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FEATURE: Michael Baum Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? No BMJ 2007; 335: 125 [Full text]

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Balance and co-operation, not boycott

Hazel Thornton   (21 July 2007)

Boycott based on ignorance and prejudice

Robert Brody   (22 July 2007)

Please do not let the facts confuse us

Ronny Shtarkshall   (22 July 2007)

How about a boycott of the BMJ?

John D. Lantos   (23 July 2007)

Academia should unite

Michael G O'Toole   (24 July 2007)

more political than moral

peter h winocour   (24 July 2007)

On Polls and Politics

Haim Haviv, Rehovot, Israel   (24 July 2007)

Academic Boycotts

Michael D Cohen   (25 July 2007)

You must be kidding

Steven G. Morgen   (25 July 2007)

Do you really want to boycott this

Gillian Kay   (25 July 2007)

Response and challenge to Professor Baum: what counts as evidence?

derek a summerfield   (25 July 2007)

Gins, tonics and bitter lemons

Mark Struthers   (26 July 2007)

Boycotting supporters are not suffering

Saleem, J Abdallah   (26 July 2007)

Who should have more say in how oppression is challenged?

G Mir   (26 July 2007)

Re: A stain on the reputation of the BMJ

Jeremy Segal   (26 July 2007)

Who is listening?

Martin Wolfson   (26 July 2007)

Oppose Israeli Academic Boycott

Gideon Kreiner, 90035   (26 July 2007)

Antisemitism in disguise

Janet N. Rosenbaum   (26 July 2007)

whose responsibility

winston m forman   (26 July 2007)

Why pick on Israel?

Irving Cobden   (26 July 2007)

BMA sponsored study visit to Palestine

Colin J Green   (27 July 2007)

Fighting for peace: E-polls, 'scientific debate'?, Hippocrates and conflict

Michael Cohen   (30 July 2007)

What's better than a boycott?

Steven Ford   (31 July 2007)

Re: What's better than a boycott?

Michael D Cohen   (1 August 2007)

Re: Re: What's better than a boycott?

Steven Ford   (1 August 2007)

Baum misses the point

Robert J Shearer   (1 August 2007)

How many Pentiums are needed to atone for Israel's carpet bombing of Lebanon

andrew Rouse   (4 August 2007)

Unexceptional suffering

David S Halpin   (4 August 2007)

Whose big lie?

Anton van der Merwe   (7 August 2007)

Professor Baum has not responded to my call to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc.

derek a summerfield   (29 August 2007)

Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?

derek a summerfield   (11 September 2007)

Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?

Jay Ilangaratne   (12 September 2007)

Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?

Brian Robinson   (14 September 2007)

The threatened academic boycott of Israel and the accusation that the Israel Medical association (IMA) is complicit in the torture of prisoners.

Michael Baum   (4 October 2007)

Professor Baum, as a Doctor: please treat the cause not the symptom

Mamdouh EL-Adl   (12 October 2007)

Professor Baum still not answering and handing over to IMA

Christopher J Burns-Cox, Wotton-under-Edge GLOS GL12 7PB   (12 October 2007)

Royal Society of Medicine under attack by pro-Israel doctors

derek a summerfield   (18 October 2007)

Is freedom of opinion under attack?

Patrick Hudson   (21 October 2007)

Re: Is freedom of opinion under attack?

Mamdouh EL-Adl   (28 October 2007)

Re: Royal Society of Medicine under attack by pro-Israel doctors

Nicholas J Naftalin   (30 October 2007)

Re: Is Freedom of opinion under attack?

Mamdouh EL-Adl   (6 November 2007)

Torture and the Israeli Medical Association: request for correction

derek a summerfield   (21 January 2009)

