Published 24 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2066
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:a2066

Analysis

Personal paper

Perils of criticising Israel

Editorial, doi:10.1136/bmj.b500doi:10.1136/bmj.a2094Personal view, doi:10.1136/bmj.b722

The BMJ’s acting editor received 1000 emails after the journal published an article criticising Israel in 2004. Karl Sabbagh examined them and is reminded of what happened when the magazine World Medicine criticised Israel 27 years ago

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

In October 2004, the BMJ published a personal view by Derek Summerfield in which he expressed his concern at what he saw as systematic violations of the fourth Geneva Convention by the Israeli army in Gaza.¹ The article claimed that many of the actions deemed necessary to root out and prevent terrorism had had the foreseeable effect of killing or maiming large numbers of Palestinians, including children, who had played no part in attacks on Israelis. (This issue is, of course, at the heart of worldwide criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza last month.) Summerfield supported his arguments with figures published by reputable international organisations, such as the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Summerfield’s article provoked hundreds of responses, about 550 of which the BMJ published as rapid responses.² Of these, a small proportion were broadly supportive of Summerfield’s article, but most were hostile. Reading them might give the impression . . . [Full text of this article]

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