 I
don't think it is an appropriate thing to be
written, but we will sort it
out.
-- Anglo-Jewish Lord Robert Winston
British
Medical JournalJerusalem, Sunday, October 31, 2004 Palestine: the
assault on health and other war crimes by Prof Derek
Summerfield DOES the death of an Arab weigh
the same as that of a US or Israeli citizen? The
Israeli army, with utter impunity, has killed more
unarmed Palestinian civilians since September 2000
than the number of people who died
[in the
United States] on
September 11, 2001. In conducting 238 extrajudicial executions the
army has also killed 186 bystanders (including 26
women and 39 children). Two thirds of the 621
children (two thirds under 15 years) killed at
checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school,
in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed
in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest
-- the sniper's wound. Clearly, soldiers are
routinely authorised to shoot to kill children in
situations of minimal or no threat. These
statistics attract far less publicity than suicide
bombings, atrocious though these are too. Amnesty International has called for an
investigation into the killing of Asma
al-Mughayr (16 years) and her brother
Ahmad (13 years) on the roof terrace of
their home in Rafah on 18 May, each with a single
bullet to the head. Asma had been taking clothes
off the drying line and Ahmad feeding pigeons.
Amnesty noted that the firing appeared to have come
from the top floor of a nearby house, which had
been taken over by Israeli soldiers shortly before.
Amnesty suspects that this is not "caught in
crossfire," this is murder.  Israeli military reoccupation of the West Bank
and Gaza -- a system of military checkpoints
splitting towns and villages into ghettos, curfews,
closures, raids, mass demolition and destruction of
houses (more than 60 000), and land expropriations
-- has made ordinary life impossible for everyone,
and is driving Palestinian society and its
institutions towards destitution. Moreover, Israel
has been constructing a grotesque barrier that,
when completed, will total over 400 miles -- four
times longer than the Berlin Wall. Extending up to
15 miles into Palestinian territory, the real
purpose of the wall is permanently to lock more
than 50 illegal Israeli settlements into Israel
proper. This is expansive, aggressive colonisation,
in defiance of the International Court of Justice
in The Hague and the United Nations General
Assembly resolution of last July. Last year a UN rapporteur concluded that Gaza
and the West Bank were "on the brink of a
humanitarian catastrophe." The World Bank estimates
that 60% of the population are subsisting at
poverty level (£1.12; $2; €1.6 per day),
a tripling in only three years. Half a million
people are now completely dependent upon food aid,
and Amnesty International has expressed concern
that the Israeli army has been hampering
distribution in Gaza. Over half of all households
are eating only one meal per day. A study by Johns
Hopkins and Al Quds universities found that 20%
of children under 5 years old were anaemic, 9.3%
were acutely malnourished, and a further 13.2%
chronically malnourished. The doctors I met on a professional visit in
March pointed to a rising prevalence of anaemia in
pregnant women and low birthweight babies. The coherence of the Palestinian health system
is being destroyed. The wall will isolate 97
primary health clinics and 11 hospitals from the
populations they serve. Qalqilya hospital, which
primarily serves refugees, has seen a 40% fall in
follow up appointments because patients cannot
enter the city. There have been at least 87
documented cases (including 30 children) in which
denial of access to medical treatment has led
directly to deaths, including those of babies born
while women were held up at checkpoints. The
checkpoint at the entrance to some villages closes
at 7 pm and not even ambulances can pass after this
time. As a recent example, a man in a now fenced in
village near Qalqilya approached the gate with his
seriously ill daughter in his arms, and begged the
soldiers on duty to let him pass so that he could
take her to hospital. The soldiers refused, and a
Palestinian doctor summoned from the other side was
also refused access to the child. The doctor was
obliged to attempt a physical examination, and to
give the girl an injection, through the wire. There are consistent reports of ambulances
containing gravely ill people being hit by gunfire,
or detained at checkpoints while drivers and
paramedics are interrogated, searched, threatened,
humiliated, and assaulted. Wounded men are abducted
from ambulances at checkpoints and sent directly to
prison. Clearly marked clinics are fired on, and
doctors and other health workers shot dead on
duty. Physicians for Human Rights (Israel) have
lambasted the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) for
its silence in the face of these systematic
violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which
guarantees the right to health care and the
protection of health professionals as they do their
duty. Remarkably, IMA president Dr Y Blachar
is currently chairperson of the council of the
World Medical Association (WMA), the official
international watchdog on medical ethics. A supine BMA appears in collusion with this
farce at the WMA. Others are silenced by a fear of
being labelled "anti-semitic," a term used in a
morally corrupt way by the pro-Israel lobby in
order to silence. How are we to affect this
shocking situation, one which to this South
African-born doctor has gone further than the
excesses of the apartheid era. Derek
Summerfield is
honorary senior lecturer Institute of
Psychiatry, London [email protected]
Brian J Murray, SpR/ locum
consultant Aylesbury
[England]
Critics of Summerfield, by and large are saying
either - There are no civilian casualties to speak of
in the occupied territories
- That he has his facts basically correct, but
is guilty of bias.
