Palestinian gives birth at checkpoint

[newyorican]

A Palestinian woman has been forced to deliver her baby at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank.

Aljazeera correspondent Jivara al-Bidairi said the 25-year-old woman was forced to give birth to her baby at the Qalandia military checkpoint on Thursday after Israeli soldiers blocked her passage.

<snip>

The woman, a resident of Jerusalem, who gave only her first name, Nivin, found herself in labour at the checkpoint on her way to al-Quds hospital. Her pleas to Israeli occupation soldiers to allow her through were to no avail.

<snip>

The baby's Palestinian father said he was anxious about the baby. "Who can restore dignity to us as human beings in this country?"

<snip>

A nurse at the hospital where Nivin was taken said: "The baby was brought in a miserable condition, shivering from cold with sputum coming from its mouth, but we made the necessary arrangements."

Read more...

[Maat]

1. That's heartbreaking.

And they wonder why there is such hostility towards them (the Likud government).

[Igel]

2. When you get bombers disguised as pregnant women,

you start stopping all pregnant women just in case there's a suicide bomber. If Israeli troops did it, it would be a war crime.

On the other hand, they don't say if there were 30 cars ahead of her's at the checkpoint, or if she was in the lone car at the checkpoint, surely a pertinent bit of information. Gricean maxims imply she was alone, but I don't expect cooperation from a reporter, so they don't apply.

Also omitted was how long it would have taken to reach the hospital had she not been stopped. While I allow for some women giving birth rapidly, "only a few minutes" is either wrong, or the result of expectly rapid labor (and she would have given birth a few miles down the road), or she waited far too long and was irresponsible. Or, another option: she realized things were going wrong and a simple midwife wouldn't do.

I'll rule out the possibility of it being a setup to furnish a nice, sensationalistic, anti-Israeli article, with her and the Al-Jazeera reporter coordinating it so that she'd run in the roadblock with scant minutes before giving birth. That sort of thing would be highly improbable given the absolute moral rectitude of both all Palestinians and all Al-Jazeera reporters.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Igel]

6. Dang. The first "deleted comment" to one of my

postings and I don't even get to read it and be offended!

[Violet_Crumble]

4. What the article does say..

Is that she begged the troops at the checkpoint for help and that they ignored her and didn't call for an ambulance. Whether or not her car was 30 cars back is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, unless you consider a woman in labor to be equal in urgency and priority to someone wanting to get through a checkpoint to do a bit of shopping. Sheez, she was in labor. Anyone with a bit of basic compassion and decency would try to help in getting a woman in labor to medical care as quick as they could....

I'll rule out the possibility of some folk doing a knee-jerk painting of her and her husband, the reporters, and any witnesses being liars, just like I'll rule out the possibility that anyone would act as though Israeli troops always act with such absolute moral rectitude that it's totally acceptable to hint strongly that the woman in labor was in some way irresponsible...

Violet...

[Igel]

5. OK, what is and isn't said.

The appropriate thing to do would have been to call an ambulance. But the story is constructed and facts presented to show that not only is Israel unjust, but the IDF troops are slimy bastards. My "presupposition alarm" went off.

Whenever you, as a native speaker of English, listen or read a narrative you assume that the speaker/writer is cooperative: s/he presents relevant facts, in sufficient number, and omits irrelevant facts. Witnesses and defendants in court are not cooperative; politicians are not when making speeches. And journalists frequently aren't, when they have a story to push.

Nivin hadn't called an ambulance, and may well have been on foot; a resident of Jerusalem, she was in the West Bank, or there's a definition of "Jerusalem" that escapes me. She didn't ask the soldiers to call an ambulance, or the translation is wrong: "didn't offer any assistance" implies no assistance was requested, else the word is "refused". She must have known there was a checkpoint and may not have planned for the delay, although she may have known that other women have given birth at checkpoints (which we infer to be true). Her husband was not with her. She flagged down a "passing car", but if she hadn't passed through the checkpoint, it wouldn't be passing, but slowing; if she had passed through, she didn't give birth at the checkpoint, but a ways past it, and the reporter lied right off the bat.

I don't understand the story. I have questions. I am not so gullible as to believe every word of Aljazeerah and take it for the writings of Muhammed.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. What wasn't done...

The appropriate thing to do would have been to call an ambulance.

That's it. That's all that matters. The troops manning the checkpoint should have called an ambulance for the woman once they became aware that she was in labor. Assuming that they have a shred of intelligence and can display basic initiative, I fail to see why there would be any focus on whether or not she asked them to call one. Any insinuation that she put this birth at a checkpoint on as a publicity stunt is completely slimy, as far as I'm concerned...

