Back in May 2019, I posted about Australian-Lebanese doctor Jamal Rifi, who was threatened, attacked online and called a Zionist collaborator due to his support of the charity Project Rozana. Why? Because the charity transports ill palestinian Arab children to Israel for treatment in addition to facilitating the training of palestinian Arab doctors at Israeli hospitals, not to mention the fact it was founded by a Jew.
At the time, Dr Rifi claimed
“In the past two weeks, media outlets backed by the Iranian-aligned Hezbollah have smeared him as an agent of Israel and energised harassment of him in Sydney’s southwest.”
Over two years later, and the Lebanese military tribunal has sentenced him in absentia to 10 years’ imprisonment for being a collaborator and a traitor with the enemy.
“I was informed by my brother that a journalist close to Hezbollah in Lebanon made an announcement that the Lebanese military tribunal sentenced me to 10 years’ imprisonment for being a collaborator and a traitor with the enemy,” he told the ABC’s PM program.
“I am upset, definitely, because no-one wants to be labelled a traitor and it is a distraction from the work I am doing right now.”
That enemy, according to Lebanese law, is Israel.
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Dr Rifi believes the charge is related to his work with Project Rozana, which helps provide medical training for Palestinian medical workers and helps organise the transfer of Palestinian patients to hospitals in Israel.
Since 2017, Dr Rifi has worked with the organisation in Australia, which runs in collaboration with members of the local Jewish community.
He said most of the beneficiaries of the group’s work were Palestinian children.
“We have Palestinian volunteers who pick up the patient and their carer — Mum, grandmother — and they take them from their home to the checkpoints or the border, they cross the checkpoint or border, and they will be picked up by an Israel volunteer who will take them to the hospital,” he said.
Dr Rifi said it was his work over four years with Project Rozana that had seen him labelled a collaborator, and sentenced in absentia.
It is something he blames on the influence of Hezbollah as well as a corrupt ruling class looking to shift attention from themselves as Lebanon faces a series of crises.
“This is a reflection of the Lebanese corrupt system, which failed to protect their own citizens in Lebanon and now they are chasing expatriates outside of Lebanon for doing a good deed, for speaking the truth and for standing our ground by exposing their failures,” he said.
True, there may be more to Hizbullah’s actions than meets the eye
Dr Rifi said he believed there was a deeper motive behind the charge against him, saying it was an attempt to smear his brother’s reputation in Lebanon.
His brother, Ashraf Rifi, is the former director-general of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF), which acts as a national police and security force.
“He is one of the loudest voices against Hezbollah doing everything as per master, Iran,” Dr Rifi said.
“They wanted to affect his name and reputation and they are using my humanitarian work to label me, and through me to my brother, as being traitors and that sort of thing, to minimise his voice.”
but it speaks volumes that this mindset even exists: anyone who works with Israel and/or Jews – even to help palestinian Arabs – is a traitor.
Yet another example as to how the conflict is really about hatred of the Jewish people more than any love for palestinian Arabs.
Did I mention that Lebanon treats its palestinian Arabs like garbage?