- That his article is political and should not
be in a medical journal
- That he is somehow being anti-semitic
1 CIVILIAN CASUALTIES Respondents have insisted that 'some',
'virtually all' or 'all' (depending on who you
read) of the 3000+ casualties in the Occupied
Territories are suicide bombers/armed militants -
interesting that they cannot even agree amongst
themselves. Firstly, I am not sure which is more racist: the
idea that 'some' innocent Palestinians get killed,
so that's OK, or the implication of the 'all'
lobby, who are clearly suggesting that there can be
no such thing as an innocent Arab. I counted two supporting references in total,
one being the Israeli Embassy. Summerfield and his
supporters, meanwhile, can point to several
Humanitarian Agencies with no axe to grind who
support the assertion that there ARE significant
civilian casualties in the Occupied Territories.
The International Red Cross (www.icrc.org) gives
information on the humanitarian crisis, whilst
studiously observing its policy of neutrality. (No
mention of the alleged abuse of Red Cross
ambulances, by the way, so hopefully that myth can
be laid to rest). The Israeli Army itself freely
admits to targetting radio stations, hospitals and
market places. Even if you believe the IDF's
assertion that there might have been a Hamas
militant somewhere in there, you cannot deny that
attacks such as this will inevitably cause numerous
innocent casualties. There is no such thing as
'precision bombing'. 2 BIAS Summerfield's opening line asks us whether a
Palestinian life is worth the same as an Israeli or
a US life. Therefore, right from the word go, there
is an implicit assumption in his article that an
Israeli life DOES have value, a fact which he also
makes explicit later in the article. This point
seems to have been lost on Bower who believes that
Summerfield's question means that 'Israeli citizens
have no weight in Dr. Summerfield's balance' - a
disturbing reflection on Bower's attitude to Arab
life. One side of the anti-Summerfield camp denies the
existence of innocent Arab deaths, whilst the other
acknowledges them but asks why Summerfield needs to
spend so much time discussing them. I would have
thought the very existence of each point of view
gives an eloquent answer to the other. The very fact that so many of the rapid
respondents have called for censorship on this
issue tells us why we need people like Summerfield
to speak out. If Summerfield's critics had their
way, no one would be allowed to discuss a
Palestinian death. Summerfield's article is not
there to distort the balance but to redress it. 3 POLITICS Summerfield's article was about preventable
deaths, attempts to administer healthcare and
blocks to those attempts. That sounds pretty
medical to me. Yes, there is a political angle, but
surely that is feature of the situation, not
Summerfield. The BMJ has been printing political articles for
years. I am not aware of anyone calling for the
editor's resignation because of the existence of
the 'News Roundup' section, so what justification
is there for this sudden sensitivity to a bit of
politics relevant to healthcare ?(Apart from the
fact that this particular article does not square
with the world view of a few extremists, of
course). The only people I find unnecessarily political
are Summerfield's critics. There seems to be a
grudging acknowledgement of what is going on in
Occupied Territories, but it is rapidly followed up
by some appeal that it is justified for political
purposes. This is what people mean when they insist
that the suffering in the Occupied Territories has
to be seen in its 'historical context'. Politicians
might get away with this sort of argument, but it
should be beneath the dignity of anyone with a
medical degree. 4 ANTI SEMITISM No one has really explained exactly how
Summerfield's comments amount to antisemitism.
There is no incitement in his article, and he makes
no sweeping assertions based on the race or
nationality of the protagnonists in his article.
Would that I could say the same for his critics.
The following are just a selection: Roth " The so called
Palestinians, which in itself is a ludicrous
term because there is no nationality or people
prior to 1948... were given opportunity upon
opportunity to better themselves and their
situation, but continue to slide lower and lower
because they have no value for life".Kovachev "Still, nowhere in your
jeremiads can one find an objective analysis of
the problems caused by the Pal Arab's own social
and political leadership, their cultural norms,
family customs...". Wolfe "Arabs are unable to be honest
in the Western sense of honesty: that is, a
truth being acknowledged and existing
independently of the needs and demands of the
Tribe or Hive Mind". Ben Joseph says that Summerfield's claims
are' abhorrent and absurd' but then states that
it is 'well known' that
Palestinians shoot their own children just to give
the IDF a bad name (the phrase 'well known'
here presumably translates as "I'd rather you
didn't ask for me any evidence, thanks"). If you do
not see anything wrong with these statements, then
try this simple experiment: replace the word 'Arab'
with 'Jew', the word ' Palestinian' with
'Israeli'. When the protest is this shrill, you have to
realise Summerfield must be on to something. The
majority of his critics do not want simply to add
their two cents' worth - something they are
entitled to do - but to silence him altogether. How
would that achieve the 'balance' that his critics
claim they want? And what about the freedom of
speech that doctors like Dr Ilangaratne say
they 'generally' support? Summerfield has been
criticised not because his views are extremist, but
because they do not conform to the extremism of his
critics. The only shame on the BMJ is if it caves
in to this unjustified attempt at censorship. Competing interests: I have no religious
affiliation. I have not been directed to respond by
another website. 
Israeli and
Jewish outrage at opinion piece, 'Palestine: The
Assault on Health and Other War Crimes,' by
British professor Derek Summerfield in
British Medical Journal-
Ha'aretz
(Israel): Killing children is no longer a big
deal
-
Some
British doctors doubt the suicide of Dr. David
Kelly (Guardian)
 -
Abu Ghraib American
doctors collaborated with interrogators in the
torture of Iraq prisoners
-
Israel
"harvests" the vital organs of Palestinian
children killed by their Army
- Israeli
medical association: OK to break fingers of
Palestinian prisoners during
interrogation
-
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