Balance and co-operation, not boycott 21 July 2007
Hazel Thornton, Honorary Visiting Fellow, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester "Saionara", 31 Regent Street, Rowhedge, Colchester, CO5 7EA Send response to journal: Re: Balance and co-operation, not boycott	I am always dubious about labels [1] and prefer to judge people by matters of principle – and their actions. The labels I carry myself in the academic, medical and religious fields confuse and bewilder those people who ask what I do and in what way I am involved in medical matters, and in patient and public involvement in research. I believe that any progress I might have contributed to in these fields has been achieved, not by boycott, standing off, erecting barriers or by parading other people`s shortcomings, but by pursuing dialogues [2]; establishing joint ventures [3]; by working through differences of opinion [4]; by recommending that patients and the profession should contrive `to meet on the landing by the invigorating open window of science and talk`. [5]. Neither party who might come from diametrically opposed corners [2] has a monopoly of `the truth`; only by first meeting in the debating arena will there be any hope of finding common ground and identifying mutually held objectives, looking to a better future, then translating words into action by building bridges, creating common goodwill, and by actively helping to make a better future for all people – whatever labels they carry. I encouraged my children to be courageous and independent, to grow out of the childish “putting people in Coventry” phase, suggesting that it only encourages further division, conflict and heartache. Hazel Thornton. Hon. DSc. (Leicester) Independent Advocate for Quality in Research and Healthcare. [1] Refractor. Descriptions and discourses. Lancet 2001; 358:1106 [2] Michael Baum. Debate: Clinical trials – a brave new partnership: a response to Mrs. Thornton. Journal of Medical Ethics. 1994; Volume 20; Number 1:26-30 [3] Hazel Thornton. Patients and health professionals working together to improve clinical research: where are we going? European Journal of Cancer. 2006; 42:2454-2458, plus Appendix A. online at doi:10.1016/j.ejca.2006.05.022 [4] Geoff Watts. Iain Chalmers: maverick master of medical evidence. Lancet 2006; 368:2203 [5] Hazel Thornton The patient`s role in research. Health Committee Third Report: Breast Cancer Services. Volume II. 6th July 1995. HMSO, London. (Presentation at The Lancet “Challenge of Breast Cancer” conference Bruges, 22nd April 1994. “The patient`s role in research”.) Competing interests: Michael Baum and I co-founded the Consumers` Advisory Group for Clinical Trials (CAG-CT) in 1994
Boycott based on ignorance and prejudice 22 July 2007
Robert Brody, Dental Surgeon London W1U 5LR Send response to journal: Re: Boycott based on ignorance and prejudice	Suggesting a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is both misguided and based on ignorance of the huge amount of co-operation that exists at present between Palestinian and Israeli organisations. The "First Middle East Symposium in Dental Medicine" was held last November in East Jerusalem as a result of the growing trust and friendhip between the deans, staff and students of Al-Quds University and the Hebrew University-Hadassah dental schools. Leading international lecturers and professors took part. As a result funding was established by International sponsors headed by Nobel Biocare for ongoing major joint projects. Professor Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University is quoted as saying "Although the Israelis and Palestinians who are living in this area aren't living in normal conditions, they are both interested in investing in the future ..... to ensure a better furture for our children." Prof Musa Bajali, Dean of Al-Quds Faculty of Dentistry, who courageously rejected all attempts made by some militant elements to call off this outstanding event said "Health and scientific research cannot remain in the hands of the few ... we have to collaborate with others and it is ony natural to begin with your neighbours. Once we do this the sky is the limit." For this and similar reasons I believe that promoting a boycott of Israeli institutions will do untold harm to the forward looking academics in both Israel and Palestine. It is misguided,aimed at organisations that have no hand in any perceived injustice; It would be counterproductive and ineffective. Competing interests: None declared
Please do not let the facts confuse us 22 July 2007
Ronny Shtarkshall, Faculty member Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Send response to journal: Re: Please do not let the facts confuse us	I am proudly an Israeli Zionist and because of that belief, not despite it, I believe in a "two states for two people" solution. Zionism is based on the assumption that people deserve a political entity and therefore my Zionism compels me to support a Palestinian state. But, being for that political solution does not mean that I will agree that there will be a Palestinian state and no Israel but a binational state as some people suggest and most Arabs want. Two states for two people and only negotiation would lead to a peaceful practical solution. As for academic boycott. If it was not tragic it would have been ridiculous. Upholding not even institutions but academics as a group responsible for their government policies is a political move that has no relation to the facts or to academian. My school of public health, initiated an alliance with a Palestinian school of public health and other institutions for working together for the benefit of our constituencies. The Hebrew University is being accused by right wing politicians and political zealots as the nest of "peace mongers". But let not the facts confuse political needs of neo-racists and neo-facists in holier than though clocks. British academic unions never thought of boycotting China academics for the Genocide in Tibet or Sudanese for Darfur. Even that would be unjustified because many of those academics may be doing their best (which is very little) to ameliorate the situation or just deplore it. Competing interests: I am an Israeli academic
How about a boycott of the BMJ? 23 July 2007
John D. Lantos, Professor of Pediatrics The University of Chicago 60637 Send response to journal: Re: How about a boycott of the BMJ?	I'd propose a boycott of the BMJ until it comes up with an explicit policy about which political issues it will address. The policy should state whether those issues ought to have anything to do with medicine or biological science. Will the BMJ have debates and polls about the pros and cons of nuclear reactors in North Korea? Or sex workers in Thailand? Will the BMJ take stands on free trade and the deliberations of the G8? Intelligent readers want to know. The policy should articulate the process by which the BMJ will decide which issues are appropriate for its pages. Then, we readers could at least understand what criteria the journal's editors and publishers use in making decisions about content and decide whether or not we want to support such efforts. Competing interests: None declared
Academia should unite 24 July 2007
Michael G O'Toole, Academic Trinity College Dublin Send response to journal: Re: Academia should unite	As academics, I suggest we have a role, if not a duty to speak out for a reasoned approach to conflict and violence. The long hoped for settlement in Ireland may be a model for other conflict areas such as that in the middle east. As students in Dublin in the 1970s we made a special point of travelling north for conferences together, all the more so after the car bomb which exploded outside this college, killing people on their way home from work. At an emotive time, when the British embassy was burned a few hundred yards from the college, it never divided the college community composed of catholic and protestant from north and south. I suggest we should support academic co-operation and integration. We have both Jewish and Muslim student associations in college who work closely together, We are perhaps the only venue in Ireland where catholic and protestant share the same chapel on a daily basis. I suggest academia is a unique area to develop better understanding and mutual repect. A boycott of Israel academia, or indeed any such is wasting a unique opportunity to overcome conflict. Dr. Michael O’Toole, Centre for Global Health, Trinity College Dublin. Ireland Competing interests: None declared
more political than moral 24 July 2007
peter h winocour, consultant al7 4hq Send response to journal: Re: more political than moral	The boycott is political posturing and is self defeating if its intention is to enhance Palestinian academic and political economic freedom . Why do many critics of israel and Palestinians in Jerusalem NOT want any such action ? This seems more and more like a 'special case' for Israel. Mr Hickley more or less states this - he puts words in the states mouth ' dominant self image...etc'. Israel appears to be deserving of the boycott because of these standards. This seems to ensure that the more intolerant and barbaric a regime the less we expect so the less we should try to change. So.. the boycott is easy as Israel makes a convenient target and bogeyman- What a load of cant ! Again I really wonder why as a member of the BMA I need this in a medical journal . I could always get the New Statesman if this was how to attain CME ! Competing interests: None declared
On Polls and Politics 24 July 2007
Haim Haviv, PhD student Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Send response to journal: Re: On Polls and Politics	Dear BMJ, Will this poll "help doctors make better decisions"?... Dear fellow academics: beware those who seek to abuse academia for the blind propagation of politics. And to my boycotting colleagues I say: boycot away! But know this: boycotting is a double-edged sword. It is a shame, when so much blood has already been spilled, to wield another sword. Beat your sword into a plowshare, Tom. Competing interests: an e-poll hating israeli
Academic Boycotts 25 July 2007
