Dr Jamal Rifi falsely accused and wrongly sentenced for helping the sick
Last week, a military court in another failed state sentenced Australia’s Dr Jamal Rifi, in absentia, to 10 years imprisonment for the ‘crime’ of ‘collaborating with the Israeli enemy’.
Opinion
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The Kabul airport atrocity committed by ISIS-K is a horrific reminder of the utter barbarity of terrorism.
A terrible but timely correction after the relentless public relations assault by the other local terrorist force, the Taliban.
No terrorists wish the West well.
Not Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda or the myriad other Islamist terrorist organisations willing to sacrifice the lives of their members to defeat all who will not bow to their demands and follow the most evil interpretation of the Koran which insists that infidels who refuse to submit to their medieval reading of Islamic law be slain.
That most victims of Islamist hate have been Muslims has often permitted Westerners to ignore the worst atrocities but with Afghanistan falling to the Taliban, that failed state will inevitably provide a base for international terrorism just as it did before international forces went in 20 years ago.
Where there is a failed state, there is a state under the control of terrorists or the sponsors of terrorism.
China and Russia openly do business with such nations, the West tries to apply sanctions but too often the opportunities for business sees countries such as Germany and France hold their noses, look the other way, and provide rogue nations like Syria and Iran with economic support.
Last week, a military court in another failed state, Lebanon, sentenced Australia’s Dr Jamal Rifi, in absentia, to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour for the “crime” of “collaborating with the Israeli enemy”.
Dr Rifi, who runs a clinic in the Covid-19 stricken Canterbury-Bankstown area of Sydney, is a hero, not a criminal.
The court which passed sentence on him is controlled by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah which runs Lebanon.
Dr Rifi’s sole crime was to work with the non-political, nonpartisan multinational and multi-faith Australian charity, Project Rozana.
Founded in May 2013 by Australian businessman Ron Finkel, Rozana is embraced by affiliates in Canada, Israel, UK and the US and has the support of both the Israeli and Palestinian governments and international agencies including the WHO and the European Union.
It operates out of Jerusalem’s renowned Hadassah Medical Centre, which traces its history back over a century. Hadassah’s first hospital opened in 1918 with the declared mission to extend a “hand to all, without regard for race, religion or ethnic origin” and daily it meets that goal.
Patients are not questioned about the ethnic, religious or national identity.
Israeli and Palestinian doctors treat the patients, including prominent Palestinian leaders and their families.
Israelis train Palestinian doctors, nurses and therapists at Hadassah and elsewhere in Israel to return to Gaza and the West Bank to provide urgently needed medical care to their countrymen and women, and importantly, Palestinian children.
Rozana not only funds treatment for critically and chronically ill Palestinian children in Israeli hospitals because necessary treatments are not available in Palestinian hospitals, it funds Israeli and Palestinian NGOs to provide transport to thousands and thousands of Palestinian children and their caregivers to and from their homes via border checkpoints, to hospital appointments in Israel.
Hundreds of volunteer Palestinian and Israeli drivers make this service possible.
Hezbollah and Hamas which run their terrorist organisations in Gaza and the West Bank are violently opposed to such charitable work because it enables ordinary Palestinians to see that Israelis are not the demons that the terrorists claim they are.
A suicide bomber may have second thoughts about murdering a person who saved the life of a family member.
Movements like BDS, supported by fanatics on some Australian campuses, are opposed to any normalisation of relations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Dr Rifi says the political elites who run Lebanon under the Hezbollah banner are unashamedly carrying out the orders of the Iranian regime.
He was not afforded natural justice and his sentence is unappealable.
He is as proud of his work with Rozana as he is of the number of vaccinations he and his Arabic-speaking colleagues provided in Sydney last week – 10,677.
A brave man, falsely accused and wrongly sentenced for helping the sick.
Terrorism at work.
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