- On December 18, Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres raised
wineglasses together in the Knesset. Half an hour later, Sharon suffered
a stroke. He was brought into hospital by Yoram Rubin, the bodyguard who
murdered Yitzhak Rabin. On Jan. 4, Sharon returned to hospital with a massive
cerebral hemorrhage and within a few hours I published my suspicions that
Sharon was the victim of a second assassination attempt by the same Peres/Rubin
team which had finished off Yitzhak Rabin.
-
- Naturally my critics howled that I saw conspiracies everywhere.
To their dismay, I'm certain, within a day, so did the rest of the Israeli
media. How well they have been trained since the Rabin murder!
-
- I'll let the following typical reports summarize the
suspicions of foul play, then we'll return to more political mayhem in
Israel:
-
- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/667192.html
- Last update - 11:42 06/01/2006
-
-
- Hospital director: Letting Sharon go to Negev farm
was negligent
- By Ran Reznick, Amos Harel and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents
-
- Several senior doctors raised a host of questions Thursday
about the standard of treatment Ariel Sharon has received over the last
two weeks, with the director of a large hospital telling Haaretz that according
to the media reports on Sharon's medical treatment, he fears "there
was indescribable negligence."
-
- The questions cover the period from Sharon's first stroke
two weeks ago to his arrival Wednesday night at Jerusalem's Hadassah University
Hospital, Ein Karem, where he is being treated for a severe stroke and
cerebral hemorrhage. They pertain to the supervision over Sharon's physical
state, following the blood-thinning medicine he received after his first
hospitalization.
-
- Such supervision is essential, as these medicines could
cause a cerebral hemorrhage, like the one Sharon suffered. Questions were
also raised about the dosage he received.
-
- "Yitzhak Rabin was not wearing a bulletproof vest
that could have protected him from the murderers' bullets, and now, 10
years later, Sharon was not given the required medical treatment that could
have saved him," the hospital director said. "Israel has not
learned the lesson from Rabin's murder, and thus lost two prime ministers
because of inadequate protection - one from weapons, the other from illness.
I cannot understand how the prime minister could have been sent to stay
in an isolated farm, more than an hour away from the hospital he was supposed
to be treated in, two weeks after a stroke and one night before a heart
procedure he was afraid of."
-
- Sharon was slated to undergo a cardiac catheterization
procedure Thursday to fix a small hole between the chambers of his heart
that doctors said contributed to his initial stroke.
-
- "A night before the catheterization he should have
been hospitalized in Hadassah or at least made to stay in Jerusalem,"
the director said. "I also have questions about the dosage of blood-thinning
medication he received. My feeling is that Sharon did not get the best
medical treatment he deserved."
-
- A senior doctor told Haaretz that "Sharon's medical
condition was iatrogenic - that is, induced by treatment of physicians,
as it was likely that the blood-thinning medicine Sharon was receiving
had caused the severe brain bleeding."
-
- According to the doctor, "Clearly, Sharon needed
complete rest at least until the catheterization, as anyone who had undergone
a stroke would. But it is hard to say that Sharon's refusal to rest caused
the hemorrhaging."
-
- Another senior doctor said he suspected "Sharon's
treatment was partly faulty because he fell victim to the political-media
spin intended to show the public he was back to work as usual."
-
- "He paid a high price for this spin," the doctor
said. "My concern is that non-professional considerations dictated
the chain of medical events. The doctors took a dangerous but calculated
risk when they gave him blood-thinning drugs at home instead of in the
hospital under full supervision. But he should have been kept under constant
supervision and certainly not allowed to return to work as usual."
-
- Several questions have been asked this week regarding
the standard of treatment Sharon has received: How much time elapsed from
the moment Sharon told his son, Gilad, he wasn't feeling well to the arrival
of his personal doctor at Sycamore Ranch? Why wasn't there a doctor at
his side since the first stroke, especially on the eve of the catheterization?
