In June 2021, Nathan Thrall published a lengthy essay “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama” in The New York Review of Books. Writing for HonestReporting, Salo Aizenburg described it as “a virulent anti-Zionist manifesto that relies on numerous errors, omissions, misrepresentation and misquotes to paint a one-sided image of Israel as a uniquely evil entity that seeks nothing more than the removal and domination of another people.”
Thrall has now turned his essay into a full-length book, a review of which appears in the New York Times.
Are you sure, @nytimes, that this should be considered "nonfiction?"
There's plenty here that sounds fictional to us based on @rozina_ali's review of @NathanThrall's book, which charges Israel with complete indifference to a tragic Palestinian school bus accident in 2012. 🧵 https://t.co/CQRffjKO54 pic.twitter.com/huopTS8s5J
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 3, 2023
Thrall’s book takes a fatal Palestinian school bus accident in February 2012 as the thread to critique Israel. Both Thrall and reviewer Rozina Ali, however, turn fact into fiction by using the accident as a means to bash Israel and portray Israelis as indifferent to the tragic event.
Ali writes:
The road the bus had been going down had been paved so that settlers could travel to and from Jerusalem without having to go through Ramallah, creating “the illusion of a continuous Jewish presence from the city to the settlements.” After Israel built new bypass highways for settlers, most of the drivers who used the old road were Palestinian. These Palestinian motorists were stopped at checkpoints, which meant traffic piled up, which meant that, to escape the bottleneck of cars and trucks, drivers had a habit of overtaking slow-moving vehicles by veering into the opposing lane of traffic.
Over the years, Palestinians and some media have used the catch-all excuse of “occupation” to absolve Palestinians of responsibility for their own actions. This has even included Palestinian men beating their wives or abusing animals. So Ali’s charge that Palestinians drive dangerously because of Israel is sadly all too predictable.
Related reading: A Reply to “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama” by Nathan Thrall
In the most emotive part of the review, Ali says there is “one particular detail about the accident that continues to chill me”:
The bus is ‘crackling with flames.’ There are screams and shouting. The children burn inside. The crash happened a few minutes’ drive away from a settlement and seconds from a checkpoint. An Israeli ambulance could have bypassed the checkpoints and taken a direct route to the scene of the accident. But about half an hour in, Thrall writes, ‘not a single firefighter, police officer or soldier had come.’
Children are burning to death and Israeli rescue forces are nowhere to be seen, apparently. It appears that Ali and Thrall relied on the inciteful remarks of then-Palestinian health minister Fathi Abu Mughli, who accused Israeli rescue services of failing to provide timely assistance, resulting in more casualties — a charge contradicted by eyewitness reports at the scene.
Media coverage from the day also tells a very different story.
Israel Radio reported that it took rescue forces seven minutes to reach the accident scene.
And Haaretz reported:
More than 50 ambulances and several rescue helicopters were called to the scene of the accident, near the West Bank settlement of Adam. The injured passengers, including three very seriously injured children, were admitted to several hospitals in Israel and in Ramallah. Later, however, Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service and the Palestinian Red Crescent agreed that most of the Ramallah patients should also be admitted to Israeli hospitals.
Not only were Israeli rescue services on the scene within minutes but Israel also went out of its way to treat the wounded Palestinian children.
In addition, Israel’s political leadership offered support:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was visiting Cyprus, offered the PA ”any aid requested.”
President Shimon Peres telephoned Abbas to convey his condolences.
Peres asked the Palestinian leader to tell the grieving families that his thoughts were with them in their time of anguish, and assured Abbas that Israel would provide the best possible medical care to those of the injured who had been taken to Israeli hospitals.
Ali concludes her damning review by calling “to examine the apartheid system that intentionally divides Israelis and Palestinians, as Thrall does so convincingly in this grim narrative.”
The BBC interviewed Israeli medical worker Shalom Galil:
Mr Galil said Israeli and Palestinian emergency services had worked closely together at the scene.
“Palestinian firefighters were involved. As far as I could see, there was full co-operation between the firefighters of Judea and Samaria [West Bank] and the Palestinian firefighters.”
Israeli and Palestinian emergency services worked together; Israeli hospitals (where Arab doctors work with their Jewish colleagues) treated Palestinian children.
Rather than an example of an “apartheid system that intentionally divides Israelis and Palestinians,” this tragic event was evidence of the contrary. What’s more, it showed the essential humanity of Israelis when it comes to saving lives.
But that’s not a narrative that Nathan Thrall, Rozina Ali or The New York Times want readers to see.
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Photo credit: AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
