Protect the NHS

Protect the NHS.
We hear this exhortation repeated over and over again. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service is to be protected at any cost. This sounds a little strange to us in Israel where the purpose of the various healthcare organizations is to protect us citizens.

But we have much to learn from the UK’s approach. Let us take a look.

Protect the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Yes, we citizens could do much to protect our soldiers. They have a dangerous, unpleasant, even thankless task. We should accompany every soldier, every tank, at all times to keep them safe.
We should remember Rudyard Kipling’s view of the soldier’s life …..
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot.
When the enemy is shooting, we should be there with our soldiers.

Protect the Israel Air Force. Let us concerned citizens take charge of the runways used by the our Air Force. We should decide if they are safe or not. We must not let aircraft take off with dangerous bombs strapped under their wings. We must protect our pilots; this is too important a task to leave to someone sitting in a control tower and treating our air force like a giant video game.

The police are in need of our protection. Daily, they face untold dangers, be it a demonstration for, or against, our prime minister, or catching drivers speeding on our motorways. Our brave policemen should know that they are not alone. Every policeman should be accompanied by a citizen in case they need protection.

The Israel Fire and Rescue Services would seem to have an easy life, sitting in a comfortable fire station drinking tea. But this can change in an instant. Houses can catch fire. Forests are set ablaze, sometimes by an errant lightning strike but more often at the hands of a terrorist who is happy to destroy the land they claim is theirs. Our firemen would feel safer if we were there to hand them a hose, to turn the water on, to make sure they don’t get too close to the flames.

Of course, sometimes it is we, the people, who need protecting. To this end there are a number of schemes known as protection rackets. Some of these schemes are run by criminals, who provide protection from violence, looting, raiding, and piracy, for a monthly payment. Others are run by the government who provide protection from violence, looting, raiding, and piracy, for a monthly protection payment they call income tax.

And for readers who need protection from Blog Overload, my advice is simple – only read my Blogs, ignore all others.