To win over Palestinians and end the Gaza War, Elon Musk recently suggested a “counterintuitive thing ... that Israel engage in the most conspicuous acts of kindness possible ever.” Mr. Musk then endorsed “talk of establishing, for example, a mobile hospital” to help the Gazans. “I recommend doing that. Just making sure that, you know, there’s food, water, medical necessities.”
Mr. Musk seems unaware that Israel clearly agrees, since it has been helping the United Arab Emirates and other foreign governments set up field hospitals in southern Gaza.
As urged by IMA chairman Dr. Yoram Blachar, who was also president of the World Medical Association, “The situation in Gaza continues to deeply concern us. There are hundreds of wounded in need of medical care, in addition to the chronically ill who need medical attention. We were informed by the Health Ministry in Jerusalem that Israel is willing to accept any number of wounded to Israeli hospitals, but that Hamas is preventing their transfer to Israel.”
Hamas eventually relented, leading first to a trickle, then to a flood of Gazans seeking medical attention in Israel. One high-profile case occurred in 2012—Mr. Musk might even deem it a “conspicuous act of kindness”—when Suhila Abd el-Salam, the sister of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, accompanied her ill husband to Israel’s Beilinson Hospital.
Mr. Musk’s amnesia extends to Israel’s many other “conspicuous acts of kindness,” such as its decisions in past wars with Hamas to continue to provide Gazans with essential services. During Israel’s 2008 war with Hamas, Israel never cut off Hamas’s electricity, even as Hamas’s Qassam rockets were raining down on Israel.
Mr. Musk might also remember Israel’s 2005 decision to unilaterally leave Gaza altogether. In what surely must count as an outrageously “conspicuous act of kindness,” Israel left all its infrastructure behind and intact, including its lucrative greenhouse industry, which was supplying Europe with high-value fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Israel hoped that Gaza would become a “Singapore on the Mediterranean,” an affluent country that would then want to live in peace with Israel. Yet soon after turning over the keys to Gaza, rocket attacks began.
Like Mr. Musk, Israelis have stubbornly believed that acts of kindness would eventually win over Palestinians. Such naivete is in the Israeli character, something Mr. Musk evidently shares without being Jewish. Israelis continued in their naivete throughout Israel’s existence, despite decades of wars, intifadas, suicide bombings, airplane hijackings, and kidnappings.
Israelis’ naivete ended on Oct. 7; Mr. Musk’s naivete has not yet run its course.