Michael D Cohen, Medical Director Beeri Clinic Netanya Send response to journal: Re: Academic Boycotts	Israeli academic and medical institutions are the places where Arabs and Jews mix on an equal footing. Israeli hospitals treat Israeli Jews and Arabs equally and Palestinian Arabs are brought for treatment to Israeli Hospitals. Whatever their political stand, who exactly do the proponents of boycott want to harm? Those who support an academic boycott of Israel do so because of hatred of Israel as a concept and not because of any real wish to help the Palestinians. Competing interests: I am a doctor in Israel.
You must be kidding 25 July 2007
Steven G. Morgen, see competing interest see competing interest Send response to journal: Re: You must be kidding	I'm just a Yankee rabbi here, but I find it a tad ironic that some British doctors are considering a boycott of Israel of all places, right after a horrendous plot to blow up places in London committed by radical Muslim doctors. Can anyone help me make sense of this? When the Hamas charter expressly calls for the destruction of Israel, calls Jews the enemies of God and Islam and suggests that the only way to defeat them is for Islam to wipe them out - and this is the ruling party in the Palestinian camp. What exactly is Israel supposed to do about that? Thousands of rockets have landed in Israel from Gaza since Israel voluntarily evacuated from that area 2 years ago. Hamas is in control of Gaza. They managed to effect a rescue of the British journalist. But they continue to attack Israel on a daily basis. What is Israel supposed to do about that? Notice that Israel has NOT invaded Gaza (at least not yet, but it has been two years already). Aside from all the reasons given by other responders - that boycotts will not help encourage a solution to this intractable problem, etc. - I find the idea of a boycott very myopic, one-sided, and I might even say reflecting a serious prejudice against Israel from the outset. Competing interests: I am an American Rabbi
Do you really want to boycott this 25 July 2007
Gillian Kay, Research Associate Hebrew University Medical School 91120 Send response to journal: Re: Do you really want to boycott this	One need only glance at the following achievements to understand what Israel's universities have contributed to human progress and peace. Two of the world's most widely used FDA-approved multiple-sclerosis drugs, Copaxone and Rebif, were developed from research carried out at Weizmann Institute of Science. A revolutionary drug developed by researchers at Bar-Ilan University holds out hope for tens of millions of people around the world who suffer from schizophrenia. Researchers from Tel Aviv University have also invented a drug candidate which holds out promise in this field. An award-winning scientist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev developed a biological control for mosquitoes and black flies that cause malaria and river blindness, saving the sight and lives of millions of people in Africa and China. Scientists at Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed the FDA- approved drug Exelon for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and are now working on a new anti-Alzheimer's drug also suitable for treating strokes and traumatic brain injuries. Velcade, an effective new cancer drug that treats multiple myeloma, is based on research by two Technion-Israel Institute of Technology professors. The pair won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their groundbreaking work. Scientists at Tel Aviv University developed BioPetroClean, a safe environmentally-friendly technology for cleaning oil spills in seas around the globe. University of Haifa researchers working as part of an international cooperative team, identified the gene capable of increasing the protein content of wheat - a giant step towards combating world hunger. Research by a professor at the Weizmann Institute has led to the development of promising new therapies for acute spinal cord injuries. The late actor Christopher Reeve described Israel as the 'world-center' for research on paralysis treatment. Proneuron Biotechnologies, the company founded to commercialize this research is also developing a therapy for Parkinson's with support from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. A team from the Weizmann Institute has demonstrated for the first time how tissues transplanted from pig embryos might, in the future, be able to induce the human body to produce blood-clotting proteins for hemophilia patients. An Israeli scientific team from the Technion has succeeded in creating in the laboratory beating heart tissue from human embryonic stem cells. Researchers at the Hebrew University and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge have isolated the protein that triggers stress in order to try to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome. A team of Jewish and Arab Israeli genetic researchers from Ben-Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center has identified a genetic defect that causes a severe neurodegenerative disease in Bedouin children, resulting in premature death. A researcher at Ben Gurion University has succeeded in creating human monoclonal antibodies which can neutralize the highly contagious small-pox virus without inducing the dangerous side effects of the existing vaccine. A Hebrew University doctoral student has developed an innovative drug that gives people the feeling of satiety, an important development in treatment of the obese. The achievements do not stop there. Israel is the 100th smallest country in the world, but many of the world's best technologies were invented here, much of the groundwork laid by whiz-kids from Israel's universities. The Pentium MMX Chip was designed at Intel in Israel. Both the Pentium 4 microprocessor and the Centrum processor were designed, developed and produced in Israel, as was voice mail. Most of Windows operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel, as was voice mail technology. Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel, attracted by the high quality of engineers. Much of the world's security in the fields of computers, banking, and homeland security rests on Israeli inventiveness - a necessary by-product of the years spent defending the country from terrorism and war. An Israeli company, for example, is now working on software that would prevent the kind of repeat bombings seen on the London Underground. The company wishes to complete its research in the UK, but will be unable to because of the boycott. ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE Israel's universities are worldwide centers of excellence with students from all over the globe - Arab, Jewish, and Christian alike. There are no ethnic or religious qualifications for entry, and the universities are not controlled by the government. A recent survey by the Milken Institute showed that of over 400 universities examined worldwide, Hebrew University (HU) and Tel Aviv University (TAU) were ranked 12th and 21st respectively for registering biotech patents. Only one British establishment, London University, could beat those placings. The Weizmann Institute of Science, one of the most important research centers in the world for brain studies, was voted the best university in the world for life scientists to conduct research. Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world. Twenty-four percent of the workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the US and Holland; and 12 percent hold advanced degrees. As a result, Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce - 145 per 10,000, compared to 85 in the US, 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. Israel also produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, 109 per 10,000 people, as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed. In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world (3,500, mostly in high tech). In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country, except the US. Israel also has the highest concentration of high- tech companies outside of Silicon Valley, and is ranked number two in the world for venture capital funding, behind the US. ACADEMIC COEXISTENCE Israel's universities are at the forefront of work with Arabs and Palestinians to try to improve their quality of life and education. They are a main forum for liberal discussion between Jews and Arabs. Arab students and Palestinians study at most of the institutions. At the University of Haifa, for example, 20 percent of undergraduates are Arab Israelis. Haifa University has a Jewish-Arab Center which advances dialogue on Arab-Jewish coexistence. It also runs an Arab Student Leadership Program, and researchers at the university work jointly with Al-Quds University in east Jerusalem, to develop and implement diagnostic and prognostic tests for learning disabilities in Palestinian and Israeli youth. Hebrew University, which was targeted in a terror attack that killed both Jews and Arabs, was co-founded by Albert Einstein. It has always espoused the values of pluralism and tolerance and has a large number of Arab-Israeli programs, including training courses for dentists from the PA and Middle East countries, and a variety of joint Israeli-Palestinian research projects. The university's first international symposium was jointly organized by the dental schools of the Hebrew University and Al-Quds University in November last year despite political tension. The Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine has 35 graduates from Gaza and the West Bank. Some of the school's graduates founded the School of Public Health at Al Quds University and continue to teach there. The school has a trilateral agreement with Al Quds and a US university for research, training and development of public health programs and a trilateral workshop on development of software for smoking cessation programs is planned. In October last year, the rectors of HU, TAU, the University of Haifa, Ben Gurion University, the Weizmann Institute, and the Technion wrote a letter to Israel's Minister of Defense to cancel a ban imposed by the IDF on Palestinian students entering Israel to study. ACADEMIC IMPERATIVE Israel's universities are a breeding ground for innovation, excellence and liberal dialogue. They make a massive contribution to the world in science, medicine, environment, communications and security. Israel may be a tiny country, but it is making one of the greatest contributions of any country on the planet, improving and transforming the lives of millions. Israel's researchers do not deserve to be shunned, and the world should not risk losing their research. In the words of Dr. Sari Nusseibah, president of the Palestinian Al- Quds University: "The free flow of science and information... constitutes a powerful force against war... Of all possible bridges to burn as a form of 'well-intentioned' political pressure, the boycott of academic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians should be excluded..." Competing interests: None declared
