Hatred of Israel cuts deep to heart

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By Ben Lando THE WASHINGTON TIMES

AMMAN, Jordan - A hole in the heart of Diyar Raouf's 6-year-old son threatens his life.

But in Mrs. Raouf's heart lies a hatred of Israel that is so great that at the last minute, the Iraqi woman declined to let Israeli surgeons touch her son.

"These feelings were born with us. They are inbred," said Mrs. Raouf, who jumped at an offer from Algeria to perform the same operation.

The Israeli charity Save A Child's Heart arranged for them to travel to Amman, where her son Ahmad was undergoing tests before the surgery in Israel to correct a pulmonary valve stenosis - a disease that restricts the flow of blood to the lungs.

Instead of departing for Tel Aviv as planned, the two arrived Friday in Algiers, after an Iraqi doctor in Amman intervened and the Algerian government pledged the cost of transport, housing and a medical team to perform surgeries on 14 children so they would not have to go to Israel.

"We hear about this, the way they kill our children in Palestine. All of this we see," Mrs. Raouf said. "We are not afraid of going to any other country."

Hours earlier, she and two other Iraqi mothers who made up the first group to go to Algeria for the surgeries were visited by George Bakoos, an envoy sent by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to investigate what has become a burgeoning controversy in Iraqi and Arab media.

An Iraqi television station called it a matter of "sending Iraqi children with their guardians for treatment in the enemy country No. 1 for Iraq and Arabic nations."

The Jerusalem Post, quoting Al Jazeera, reported that the Iraqi Parliament's Health and Environment Committee is calling for an investigation. The Health Ministry claims it didn't know of the work happening inside the country.

Shatha Fakhri faced a similar situation with her daughter Sara and took the child to the National Iraqi Assistance Center located in the Green Zone.