Hospitals and the Middle East

Hospitals. They’re exhausting, probably because there are so many sick and dying people. On top of that, there’s all that equipment designed to monitor people and make them well again.

It’s because I’ve been visiting the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the local hospital, where it is known as the Critical Care Unit (CCU) that I haven’t written anything for a few days.

 Travelling up and down to the hospital, and sitting there for a few hours each time, three times a day is, to say the least, exhausting. It’s hard to believe that’s the case when you’re doing nothing- but all those sick and dying people sap the energy. I now believe in energy chakras.

 The surgeons, doctors and nurses are great. They seem to come from all over the world- from Scotland, India, England, the US and Saudi Arabia.

 So, is escaping to Southland Hospital in Invercargill, New Zealand, where they escape to when tensions in other parts of the world are at breaking point?

 They certainly are in the Middle East with Donald Trump’s latest announcement that the US embassy in Israel will be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, although it will take three years anyway.

 But that’s long enough for a good war to break out in the Middle East- with all the Arab countries united against Israel in this unilateral move by the US to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Why worry if the move is condemned by, so far, the UN, the Arab League, all Arab countries, Iran, the UK, France and even the Pope? There will be further outcry, of course, but this move should is designed to progress the Middle East peace process- to achieve a lasting peace in the region, according to President Trump.  

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/07/middle-east-peace-process-survive-trump-jerusalem-decision

 Making a unilateral decision might be the way Trump runs his businesses but does this work in global politics? Already, angry Palestinians in Bethlehem are burning the American flag.

 Piers Morgan in the UK’s Daily Mail made a good analogy, when he likened Trump’s intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as pouring oil on burning flames. President Erdogan’s spokesman said: “He’s plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5152909/Trump-enraged-Muslims-poured-oil-flames-war.html

 On top of this, there continues to be the catastrophic war in Yemen, where thousands have been killed by Saudi-led coalition forces, or have died from famine; conflict on the Saudi-Yemeni border; the on-going war in Syria; the war in Iraq; and censorship across the region.

 When will politicians learn that the region is complex and complicated? It takes years to understand it and even longer to unravel.