Dershowitz calls Rambam an underground spring of life, unlike Hamas’ terror tunnels

Did you hear the one about the parking garage that turns into a hospital? It’s no joke. 

In Northern Israel, Rambam Health Care Campus can house 2,000 patient beds and accompanying medical equipment underground, safe from rockets and gunfire. The Sami Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital officially opened earlier this year.

Former Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz told Rambam’s annual fundraising dinner at Manhattan’s Marriott Marquis last week that he was “depressed and stressed” after touring one of the Gaza-to-Israel terror tunnels discovered during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge — “The tunnel I walked through was a few yards away from an Israeli kindergarten. It was built to kill and kidnap as many of those 57 children as possible, a tunnel of death.”

But then came an unexpected high point of Dershowitz’s trip: his visit to Rambam, which he called the exact opposite of a terror tunnel. Rambam is an underground facility of life, he said, and quoted scriptural references about the value of life and how Rambam meets that that goal.

Dr. Rafi Beyar, Rambam’s Director and cardiology specialist, outlined several points that make Rambam a unique institution and a model for peace and coexistence — it offers care to anyone who arrives, regardless of which side of the border they are from, and 25 percent of its employees are Muslims and Christians who stand shoulder to shoulder with Jews to serve the sick.

He pointed out that Rambam began its improvisation while under fire during the Lebanon wars.

A video of the transformation from garage to hospital was shown — the cars are moved out, patients transported downstairs with their medical equipmen, and their care continues. The complete changeover of 2,000 beds takes 72 hours but smaller groups of patients can be accommodated underground much more quickly.