Why wasn't Sharon taken to the hospital by helicopter? Why was he taken
to the distant hospital in Jerusalem, rather than to Be'er Sheva's Soroka
Medical Center? To what extent did the treatment Sharon received after
the first episode account for the hemorrhaging?
-
- Sharon's aides said nobody thought he was in danger when
he left his office for Sycamore Ranch on Wednesday afternoon. The paramedic
of the Shin Bet security service's VIP protection unit, who was always
at his side, accompanied him.
-
- According to the initial plan, a doctor was to be with
him after the catheterization, when he returned to convalesce at the ranch.
-
- Since his release from Hadassah on December 20, after
the first incident, Sharon was frequently examined by his personal physician,
Dr. Shlomo Segev, who also administered his blood tests. Sharon did not
complain of pain or feeling bad.
-
- The chief cardiologist at Hadassah, Professor Haim Lotan,
who was supposed to perform the catheterization, visited his office on
Tuesday. Sharon received two Claxon shots a day intended to thin his blood
and prevent blood clots and a recurrent stroke. He received the last shot
on Wednesday morning, so that its effect would wear off before the heart
procedure.
-
- When Sharon felt unwell on Wednesday, his personal physician
was called in from the center of the country. According to one version,
he arrived at the ranch just as Sharon was being put into an ambulance,
and joined him on the trip. According to another version, he met the convoy
at the Masmia junction on the way to Jerusalem.
-
- Sharon's aides, who pieced the event together, said Sharon
did not want to be taken to hospital. He said he was due at Hadassah for
the procedure the next morning anyway. Apparently, his son, Gilad, and
the Shin Bet paramedic convinced him to go anyway. Even when in the ambulance,
he told Segev he wanted to turn around and go the following morning.
-
- Segev, who refused to comment Thursday, was under the
impression that Sharon had suffered another stroke, which was worse than
the first one. He decided to proceed to the hospital in the ambulance rather
than scramble a helicopter. He feared that the movement of the helicopter
would harm Sharon more than a few more minutes in the car.
-
- Apparently, Segev was the one who decided to take Sharon
to Hadassah rather than to the closer Soroka center. The trip to the hospital
took 55 minutes, during which Sharon's condition deteriorated.
-
- Doctors asked why Sharon wasn't required to stay in his
Jerusalem residence instead of the ranch, at least while he was being treated
with Claxon and until the procedure to mend the hole in his heart had been
performed. Why wasn't a senior doctor at his side at all times, one who
could have administered immediate treatment when the deterioration began?
-
- Some of the questions suggest that Sharon and his aides'
desire to show that the prime minister had returned swiftly to his daily
routine resulted in inadequate treatment and supervision.
-
- The senior doctors asked why Sharon's physicians had
not insisted that he take a significant rest after the first stroke, as
they would have done with any other patient. They asked to what extent
political and media considerations were involved. They also asked why the
catheterization was not performed earlier.
-
- Other questions refer to why it took about two hours
from the time Sharon felt unwell at his ranch to the time he arrived at
the hospital emergency room at about 11 P.M., and why he wasn't taken to
Soroka for preliminary treatment at least.
-
- Sharon's Stroke Raises Medical Questions
By Amy Teibel
The Associated Press
1-5-6
-
- JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke in the back of an ambulance while
on an hour long trip to a Jerusalem hospital, raising a host of questions
about his treatment.
-
- Why wasn't he flown to the hospital or at least driven
to one closer to his home? Did doctors take an unnecessary risk by treating
him with blood thinners after he had a mild stroke two weeks ago? Did they
wait too long to schedule a heart procedure designed to prevent another
stroke?
-
- And perhaps most important: Could political pressures
have colored his treatment?
-
- The stroke followed a mild stroke Sharon suffered Dec.
18 that was caused by a small blood clot. Doctors at Hadassah released
him less than 48 hours after that stroke and gave the 77-year-old leader
blood thinners to prevent future ones. His neurologist, Dr. Tamir Ben-Hur,
said "chances are excellent that he won't have another one."
