Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation (Likud) Ayoub Kara visited the headquarters of United Hatzalah on Monday afternoon 4 Menachem Av in order to explore the options of adopting the cooperative model developed by United Hatzalah and transposing it to a regional scale. Kara is a Druse-Israeli who hails from the town of Dalyat al-Carmel and has been working tirelessly since the election to better the relations between Israel and its regional neighbors. Kara spoke very highly of the organization and its efforts to bridge the cultural gaps in Israel and provide a comfortable working environment for people of all faiths and religions.

“I am happy to be here, touring the headquarters of United Hatzalah, an organization which puts the saving of lives as its primary goal ahead of politics, religion, and anything else. This organization, in my opinion, exemplifies and upholds as an ideal all basic human rights.”

Kara went on to say that the cooperative model used by United Hatzalah, which builds connections between people over the basic human concept of saving lives, is one that he believes can unify people in what has become one of the tensest areas of unrest in the world. “I think that here is where people can connect and join together and work together with everything going on around us. The (lifesaving) technology which I saw here firsthand in the command center and in United Hatzalah needs to be spread around the entire world, because this organization can create a consensus in a world that is entirely made up of landmines.”

Utilizing the model of United Hatzalah, Kara believes that cooperation among countries in the Middle East is possible. “My dream is to create a partnership, a true partnership, with the Palestinian Authority that will include funding courses for EMTs and having volunteers work together. Additionally, we need to spread this out to the Arab states around us, and through that we will enter into an era of a new direction for partnerships, with new connections and new opportunities for cooperation.

We will invite the Palestinians first, and we hope that they will join us. In the near future we also hope to join together with the 30 or so countries that are in the Saudi Arabian Coalition. This is a very new development, but one that is possible. We need to spread the message that saving lives is more important than the fighting which takes place throughout the region,” Kara said.

Kara also praised the advanced technology that is being used to save lives every day across the nation. “The technology that United Hatzalah has here is something that I believe to be vital and that we must spread around to the other states in the region. In specific, we need to spread it to the Arab Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but also as far away as Morocco.”

“The message that I am taking with me today after my visit, which is very important, is to spread the word of the work that United Hatzalah does to every country which I visit. I believe that through spreading cooperative works like this, focused on the idea of saving lives, we can achieve regional cooperation. We will take this organization and lift it up on wings. We should have made a much bigger effort to embrace United Hatzalah a long time ago, because there is no greater calling than the saving of lives.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo: United Hatzalah)