Response and challenge to Professor Baum: what counts as evidence? 25 July 2007
derek a summerfield, Hon Sen Lect, Institute of Psychiatry, London Maudsley Hospital, SE5 8BB Send response to journal: Re: Response and challenge to Professor Baum: what counts as evidence?	I am writing as one of the organisers of the campaign to boycott the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) and seek their suspension from the World Medical Association (WMA), the official international watchdog on medical ethics. To this effect 130 UK doctors (now nearly 160) signed a collective appeal published in the Guardian newspaper on 21 April, and reported in the BMJ on 28 April. (1) We are allied to the academic boycott campaign- though for my part the case for boycott of the IMA was already clear-cut a decade ago. (2) I applaud the BMJ for having this debate in its pages, which is entirely in line with its remit to publish not just on disease and medical science per se, but also on the socio-political factors that shape disease and distress worldwide. This includes medical ethics and the wider duties of doctors and medical academics. Professor Baum’s personal and family connection with the region is interesting but it does not seem to have helped him engage with the facts to which we point. Indeed he writes that “it is also a lie to suggest that the IMA is complicit in the ill-treatment of prisoners”. A lie, Professor? The reference given to support this conclusion is a response by the President of the IMA to articles of mine in the BMJ in 2003. (3) (4) As one doctor to another I would like to ask Professor Baum directly whether he properly examined the considerable weight of published documentation relevant to this question before he made so unequivocal a statement in the world’s most circulated medical journal. Firstly, a major point of reference in this literature would be the 1996 Amnesty International report which concluded that Israeli doctors working with the security services “form part of a system in which detainees are tortured, ill-treated and humiliated in ways that place prison medical practice in conflict with medical ethics”. (5) Have you read this Professor Baum, and if you have, on what basis do you dismiss it? The report was entitled “Under constant medical supervision”, an ironic reference to a statement the Israeli authorities had made in defence of conditions in interrogation suites and prisons holding Palestinian detainees. If torture was institutionalised in the everyday treatment of Palestinian men undergoing interrogation, and such men were indeed under constant medical supervision, these doctors could not be but colluding with such practices in defiance of all codes of practice and the WMA’s anti-torture Declaration of Tokyo. Indeed in 1993 a ‘fitness for interrogation’ form to be filled out by Israeli doctors in detention centres came to light- this was medical certification in preparation for interrogation accompanied by torture. Writing in the Lancet, the head of Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), a group for whom I have the greatest respect, reported in 2003 that since 1992 they had been attempting to get the IMA to join their opposition to the use of torture, but in vain. (6) Amnesty told me in the 1990s that they too had made various approaches to the IMA on this account and had always been rebuffed. This too has been my experience when I have published articles on this subject in the BMJ and Lancet. In response to one of these, published in the Lancet, the longstanding president of the IMA Dr Yoram Blachar- whom Professor Baum is citing with approval- actually justified the use of “moderate physical pressure” during interrogations. It is not often that the head of a national medical association uses a medical journal to defend practices which the UN Committee Against Torture considered torture.(7) The moral position and strategic line taken over many years by the IMA was well captured by a remark made by Professor Eran Dolev, than IMA Head of Ethics (yes, Ethics!) in an interview in 1999 with a visiting delegation from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, London (headed by the founder, Helen Bamber OBE). Dolev told them that “a couple of broken fingers” during the interrogation of Palestinians was worthwhile for the information it might garner. In a letter to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, those present collectively verified what Dolev had said. (8) Did your researches turn up this letter, Professor Baum? In the event the IMA President defended Dolev and threatened a law suit, despite the watertight evidence. Indeed 2 years earlier, after a human rights conference in Gaza, I had written to Dolev in his capacity as Head of Ethics. An Israeli physician had told me that a medical colleague had confessed to her that he had removed the intravenous drip from the arm of a seriously ill Palestinian prisoner, and told the man that if he wanted to live, he should co-operate with his interrogators. I asked Dolev to investigate but he never replied, even after reminders. When an Israeli psychiatrist Dr Ruchama Marton, a psychiatrist, publicised the unethical role that fellow Israeli doctors were playing in detention centres by labelling seriously mentally ill Palestinian detainees as “malingerers”, and denying them treatment, the IMA charged her with slander rather than investigating the allegations.(2) Torture continues to state policy in Israel. The Israeli human rights documentation centre B’Tselem recently confirmed (April 2007) that almost all Palestinian detainees suffer physical and mental abuse amounting to torture, citing the testimonies of 73 men gathered between July 2005 and January 2006. The IMA maintains a studied silence. The second major medical ethical question concerns the Fourth Geneva Convention- those sections that guarantee a civilian population unfettered access to medical services and to the essentials for life, and immunity for medical staff. Amongst the bodies who have documented the extent to which the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has systematically flouted the Convention are Amnesty International (more than 500 critical reports since September 2000), Human Rights Watch, the World Food Programme, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN Relief and Works Agency, the WHO, the Israeli organisations Physicians for Human Rights (PHRI) and B’Tselem, the Palestinian organisation Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute, UN Social and Economic Council and various rapporteurs, and aid agencies like Medecins Sans Frontieres. Have you taken a scholarly approach to their reports before committing yourself, Professor Baum? Ambulances are fired on (hundreds of cases); health workers in ambulances on duty are interrogated, searched, threatened, humiliated and assaulted. Wounded men have been taken from ambulances at checkpoints and sent directly to prison, and on other occasions Israeli soldiers have commandeered ambulances as transport. Palestinian health professionals are regularly shot dead or wounded on duty. Desperately ill people, and newborn babies, die at checkpoints because soldiers bar the way to hospital. The International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies have at times been forced to limit their work in the West Bank because of threats to staff and attacks on vehicles by the IDF. Clinics and hospitals (like the Bethlehem psychiatric hospital) are fired on. The public health infrastructure, including water and electricity supplies, are wilfully bombed, and the passage of essential medicines like anti- cancer drugs and kidney dialysis fluids blocked. There has been wilful hampering of the distribution of food aid, on which more than half a million people are now dependent.(9) (10) A study by Johns Hopkins and Al Quds Universities found that 20% of Palestinian children under 5 years old were anaemic and 22% malnourished. In the West Bank the apartheid Wall and fence has destroyed any coherence in the primary health system. (11) PHRI recorded in the Lancet in 2003 that they “believed that the IMA, as the representative of the medical establishment in Israel might be able to curb the appalling deterioration in the attitude of the Israeli military forces towards health and rescue services. Yet despite severe injury to medical personnel and to the ability of physicians to act in safety to advance their patients’ interests, despite Israeli shells that have fallen on Palestinian hospitals, despite the killing of medical personnel on duty- the IMA has chosen to remain silent.” PHRI accused the IMA of basically being an arm of the political establishment. (6) (12) Please would you comment on their report Professor Baum? If you have not read it, why not- given the clarity of your endorsement of the probity of the IMA? I would also point to a report on Gaza last year by the commendable Israeli doctors of Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), based on a field study. They quote Jan Egeland, the UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs as saying “there is no hope” in Gaza. Women and children present with palpable malnutrition. In 2006 barely supplied hospitals were overwhelmed by casualties, many with terrible wounds from continued Israeli bombing (hundreds dead); their morgues were full of charcoaled and shredded bodies. There were interruptions of power supplies due to bombing and hospitals had to save their generators for operating theatres and emergency rooms only. Even when challenged in the BMJ, the IMA has continued to maintain that there are no medical ethical concerns arising out of the conduct of the Israeli army towards the Palestinian general population. Dr Blachar routinely labels me and others as motivated by anti-Israel bias and by anti-semitism. Indeed after my BMJ review of Oct 2004 he