When I see you give any account of events given by the IDF the same sort of sceptical scrutiny as that of this woman, then I might be a bit more convinced of the motives for such scrutiny...

Violet...

[Igel]

8. Here are some more articles about the same event.

Read them all and you get a slightly clearer picture. If that's your intent.

And they should have called the ambulance. But wait. One seemed to have happened along at the checkpoint. How long it was between when the woman got to the checkpoint and it showed up, how long until it became clear to the IDF that she wasn't just in labor but close to delivery, and how long it was until the Red Crescent guys showed up ... still a question. On which hangs your conclusion. But it wasn't a case of just stopping the Palestinian woman out of malice.

---------
http://www.palestinercs.org/pressreleases/Year%202005/PR150205WBRR.htm
A woman in labor, Jerusalem ID holder, was denied access by the Israeli soldiers at Kalandia checkpoint, on her route to one of the Palestinian hospitals in Jerusalem. The soldiers claimed that her husband had no permission to enter Jerusalem.

A PRCS ambulance while on its route to one of the Palestinian hospitals in Bethlehem through Kalandia checkpoint, was asked to help the woman. The crew immediately began to assist the woman who delivered after 15 minutes a baby boy.

Both the mother & the baby are in good health and were transferred to Al-Muhtadi hospital in Kufr Aqab, near Ramallah.
....
----------
Now we know she was with her husband, who did not have authorization to enter Jerusalem; this clears up at least one question I had, and one I didn't ask. They wouldn't let him through, but they'd have allowed her. Presumably she didn't want to go on her own. I'm still unclear how long they were at the checkpoint, or why anyone would think labor = uninhibited travel.

I'm not sure where the "passing car" comes into the picture from the first story, but at least it's clear that her son was born at the checkpoint. "Was asked" doesn't say who did the asking; it may have been the woman's husband, the woman, a stranger, or IDF. The ambulance would have be forced to stop at the checkpoint, no doubt; the first guess would be IDF. I'm also not sure where the Aljazeerah second ambulance fits in, or where it got to.


There's more:
--------------
http://www.imemc.org/headlines/2005/feb/week3/021805/birth.htm
Niveen Akram Kahleel, 25, from Kafr Aqeb in the West Bank, gave birth recently on a military checkpoint after soldiers stationed at Qalandia checkpoint, north of Jerusalem , refrained from allowing a car transferring her to a Ramallah hospital to pass.

Medical teams of the Red Crescent Society who were present at the checkpoint and the that she is in delivery, managed to reach her and help her deliver her baby, while the soldiers insisted on holding the car transferring her and searching it; the mother and her child are in a good health condition.

A medic at the Red Crescent said that they team saw after arriving at the checkpoint that soldiers are obstructing the road in front of an ambulance, and immediately called other medics to the scene and helped the woman deliver her baby after failing to convince the soldiers to grant passage to the ambulance.
------

In spite of the sketchy grammar, at least we have two sets of medics. I don't understand why the ambulance in one story was allowed through, and in the other, not. Maybe some Israeli/Palestinian can fill in what would be likely. They had a car that wasn't exempt from being searched; perhaps she couldn't drive, so that didn't matter.

And the big question: if she's "from Kafr Aqeb in the West Bank" and wound up at "Al-Muhtadi hospital in Kufr Aqab", um ... was this completely unnecessary--just to make sure the kid was born in Jerusalem? Kafr Aqab is adjacent to Qalandiya, and is much farther from Jerusalem than it is from Ramallah.

Again, *if* the IDF didn't act promptly to get her aid, they should have; it's unclear that aid wasn't forthcoming in short order (Aljazeerah *suggests* it wasn't, other sources suggest it was). But at this point the clearly "the IDF are slimy bastard" story is a bit of a blur.

[newyorican]

9. Well...

The articles you link to do not shed any different light on the event. A semi-careful reading of the first article would reveal that. They articles you introduce actually reinforce that these IDF soldiers are indeed "slimy bastards".

From the articles you linked to:

Incidents of Palestinian women giving birth of checkpoints have been a repeated issue during the four years of the Intifada, the Palestinian Ministry of health reported that 65 birth cases on checkpoint were reported on checkpoints, in addition to 38 infants who died on the checkpoint immediately after birth or shortly after it as a result of complications.

and

Its worth mentioning that this is not the first incident in which women in labor denied access to hospitals and delivers at check points.

It is *worth* mentioning, unless the intention is to perform a Hasbara style blur job....

On Edit: These never go out of style, it appears. 25 Rules of Disinformation & 8 Traits of The Disinformationalist