At age 20, Bambi had a job interview for her first one-year-long clinical internship in developmental psychology at a psychiatric unit of a children’s hospital in Montreal, Québec. Her potential supervisor surprised her with the following question: “what would you do if one of the patients is Israeli?” She cannot recall her precise words, but her reply was something along those lines: I will interact with him or her exactly in the same way as I will treat other patients. By this I mean with respect, humanity, and compassion. She recalls having seen a look of kind approval in the eyes of this man who later became her clinical mentor or supervisor.
For Bambi, treating people with the same respect and compassion is what is the most natural matter for her, whether the individual would have been born in Québec City, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Tehran, Washington, Gaza, Berlin, Oka, Kinshasa, Beirut, Moscow, Kiev, Yerevan, and/or Baku. What matters here is the person in front of us, not parts of his/her complex identity or even his/her most significant part of identity, whether ethnolinguistic, religious, sexually related or tribal of any sort. Same for political preferences or favourite TV stations (often related to the latter), etc.
How could it not be the case when Bambi’s deep values are those of the Red Cross she was a volunteer with in Beirut during her teenage years: Humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, universality, etc.? What does this concretely mean in the context of the Lebanese civil war? It means that an injured or a suffering person in front of you is vulnerable. He/she needs your voluntary service, regardless of being civilian, militia person (of any kind), Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian or Israeli? By principle, you treat any suffering individual with humanity, impartiality, and neutrality.
Bearing the above thoughts in mind, it is with great sadness that Bambi read today in international media, including the Times of Israel (https://tinyurl.com/53wy73e3), about “two nurses in Australia suspended for saying they would kill Israeli patients“. Scary to be medically treated one day by such nurses, whether you are of Israeli origins or not. So imagine if you happen to be an Israeli, Australian Jew, someone they might think you are associated with… or if you simply happen to have a Mediterranean look?
To conclude this post, why are we allowing ourselves to become too blinded by rage, hate, ignorance, or intolerance? Why aren’t we in contact with our humanity anymore? Without the latter, how can we thrive in a helping profession where we are supposed to know how to welcome others’ humanity and vulnerabilities? Bambi is asking all these questions and she was 10 years old when her Beirut was occupied by the Israelis. She is saying so, and like many readers of this blog, she remains concerned by war in her birth country. A war between Hezbollah and Israel, which is once again occupying Lebanon in its fight against a pro-Iranian Lebanese milita, which began attacking it it on October 8, 2023. Have these young nurses ever met an Israeli citizen in real life?
on a side note, as much as the Red Cross is overall great and has a stellar reputation, 2 times in history (at least) it has skirted its duties and employed doubled standards. one is right now. the other time you can guess.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/red-cross-has-a-duty-to-protect-hostages-in-hamas-captivity
Many thanks for sharing this with Bambi’s readers, greatly appreciated. Yes, the Red Cross, and all of us mind you, can/must do better, that is remembering the mission, or values, and our shared humanity. Everyone deserves to be protected and treated with dignity. All innocent people on all sides of any conflict, including the doomed Middle East, deserve our attention and compassion.
Everyone entering a profession in which they deal with people dependent on their services, should be asked the same question, as you were, Bambi. People like these two nurses should never work in any medical profession.
To be a doctor, a nurse, teacher, etc, one should be in the first place, a human. Keep all their ideologies and opinions to themselves.
Many thanks Ela. Food for thought, your WISE comment.
Bambi is so right and so humane. I am writing from Jerusalem, and this story shakes me to the core. My children and grandchildren are Israeli-Canadian. If they come for a visit to us in Toronto and become ill and have to go to hospital, do I have to be afraid for their health and survival? We know about the incessant antisemitism many Jewish doctors are facing in Toronto. Will my family be treated like every other Canadian, or differently because of their Jewish-Israeli identity? It is utterly shocking that this question should even come up? Thank you, Bambi, for your humanism and humanity.
Many thanks Marjorie for your kind words to Bambi. It is an honour for her to
post your comment. Great questions indeed. Be safe, please.
This reminds me of the death of Joyce Echaquan in the presence of cruel nurses and hospital staff. Let’s hope these nurses in Australia are not handed ‘feel good’ discipline similar to “the Quebec way” where the evil nurse was *reinstated* after being fired because the judge cited systematic injustices society shared ostensibly equally but which were unfairly set on the nurse Bellemare’s (and her colleague’s) shoulders: https://globalnews.ca/news/8977023/quebec-nurse-fired-job-atikamekw-patient/
Hitler would have been proud of these freaks.