posted up at bmj.com- it is there for eternity for all to see: “the lies and hatred he spews are reminiscent of some of the worst forms of anti-semitism ever espoused”, a response that directs open contempt towards the mass of documentation I have pointed to. (13) I would like Professor Baum to comment on the nature of the medical ethical leadership demonstrated here. Regarding academic freedom, for years it has not been straightforward for Palestinian doctors to travel for professional purposes, even between Gaza and West Bank. They have been required to apply for permits without any confidence that these would be granted. I was regularly in Gaza in the 1990s and frequently heard from doctors about the conferences or other medical functions they had missed on this account, even conferences they had co-organised As a recent example, in January this year a Gaza doctor Dr Mona El Farra was due in London to launch the “Enough” peace campaign for Palestinians and Israelis, based on recognition of international law, and backed by various aid organisations, trade unions, faith and other campaign groups. Dr El Farra applied for a permit from the Israel authorities many weeks before the launch but in the end was refused the right to cross the border, even after letters of welcome and recommendation had been written by myself and Dr David Halpin. For two years or so Dr El Farra’s blog “From Gaza with Love” has given a vivid day -to-day sense of the desperate poverty and hopelessness of a trapped population in Gaza, and of doctors working in impossible circumstances. One might presume that the Israeli authorities wanted to prevent Dr El Farra testifying to all this.(14) The many vituperative responses to publications by myself and others- bombarding not just the author but the editor of the journal involved- are notable for their almost blanket lack of engagement and specific rebuttal of the facts highlighted. It is as if the cited human rights documentation did not exist; where there is mention it is to discount it entirely- as in “Amnesty is anti-Israeli and anti-semitic.” Allusions to the Second World War are also frequent. When I query whether the deaths by Israeli bullets and rockets of 850 (850!) Palestinian children since 2000 can be squared with the IDF mantra that they take great care not to target civilians, doctors (doctors!) post up at bmj.com that I must be a Nazi. This is indeed, as Professor Norman Finkelstein puts it, beyond chutzpah, but there is a lesson here. We are in an age of evidence-based medicine but my human rights work has made it graphically clear that no amount of evidence will sway doctors or others when they simply do not want to believe, or who consider the evidence unimportant by comparison with some transcending consideration. To this end the charge of “anti-semitism” has been an invaluable weapon as a form of silencing. This is again being freely brandished in the rapid responses to the boycott debate. I have to say that it seems medical malpractice, a matter for the General Medical Council, when a UK doctor calls a fellow doctor an anti-semite- surely a serious slur- following publication of material referencing some of the world’s most authoritative humanitarian and human rights sources. The rapid responses also reprise 3 other familiar themes: firstly, that it is anti-semitic to target Israel for criticism when there are so many other human rights offenders worldwide. Secondly, look at the excellence of Israel’s medical research and technology (Professor Baum also mentions Pentium processors). Thirdly, look at the Palestinian patients in Israeli hospitals. So were campaigners against the abuses of anti-apartheid South Africa- or today’s campaigners on, say, China- dominated Tibet- only credible if they were simultaneously campaigning on Guatemala, Syria and Indonesia? And should apartheid South Africa have been exonerated because the world’s first heart transplant was performed there, or because black people were to be found in government hospitals? Such arguments are simply self-serving. Professor Baum did not call me an anti-semite but he did call me a liar. I challenge him to justify this judgement, or withdraw it with apologies. Bar PHRI, a minority group, the grave matters described above have attracted no condemnation from the medical profession in Israel, with their academic bases in Israeli medical schools and research institutes. Many of these doctors have international academic connections, and unlike their Palestinian counterparts their movements are unhampered, their respectability and independence unchallenged. Why is this? Indeed Israeli universities have maintained a studied silence about the tremendous harm done over many years to the capacity of their Palestinian counterparts to run as universities should run: the restrictions, the prolonged closures, the damage to property, the campus incursions by the IDF, the arbitrary expulsions, the harrassment and shooting of students on their way to lectures, the damage done by the Wall to the capacity of Al Quds medical school to run its courses. We must sadly conclude that with honourable exceptions most doctors and medical academics are in active or passive collusion with an aggressive colonisation, with the control and, increasingly, the frank crushing of every sector of Palestinian civil society, and with a self-justifying discourse that trades on a dehumanising contempt for Palestinian as people in a different moral universe. One central thread to the work of both Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, both truth tellers of our times, concerns the role of the academic and professional institutions of the Western world. These have seemed to embody the promise of an independent moral authority within a society, but in practice have generally acted to confer legitimacy to the dominant order and its interests. We see this starkly in Israel (though also, it might be added, in USA and UK). So what are we to do? Firstly, repeated efforts to reach out to the IMA has been unavailing, as my own experience bears out unambiguously. Secondly, the WMA have refused to challenge the IMA, or even to acknowledge the problem. This is surely a violation of the WMA mandate: when would they act, if not now? (15) They behave as if Amnesty and other reputable human rights documenters simply do not exist. Moreover, remarkably, since 2003 IMA President Blachar has been no less that WMA Chair of Council! Thirdly, British doctors might expect some action from their own association, the BMA, whose International Committee deal with ethical matters, but they have hidden behind platitudes- see the rapid response by BMA’s Dr Vivienne Nathanson a few days ago: “we believe in education and support to achieve change”. Does the IMA need “education”? Rather, it has been making choices with its eyes open over many years. The BMA has consistently declined to challenge the IMA at the WMA, and has stressed its collegiate relationship with the IMA. I even appealed, via a long, respectful letter, to the recently knighted UK Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sachs- proponent of the term “left-wing anti-semitism” (he means people like me)- but he chose not to reply. 18 leading Palestinian organisations in the health field have issued a joint appeal to fellow professionals abroad to recognise how the IMA has forfeited its right to membership of the international medical community, and to this we are responding. We do not lightly call for boycott but what are we to do when normal means of recourse are blocked, as surely they are? It was a moment like this that calls went out (and there was considerable opposition then too) for the academic isolation of South Africa during the apartheid era. This rightly included a boycott of the medical profession for collusion of a very similar nature to what we see today in Israel. For instance, the Medical Association of South Africa was for a time suspended from membership of the WMA. I have often heard it said that the boycott played a distinct role in bringing the profession to its senses. As in South Africa, the Israeli medical profession, and the establishment generally, is sensitive to opinion in the Western world, not least from fellow doctors. An academic boycott in an extreme situation is a moral and ethical imperative when all else has failed, for otherwise we are in effect turning away. It is not contrary to “academic freedom”, as some assert, but in its very spirit. Professor Baum talks about the “spirit of openness and tolerance” and the need to “keep open channels of communication”. I’m afraid that these are airy banalities that do not survive an examination of events on the ground, and seem likely to impede such examination. The default position of those who use these arguments is not that there is some other way of advancing freedoms in the region, and that they are doing this, merely that principled criticism and action against Israel ceases: I find this morally hollow. What about the academic freedom of Palestinian doctors; more, what about the Geneva Convention-enshrined freedom to serve patients without risk of death at the hands of an occupying army? 1 Dyer O. Group of British Doctors call for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association. BMJ 2007;334:871. 2 Summerfield D. Medical ethics: the case of the Israeli Medical Association. Lancet 1997;350:63 3 Summerfield D. Medical ethics, the Israeli Medical Association, and the state of the World Medical Association. Open letter to the BMA. BMJ 2003; 327: 561. 4 Summerfield D. Medical ethics, the Israeli Medical Association, and the state of the World Medical Association: Author’s response to allegation and to BMA. BMJ 2003; 327: 1107-8. 5 Amnesty International. “Under constant medical supervision”, torture, ill-treatment and the health professions in Israel and the Occupied Territories. London: Amnesty International, 1996 6 Ziv H. The role of the Israeli and World Medical Associations. Lancet 2003; 361: 1827-8 7 Blachar Y. the truth about medical ethics. Lancet 1997; 350:1247. 8 Bamber H, Gordon E, Heilbronn R, Forrest D. Attitudes to torture. J R Soc Med 2002; 95:271-2 9 Amnesty International. Israel must facilitate, not hinder, relief for the occupied population. Index MDE 15/ 036/2004. 2 April 2004. 10 Special Rapporteur. The right to food. Commission on Human Rights. UN Economic and Social Council. E/CN.4/2004/10/Add 2. 31 October 2003. 11 Barghouti M.(ed) Health and Segregation. The impact of the Israeli Separation Wall on access to health services. Ramallah: Health, Development, Information, and Policy Institute, 2004. 12 Physicians for Human Rights. A legacy of injustice: a critique of Israeli approaches to the right to health of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Israel: Physicians for Human Rights, 2002:74. http://www.phr.org.il/Phr/downloads/dl_145.pdf 13 Summerfield D. Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes. BMJ 2004;329:924 14 Brittain V. Commentisfree. Guardian Unlimited. 30 January 2007 15 Summerfield D. What is the WMA for? The case of the Israeli Medical Association .Lancet 2003; 361: 424 Competing interests: None declared