-
- On Dec. 26, doctors said they found a small hole in Sharon's
heart they said had led to his mild stroke. They planned to seal the hole
in a procedure scheduled for Thursday to prevent another stroke.
-
- But on Wednesday night, Sharon complained of feeling
ill and his sons and a paramedic loaded him into an ambulance that had
been stationed at his ranch in the Negev Desert since the stroke. The closer
Soroka Medical Center in Bersheeba was told to prepare for his arrival,
but he was taken instead on the hourlong trip to Hadassah.
-
- Sharon was conscious for most of the drive, and didn't
deteriorate badly until about 15 minutes before reaching the hospital.
-
- Some Israelis questioned whether the outcome could have
been different if had he been airlifted.
-
- "If there is an ambulance that is available at the
door to the house that can leave immediately and a helicopter that still
takes time to arrive, it is preferable to get moving," Dr. Zeev Feldman,
a neurosurgeon at Tel Hashomer Hospital outside Tel Aviv, told Channel
2 TV.
-
- Surgery to stop the bleeding apparently had been complicated
by blood thinners Sharon took following his initial stroke, and the medication
may also have contributed to the severity of Wednesday's stroke.
-
- There you have it in a nutshell. The prime minister of
a modern nation suffers a stroke and is released from hospital in two days,
unsupervised by a doctor. Though he has a residence in Jerusalem, he chooses
to reside on his ranch 100 miles away. When he feels ill 18 days later,
he is trundled off to Jerusalem in a car, passing by a major hospital ten
minutes away, so he may better enjoy a 75 minute ride to the hospital which
misprescribed his original treatment. Of course, he should have been flown
to hospital by helicopter, but here is the excuse why he wasn't.
-
- http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3195358,00.html
-
- Why wasn't Sharon airlifted to hospital?
-
- According to initial explanations, ambulance left on
way to Jerusalem hospital before proposal to use chopper was raised; doctor
concerned carrying Sharon to helicopter would have worsened his condition
due to the change in air pressure. Just last night I shared dinner with
a group of visitors from the US. One of the party was a Colorado doctor
who served in Viet Nam. He explained why the explanation was nonsense.
"You fly at 300 feet following the landscape and there is no air pressure
difference. When you medivac someone in Sharon's condition, you don't fly
at 12,000 feet." That simple.
-
- Now, let us examine Sharon's last moments before being
rushed to the hospital. He had two appointments at his ranch. The first
was with Otniel Shendler, who is not part of any murder plot but provides
an interesting digression. Shendler was managing director of the Yesha
Council during the Gush Katif expulsion. Sharon had invited him to join
his Kadima party. Shendler gave Sharon a gift. It was a book he co-authored
with Yair Hirshfeld, one of the two negotiators of the Oslo Accord. Just
another piece of evidence that the Yesha Council worked hand in hand with
the government to sell out Gush Katif.
-
- The next and final meeting was with Ehud Olmert. The
following day, Sharon was supposed to have undergone minor heart surgery
to repair a small hole in his heart. The operation was to last 3 hours
and during that time, Sharon signed the papers appointing Olmert temporary
prime minister.
-
- According to the newspaper Hashofar from the same week,
Sharon was utterly opposed to Olmert as his successor and had, instead,
chosen Moshe Katsav. And that may go a long way to explaining why Olmert
was so concerned about receiving the temporary transfer of powers authorization
from Sharon himself in the Negev Desert, when the very same papers could
have been faxed to him in his Jerusalem office.
-
- Yediot Ahronot on Jan. 5, published a revealing account
of the meeting. Olmert then entered the room. "Arik," he said,
"There are a few matters I want to handle while I'm serving as temporary
prime minister." Sharon retorted, "I thought so. I'll transfer
my authority to you but I remind you it's only for three hours. Do you
understand? You will deal with no one and take care of nothing without
me."
