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West Bank School Closed for Swine Flu

Meantime, 3,175 cases diagnosed in Israel

by
Ari M. Brostoff
September 15, 2009

A school in the West Bank city of Nablus is being closed for a week after some students tested positive for swine flu, the AP reports. This isn’t the first time the H1N1 virus has hit the territory—as we noted in July, cases were diagnosed this summer in the West Bank though not in Gaza, where the Israeli blockade seems to have kept the disease at bay. Now, though, the number of reported cases in the West Bank has gone up to 125—with no casualties—and up to 3,175 cases in Israel, where there have been 23 deaths. By the logic of the chairman of settler organization Yesha, that means the West Bank’s been hit with a double whammy. The official told the Christian Science Monitor last week that “there are two pandemics running in the world today. One is swine flu, and the [other is the] settlement psychosis,” by which he meant the fact that the “international community is so interested in whether my daughter builds a house next to mine.” Yes, they’re about the same.

Ari M. Brostoff is Culture Editor at Jewish Currents.