Gins, tonics and bitter lemons 26 July 2007
Mark Struthers, General Practitioner Bedfordshire, UK Send response to journal: Re: Gins, tonics and bitter lemons	Unfortunately, the intransigent Israeli regime is trapped by the intransigence of the Israeli democracy – and vice versa. Though it may make the pips squeak, the squeezing of the academic Israeli lemon may provide the tonic that the peace process so badly needs. In forty years, nothing else has worked: please squeeze a lemon for peace. Competing interests: A secular non-Jew who learned from the hospitality of a medical student elective at the Rambam Hospital in Haifa, 27 years ago.
Boycotting supporters are not suffering 26 July 2007
Saleem, J Abdallah, Political analyst West Bank (Palestine) Send response to journal: Re: Boycotting supporters are not suffering	As a Muslim and a Palestinian who lost family members and means of livelihood and as a Muslim and a Palestinian who fought for an independent Palestinian state I know more than anyone the meaning and significance of the term ?home?. Based on this, I beg of the world to stop this campaign against Israel and to not allow themselves to become the stooges that are played by organizations that call for the right of return and who are calling for the destruction of Israel and here is why: A- Israel did not come to exist overnight, nor did they come to exist through independently fighting and kicking Palestinians out of their homeland as some would have you believe. Fact is, Zionists purchased this land (including the West bank and Gaza) through internationally recognized legitimate purchase. When Palestine was a tiny unexploited region of the Ottoman Empire, the Zionists came to purchase it. Although they did not meet huge support from the Ottomans, they found a huge welcome from the Arab states during the British mandate. The British gave Arab leaders the right to rule certain areas after they divided it. For example, the Hashemite family of Saudi was given Transjordan and Iraq after the Al- Saudi?s family kicked them out of Saudi in order to obtain total rule over their land. Amir Feisal wrote the Zionist welcoming them into the region. Arab leaders who owned the land sold it to them and subsequently were compelled to ask the occupants who rented the land in Palestine to leave. They told them that they had to migrate to near by Arab countries so they can fight the Zionists, because they could not tell them the truth. Some Palestinians, the very few who owned their land, either sold it to Arab leaders upon their urging or they were violently kicked out by Zionists. B- As a Palestinian and a victim of lies myself, I can?t say that Jews should leave. Many of the Jews, even some of their leaders, were as much of a victim as we were since they were lied to by the same people who lied to us. The Arab populations in the Middle East were also fed lies when their leaders didn?t tell them what they did and only told them that the Jews ?occupied? Palestine. I?m not sure sometimes if the current leadership in the area is even completely familiar with these facts. C- Having lived under the Jordanian occupation for 19 years, we?re still questioning why we were not given a right to have independence by them and the same applies to Gaza which was occupied by Egypt. I know now that it is because they knew that Jews (Zionists) actually owned much of that land and they were afraid to hand it over to us as a country. Israelis may have said something. Maybe even it was an agreement between leaders which was paid for by the blood of the people including the uninformed Israeli people. Furthermore, it was only Israel that provided us with jobs, electricity and running water (after 1967) but not Jordan or Egypt before. D- As a Palestinian living in the territories and suffering from daily aggression by Israel I also know that the world refuses to face the reality that we live in. Here is a little news for you, we hate and despise those leftist organizations that send people to help us and stand by us and this is why. The factions that are ruling our region, from those parties known to the west to those unknown, have made us live in terror; we can?t trust our children or parents or brothers or sisters; they have turned us against each other using brain washing and using torture methods. These leftist, who view as convenient fools, see that if we refuse to cooperate with one side or if we speak against their political view, someone will inform them. Once that happens, they will arrest us, torture us using anything from drilling our limbs to torturing our babies until we beg them to admit what ever they want so they can stop. When we admit to anything, it is usually treason and cooperating with Israel. Yes, saying that this party should just call for peace and a two state solution, means to them that we are collaborators; leading to this torture. They advertise that we are traitors lynch us publicly. We?ve watched young people dragged behind a car, alive, until they die, then their body is hung and their limbs are severed. Sometimes, they are alive while that happens. They demolish the homes of ?traitor?. Yet, these poor leftist, guilt ridden fools accept that. You see, to them, the killers are the real victims of the occupation and that is all they want to deal with. They speak of only the Israeli aggression leaving us to suffer at the hand of our own and ignoring the daily suffering that we go through. E- As a Palestinian who had family members wounded by our own people, I know that my only recourse was to take them to an Israeli hospital. No one, no medical entity or personnel would treat someone wounded by another Palestinian. You see, either they will not help because they belong to the ?other party? or they are afraid that they or their family members will be hurt by the same people, and knowing that no international entity would help us either. F- As an academic who tries to be neutral, I know how much Israel and its academic institution had produced in terms of life saving and progressive devices. Israel is behind the invention of computers, SMS, Instant messaging and cell phones. Israel revolutionized the medical field. My mother suffered with stomach pain for a long time. There was no one that would help. She lived in an Arab country (no need to mention where) and begged for treatment. She had no money but because she is a Palestinian she had no right to even purchase insurance and her ?turn? was behind the natives, even though, he family migrated to Palestine from that particular country and were originally natives. When I finally got her to come home to the West Bank, I asked an Israeli to see what he can do, and within days she was at an Israeli hospital getting the best treatment. They used a small pill that was really a camera, a device that costs a lot and that (for the record) they have invented, and found out that she had cancer. They treated her and kept her alive and relatively comfortable for much longer that she expected. They also treated her with respect that anyone her age deserves. When my cousin was injured in an Israeli raid, he needed to have a surgery to replace a knee and to remove a bullet from his right arm. We attempted to send him to an Arab country for better treatment, they refused. Palestinian hospitals (falsely) said that he survived because he was in fact the person who gave up the location that Israel bombed, a traitor. He had to leave because he was marked. An Israeli doctor from a settlement arranged for him to go to the US for treatment, free. These organizations who advocate the right of return and who call for boycotting Israel do not live with us and are not suffering and do not know the reality. Although Israel cause much destruction, but we, as Arabs and Palestinians are not innocent. Arab countries treat our people as if they were a leach even though they charge them for staying on their land and do not provide them with rights such as free schooling and even prohibit them from getting jobs, which makes them unable to pay for schooling and leave them living in bad conditions. Our only resort when we need help is Israel. I know it is ironic and strange, but this is the fact. If Israel is boycotted, those organizations are going to win; they will get their stubborn point and they will have something to call a victory which will enable them to collect more money from donors and get more grants since they accomplished something. However, we here in Palestine will suffer more. Most of our help, jobs and even food and medical supplies come to us from Israel, the donations that the world give these organizations stay in their pockets and the countries who are supposed to help us keep the rest. Even UNRWA is pocketing our money. That leaves us relying on Israel. I know it?s a shame, but it is the fact. You want to help, face those who live with us and who are killing us. See if you can come up with a solution to the fact that we can?t even talk to our children out of fear of saying something wrong and be reported and killed. Before you boycott Israel, see if you can take our youth and educate them, rather than take away from us what is helping and give us NOTHING in return. That is not logical nor is it fair. Finally, do some soul searching, and see if you, not us, you can live without Israeli products. Palestine was lost because so many sides made so many mistakes; are you attempting to fix one mistake with another? Please do not yield to the guilt that is imposed upon you by very shrewd and systematic methods that are employed by these groups, who are blaming the west for the disaster, thus making you obligated to do something. The British didn?t force anyone to sell the land to the Zionists, they did that on their own and all Palestinians are aware of those facts, it?s just that some of us will say it and some of us are afraid and then there are those who learned to play the game and make a profit out of it. I realize that this is long, but it is a plea from a Palestinian, who is taking a great deal of risk writing this, to please, please do not do this and please help us by NOT fanning our fire and by stopping us from feeling like victims and martyrs and strengthen the criminal elements among us. Help us by providing us with education, (a fishing rod) not by sending food, (give us fish) or deplete Israel, taking away our fish and fishing rod. Thank you Competing interests: None declared