-
- Within minutes of the stern warning to Olmert, Sharon
was stricken and taken by the picturesque route to Jerusalem. And who was
there to make sure things went as planned?:
-
- Embedded in the lead story on "www.israelnn.com
today: "No politicians have been permitted to visit Sharon, but Shimon
Peres was to have been the first one, had Sharon not been taken to the
operating room."
-
- By January 11, Olmert had announced his intention of
inviting Shimon Peres to sit in his new government cabinet.
-
- It may be instructive to look at the three days leading
to Sharon's demise. As my readers know, Sharon was a longtime agent of
Henry Kissinger and the Council On Foreign Relations. Two days before his
fall, Sharon agreed to put their plans into final action:
-
- Sharon's New Plan: Uproot Towns in Judea
- and Samaria in Exchange for American Compensation
- 12:06 Jan 02, '06 / 2 Tevet 5766
-
- and in Hebrew:
- http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/027/938.html
-
- (IsraelNN.com) The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reports
that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning on replacing the U.S. backed
road map peace proposal with a new plan that would uproot Jewish communities
in Judea and Samaria in exchange for American compensation.
-
- Sharon reportedly would implement his new plan despite
any deterioration in Israel's security situation due to an upsurge of terrorism
from the Palestinian Authority.
-
- Details of Sharon's new plan were reported by sources
close to former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
-
- The day before his demise, Sharon put the plan into action:
-
- "Security Forces Handing Out Expulsion
- Order to Jews Living in Reclaimed Hevron
- Marketplace in 15 Minutes."
- Dateline= 08:35 Jan 03, '06.
- www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=95922.
-
- On the day his brain was drowning in blood, Sharon was
implicated in a scandal that seemed guaranteed to fell him politically.
Police had found evidence in the Schlaff family computers that Sharon had
accepted a $3 million bribe from casinos owner Martin Schlaff via his frontman,
Cyril Kern. We may safely assume that in return for the bribe, Sharon promised
Schlaff a new money-laundering casino somewhere in his realm, but widely
reported to be in the former Gush Katif. After he was struck down, the
police began to reconsider their intentions:
-
- Police said Sunday they would reevaluate continuing their
investigation into bribery allegations against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
due to his health condition. Police said that it was still too early to
tell if the case would be closed but that the possibility would be considered.
-
- The investigation - dubbed the Cyril Kern loan affair
- focuses on the nature of several money transfers made to the Sharon family
by South African businessman Cyril Kern.
-
- Police suspect that Kern served as a front for Martin
Schlaff - an Austrian-Jewish businessman - and that the money was meant
to serve as a bribe to the prime minister.
-
- Apparently, a possible police reevaluation wasn't comforting
enough for Cyril Kern, who on Jan. 8 flew all the way from South Africa
to be at Sharon's side. From Maariv, Jan. 10:
-
- Ariel Sharon's friend Cyril Kern arrived in the country
to be by him. Kern arrived at Hadassah hospital two days ago and
went to the seventh floor where the Prime Minister is interned. Sharon
family sources explained that as soon as he heard Sharon was fighting
for his life, he felt he had to be by his side... According to a State
Comptroller's report, Sharon's son Gilad accepted an illegal 4.7 million
shekel loan from Kern...Kern was not allowed to see the prime minister
in his room but did meet with his sons for an update of the situation.
-
- Would it be too forward to suggest that one of the messages
Kern delivered to the Sharon boys was, "You keep your mouths shut,
or else."
-
- end
-
- **
-
- An observation I made on a number of radio interviews
is how the world media is misreporting the so-called outpouring of grief
for Sharon. On Jan. 8, Israel TV News reported that "dozens of Israelis
had gathered at the Western Wall to say prayers for the prime minister."
