the MDA’s supposed racism.
There is no doubt that the MDA’s policies need to be revisited. The behavior of the MDA reps in this case was not acceptable. However, anyone calling Israel racist based on a policy of not accepting blood from some African countries may want to read the American Red Cross guidelines for people they don’t want to donate blood for fear of AIDS:
You should not donate if you are at risk for contracting HIV (the virus that causes AIDS). The following activities would cause you to be at risk:
…If you were born or have lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, since 1977.
And Rabbi Chaim Navon of Modiin wrote in his Facebook page:
MK Pnina Tamano-Shata has been involved for a long time in discussions at the Health Ministry of blood donation procedures. Which leads one to suspect that she did not come there innocently (accompanied by a camera) to donate blood, but to create a provocation. How lowly are the politicians who were so quick to condemn, armed with cliches of blood images. The MDA policy is well known – why did they start an outcry now of all times?
Ethiopian olim are wonderful people, as are English olim, who also don’t donate blood in Israel, because of the Mad Cow disease—whose spread in England is by far lower than the proliferation of AIDs in Africa.
Is there no English MK looking to cut this coupon?