Who should have more say in how oppression is challenged? 26 July 2007
G Mir, Senior Research Fellow University of Leeds Send response to journal: Re: Who should have more say in how oppression is challenged?	We should surely give more weight to the views of Palestinians about what will end their oppression than to the opinions of those who do not have to live under Israeli restrictions. When South Africans called for an ecomonic boycott in the '80s there was a similar move to discredit this from politicians and those who benefited from apartheid. Those who oppose a boycott now implicitly suggest they know more about what is good for Palestinians than the Palestinians themselves. Competing interests: None declared
Re: A stain on the reputation of the BMJ 26 July 2007
Jeremy Segal, Pulmonary and Intensive Care Physician West Palm Beach, FL 33410 Send response to journal: Re: Re: A stain on the reputation of the BMJ	This is a preposterous idea. The double standard being applied is beyond obvious. True, the Palestinians in the teritories that Israel won in defensive wars have restrictions on their civil rights, but it must be conceded by all that the reason for most of those restrictions are because Israel has legitimate need to defend itself from Palestinian terrorists who are willing to attack and kill civilians, including children. The double standard being perpetrated by the BMJ in raising this as a legitimate issue reeks of anti-semitism. There are numerous other causes of far greater magnitude for the BMJ to choose - why this one? There are numerous other nations who treat subgroups of their populations with not just less, but substantially less regard for their rights. How about a discussion about whether we should boycott the Soviet Union because of its treatment of Chechnians, or how about the Turks because of the way they treat Kurds in their notorious prisons, or about the way just about every Arab nation treats its women. Perhaps the BMJ would get more bang for its buck by discussing a boycott of China with its supression of religion and its treatment of the Tibetans. We don't even need to descend to comparisons with the Sudanese, the Ethiopeans, the Zimbabweans, and the Rwandans. What about the widespread discrimination against immigrants that we see in xenophobic Germany and France? I've worked with a doctor from Burma who emigrated because he was discriminated against on account of his chinese parents, and I've worked with Fijian physicians who left because their grandparents had emigrated from India. An academic boycott on Israel would be an intellectual and moral crime. The science that is produced at the excellent medical institutions is of the highest quality and conforms to the highest ethical standards. We are not talking here about research ethics. If the BMJ is so interested in improving the lot of Palestinians, how about a boycott on Iran for folstering the terrorism that threatens the stability of the Middle East? I am deeply troubled and offended by seeing this article in the BMJ. It is a stain on the reputation of this journal, and an insult to the British medical community. This is the first time that I can say that I am thrilled that I decided to give up my British Medical License and chose not to continue practicing in England. Competing interests: Jewish, with grandfather born in Palestine
Who is listening? 26 July 2007
Martin Wolfson, GP Claremont Medical Centre KT6 6BS Send response to journal: Re: Who is listening?	The problem here is that by having the debate the BMJ enters a political arena where it has no place as an accademic medical journal. The issue is totally polarised. It is not a debate. More an oppurtunity for 2 sides to sling mud at each other, interpreting the situation from polarised positions It also give authority to the suggestion that there are circumstances in which an accademic boycott is appropriate. You would not have a vote on whether child sexual abuse was appropriate, female genial mutilation acceptable or even genocide sometimes forgiveable. Some years ago I resigned from the BMA after the BMJ published an extremely one sided article on the Arab-Israeli conflict written by Derek Summerfield. Your editorial policy will not encourage me to re-join. Competing interests: I also am Jewish and a Zionist
Oppose Israeli Academic Boycott 26 July 2007
Gideon Kreiner, President Default Solutions, 90035 Send response to journal: Re: Oppose Israeli Academic Boycott	Israel is among the most humane nations of the civilized world. It struggles for its very existence on a daily basis both in terms of its civil population and as a nation. Israel behaves as an example in many ways. We should only strive to behave as they do. From a medical perspective, the State of Israel treats (without charge) suicide bombers, rock throwers, and other sworn enemies of the State of Israel and its Jewish populace in the same emergency rooms, by the same doctors, and with the same medications as those innocent people who have lost limbs, sight, loved ones, and those who will forever be physically and mentally wounded as a result of these terrorist / "freedom fighting" actions. I ask, what other nation would treat an enemy in the same humane manner? In terms of Israeli academic institutions, this tiny nation leads in scientific (and other) breakthroughs as much (if not more) than other first world countries. Should you decide to boycott Israel for your own personal reasons, the the ones that will suffer most will not be Israel, but rather those people throughout the world who stand to benefit from Israeli academic, technical, scientific, and medical accomplishments and breakthroughs. Should you decide to boycott Israeli academic institutions, Israel will continue as it has for millennium with or without your support. Observe the pages of history only to find that those who tried to hurt the Jewish people, in the long run and as a society suffered its consequences. Soon the same enemies who attempt to destroy Israel, will be at your front door. I believe they are already knocking. When the door opens, I only challenge you to behave half as justly as the nation of Israel and its citizens to the same threats. Finally, before you cast your ballot, it would only be fair compare and contrast the Palestinian and other Arab neighboring state and private institutions of higher education. Compare and contrast to see if you find the same or similar teachings of hate, intolerance, and desire for world domination at the expense of terror against the innocent. Compare this to Israel and its academic community. If you find Israel in the same category, I wholeheartedly support you in your boycott. However if you do not, I highly suggest you reorganize your efforts to mobilize against the greater threats to the world in which we currently live. Sincerely, Gideon Kreiner, Los Angeles, CA Competing interests: None declared
Antisemitism in disguise 26 July 2007
Janet N. Rosenbaum, Professor Emerita University of Windsor N9B3P4 Send response to journal: Re: Antisemitism in disguise	A boycott of Israeli academic institutions compares to book burning by the Germans in WW2 Competing interests: None declared
whose responsibility 26 July 2007
winston m forman, gp poplars medical centre m27ona Send response to journal: Re: whose responsibility	To blame Israel for the situation on the West Bank is absolutely ludicrous.Israel is a tiny country in a massive arab area ,a country smaller than Wales.Most and perhaps all of the surrounding countries including organisations on the West Bank wish to see its total destruction.Bombers have been despatched on a regular basis in order to destroy the country.Peace has been on offer and available since the inception of the state but constantly refused in the hope that Israel could be destroyed.Despite this the country has thrived and is a world leader in both medicine and advanced technology.The whole of the middle east could have been a part of this.I remember driving through joint industrial zones which were destroyed at the beginning of the intifada. The arabs of the west bank must really look to their corrupt and violent leadership as the cause of their terrible situation ,not israel.Gaza was left in the hope that self determination rather than anarchy would reign.What happened?The israeli response in the territories is protective.Sadly it is oppressive but no worse than in many Arab and African countries.The solution of the Palestinian problem should have been solved by the large wealthy oil rich Arab countries but they ignored the refugees, indeed fought against them in certain instances.Note there are no jewish refugees because israel has absorbed them.Note also that a large number of moslem refugees from Darfur see Israel alone as their ultimate salvation because they feel under threat from other arab moslem agencies.A boycott of Israeli institutions would be detrimental to this small country,not to Israel. Competing interests: i am jewish
Why pick on Israel? 26 July 2007