A whole, "dozens." Another media report also noted the striking
lack of public grief for Sharon:
-
- It is noteworthy that virtually every interview on public
television and radio begins with the interviewee saying that he is "praying
for Sharon's full recovery." Most interviewees and their interviewers
even add that they "join the entire country" in praying for the
Prime Minister. As news of Sharon's operation became known, Army Radio
reported that "spontaneous prayer quorums" had sprouted up at
the Western Wall to pray for Sharon. This appeared to be a case of wishful
thinking, however, as web-photos of the holy site, backed up by eyewitness
testimony, showed very sparse attendance at the Wall - except for several
press photographers making a rare visit and photographing the worshipers
from various angles.
-
- When I report on the wave of political assassinations
in Israel, there is always initial widespread skepticism. But it's just
a matter of time before the facts come out verifying my assertions. Recall
my disbelief that Raful Eitan was swallowed by a giant wave. Now look at
the flimsy coverup which took place last week. I'll let my correspondent
speak for me. It seems Raful just never took a hint, as his wife explains
in a Haaretz interview:
-
- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=raful&itemNo=666919
-
-
- "And he died at the age of 75, one misty morning
in August, suddenly, for no reason.
-
- "That is perhaps the death that he could have wished
for. This may be a secret, but Raful simply never knew how to swim. And
he was almost deaf, but was vehemently opposed to wearing a hearing aide.
It was simply contrary to his facade as a man. And what is a man? It's
someone who overcomes life. And Raful did not hear the wave that sneaked
up behind him, and he was dragged into a stormy sea. Did you expect Raful
to wear a hearing aid? {shlomo comment: a widow's delusional grief}
-
- "You know what? There were portents of his death.
He had already lost three cars during the last year and a half of his life,
during which he was responsible for the building of the port. He drove
with them in the mornings onto the pier in Ashdod, and they were swept
away and hit by the waves. I'm sure that he died in the place where, had
he been asked, he would have wanted.."
-
- Barry "three cars taken by waves in 1 1/2 years"
doesn't this imply several things:
-
- (1) why would he park in a place where he already lost
3 cars (if it was the same place), especially considering the stormy day?
-
- (2) what kind of "parking place" could have
this type of wave action? I lived near the shore and I never recall any
car being "swept by waves" and certainly not 3 in a year and
half.
-
- (3) this story is so convenient....needed hearing aid
to hear wave "sneaking up on him" and could not swim...
-
- (4) another part of article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/666919.html)
his widow explains how upset he was about Sharon and the corruption overtaking
this country...
-
- My new 2 hour CD or DVD, depending on your choice, could
not have been released at a more significant time. It's called ZION
FIRST: THE VATICAN'S NEW CRUSADE FOR JERUSALEM.
-
- And the crusade is on:
-
- http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3194646,00.html
-
- http://www.arutzsheva.net/news.php3?id=95967
-
- Vatican also wants Jerusalem?
-
- Vatican envoy: Israel, Palestinians cannot be trusted
to safeguard holy sites Ahiya Raved
-
- Israel cannot be trusted? The Vatican's legal advisor
in Israel, David Jaeger, harshly criticized Israel's policy regarding safeguarding
Christian holy sites. Speaking during an international conference at a
Haifa University conference Tuesday, Jaeger said Jerusalem is an important
city the fate of which should not be left in the hands of Israel and the
Palestinians.
-
- I watched the completed DVD in full for the first time
yesterday. It is well more than a lecture by me. The second hour includes
expert evidence by historian, Dr. Asher Edar and lots of pertinent questions
by the audience. This DVD takes you inside a most important gathering in
Jerusalem and you do feel you're there.
-
- One technical problem. It was recorded on a PAL camera.
The first copies, then, can be sent to Israel and Europe. But will they
work in the US? In Israel, every DVD player, plays both systems. Is that
the case in the US? Let me know if your player is multi-system. If there
is a problem, an NTSC version will be made as well.
-
- The DVD is available at chamish@netvision.net.il
are my English books; Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism And The Holocaust; Save
Israel!; Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin; Israel Betrayed; The Last Days of
Israel;
|