Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes: Only way forward is to open up a dialogue

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7474.1101-a

BMJ 2004;329:1101 (6 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7474.1101-a

Letter

Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes

Only way forward is to open up a dialogue

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The personal view by Summerfield is a politicaldiatribe that deserves no place in the BMJ or any other medicaljournal purporting to present facts, not fiction.¹

Summerfield queries the right of Yoram Blachar, chairman ofthe Israel Medical Organisation, to be chair of the World MedicalAssociation. He omits to mention that Blachar regularly challengesIsrael's defence force on access to medical care.² I would bemore than happy to see similar protests from senior Palestiniandoctors about the misuse of medical facilities by terrorists.

If we're talking about appropriateness and bias, simply lookat the stark contrast between the UN's record on condemnationof Israel (regular, supported by all Arab and Muslim states,regardless of any inappropriateness or unfairness) and its rankfailure to condemn gross injustices, abuses of human rights,state sanctioned murders and torture in various Arab and Muslimstates because such proposals are . . . [Full text of this article]

Liz Lightstone, senior lecturer in nephrology

Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital, London l.lightstone@imperial.ac.uk