Irving Cobden, Consultant Physician Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust NE29 8NH Send response to journal: Re: Why pick on Israel?	I am unable to decide if I am pleased or unhappy about the debate on the proposed academic boycott of Israel. On the one hand it does allow for some reasoned arguments on both sides but notwithstanding one's views of the behaviour of Israel, some of which are incomprehensible and hard to defend for many Jews, the question remains unanswered, in my opinion, as to why the state of Israel has been singled out in the world of today. It is argued that it is because of an implied higher moral and ethical code among (presumably) Jews of Israel that such a boycott would work, whilst being ineffective against other countries. Does that argument stand up? Surely the key to change remains in dialogue and not in helping to propagate the "You don't like us, we don't care" attitude beyond the right -wing and extreme religious groups in Israel to more moderate and liberal thinkers who, when faced with this boycott, will begin to wonder why they bother to voice their opinions. Dr Summerfield in his vitriolic letter also fails to defend the unique selection and lambasts any suggestion of an anti-semitic undertone. That may well be true in his case - but I wonder if others could have such a totally clear conscience; such determined attacks on only one of many countries may explain why even non-Zionist British Jews feel very uneasy. The recent Channel 4 documentary by Richard Littlejohn (a non-jew) entitled "The War on Britain's Jews" gave considerable food for thought - and may explain why many Jews who have concerns about Israel still feel the need for the existence of a country (and possible bolt-hole) where they will not be subjected to the same "singling out" as evidenced by this boycott proposal - and on many occasions in history. Competing interests: I am a peace-loving doctor (and also a Jew)
BMA sponsored study visit to Palestine 27 July 2007
Colin J Green, Professor of Surgical Science, University of London Al Quds University Medical School. Send response to journal: Re: BMA sponsored study visit to Palestine	The current debate in the BMJ about a possible future boycott of Israeli academic institutions is much to be welcomed in a journal representing as it does the political voice of a political body the BMA. If the medical profession is not willing to discuss or even acknowledge the overwhelming evidence for deliberate and savage undermining of the health of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, it cannot pretend to be a caring and humanitarian body. You have to see it for yourself. Surely now is the time to bring together a group of doctors and other healthcare professionals under the auspices of the BMA to visit the West Bank and Gaza to witness the reality, and discuss there the validity of boycotts in conflict resolution. Some of the signatories to letters opposed to boycotts would be welcomed. For a balanced view, the group should meet representatives of the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycotts of Israel (PACBI) and the many Israeli humanitarian organizations who support boycotts as well as the tiny number of Palestinian academics who are opposed. The itinerary would include visits to hospitals, universities, schools, refugee camps, Arab homes (those still standing, those demolished), and illegal Israeli settlements and their universities in for example Ariel. See the facts on the ground first hand. See the toddlers with multiple amputations lying mute in their cots. We can even arrange for you to examine the latest weaponry produced in Israel (now with the third largest arms industry on the planet) tried out experimentally on children in Gaza leaving them with legs like barbecued pork ribs. Travel the Israeli settler-only roads at speed, then the Arab-only roads and stand for hours in the midday sun at checkpoints, pressed like cattle in the grid for branding, alongside young women and their screaming babies. Spend just one night in the old quarter of Nablus and I can guarantee you will experience gunshots and tank shells at 0300 when the Israeli occupation forces raid and destroy yet another house to add to the 18,000 Palestine homes already demolished and take away yet another youth to join the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel with no charge, no legal access and tortured on a routine basis, regardless of age, even young children. Hear all shades of opinion. Meet Palestinian doctors who have been imprisoned and tortured without charge. Meet Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals who seek justice for both societies and are engaged together in peaceful humanitarian projects. Meet my friends in the Israeli Physicians for Human Rights who tell the truth and know the reality because they go into the Occupied Territories to provide essential healthcare services. Above all meet the young who cherish the thought of academic freedom and yearn for their voice to be heard. That is an invitation. I hope Professor Baum and his colleagues who share my desire for a just solution to this conflict and a safe future for World Jewry will accept the invitation. If as they state they really want a two-state solution and not as is now the reality have Israel continue as Eretz Israel with the obvious corollary that it cannot be Jewish and democratic and, as the greater entity, continue as an apartheid state, they will be welcome. We would need up to ten days of intensive hard work. Keep in mind that the UCU motion is a call for debate about boycotts to be judged against one of the most wicked and disgraceful boycotts ever conducted, namely the withholding of legitimate revenues from the democratically elected Government of the Palestinians by Israel, the USA, the UK and EU over the past year. This has resulted in impoverishment and near starvation of millions of people with the express intention of creating chaos and civil strife. Having worked in Palestine for over twenty years on medical aid projects and the Al Quds Medical School and despaired the facts on the ground established behind a smokescreen of lies and propaganda, I welcome the opportunity for an honest and robust debate. Colin Green, Professor of Surgical Science, University of London; Academician and UNESCO Chair in Cryobiology, Ukraine Academy of Science; Chairman Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-UK (ICAHD-UK) Competing interests: Chairman, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-UK (ICAHD-UK)
Fighting for peace: E-polls, 'scientific debate'?, Hippocrates and conflict 30 July 2007
Michael Cohen, Medical Doctor Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel Send response to journal: Re: Fighting for peace: E-polls, 'scientific debate'?, Hippocrates and conflict	Does anyone else here find it amazing that TV and telephone 'polls' exist, and furthermore, that their results may have any credence or validity. As doctors, we should be the first to know that any population survey needs to be a complete one or based upon a sufficient and unbiased random selection of the sampled population. How can the BMJ, as one of the leading medical journals in The World, which seeks to publish articles that are as free from bias as possible use a method as biased and non- scientific as an E-poll? whatever the result, it will tell us (and everyone else) absolutely nothing except that we have become as much a part of the trash satellite TV/morning breakfast remote-control polls as anyone who has never learned about how data/statistics can be manipulated. On the subject of debates, we are scientists and hopefully when we connect to our humanity, we will all learn a little modesty. We are all responsible for our failings and the effects of those failings on ourselves and on others. If we are interested in getting to the heart of the matter and helping all the past and future victims then the first step has to be honesty. I don't like the idea of a debate because somehow it is all about who can throw the best verbal punches, who can create a more convincing argument and is rarely about getting into the nitty gritty, dirty, difficult, awkward, uncertain and grey truth. Science supposedly teaches us how to look at reality with minimal subjectivity. If we, as doctors, are going to 'debate' then please let us do so with some humility and wisdom. We wonder why our profession has lost respect from our patients but how often do we ask why we have lost respect for ourselves and how we can possibly rebuild it along with our integrity. The people on the many (not just two) sides of this tragic conflict and many other conflicts around the World are not 'evil' versus 'good', 'complicit or apathetic' versus 'victim'. We all have our shades of grey, we all make mistakes and we will inevitably make more in the future. Let us begin from this standpoint. Perhaps then, we may learn to forgive ourselves and each other, to begin to create peace simultaneously from within ourselves and also with each other. We are supposed to be humane and truthful and we are meant to have integrity. The Hippocratic Oath reminds us to be just, to do no harm and to do good without prejudice. When we 'debate' this and every other subject - be it medical or sociopolitical - let us do so with open hearts and minds so that we may concede to one another when we are wrong and perhaps within this framework we will also show an example to the rest of the World about how to respect one another and validate one another as nobody holds the monopoly on truth - arrogance only blinds us and then we find ourselves in a corner trying to fight our way out. I hope that we may all find the strength to try to live towards these very precious ideals. Let us use our healing skills and hearts to become the shining light rather than jumping in along with all the others before this bar brawl really heats up and spills onto everyones' front door. Let us be an example of how to be and what to aspire to. Fighting (even with words) for peace? have we, the 'Healing Profession', also learned nothing? and if so, what chance does everyone else have? Competing interests: None declared
What's better than a boycott? 31 July 2007
Steven Ford, GP Haydon & Allen Valleys Medical Practice. NE47 6LA Send response to journal: Re: What's better than a boycott?	Sir Despite the most earnest endeavours of its enemies Israel is not going to disappear. If any nation or group of nations were to come within a gnat's whisker of significantly altering this fact then it/they would be subject to comprehensive nuclear cremation by either Israel herself or the USA. Israel's enemies simply have to deal with this objective reality in their own time. By the same token, the Palestinians are not going to disappear either, nor are their manifold legitimate grievances going to be forgotten, nor can Israel's breaches of international law be airbrushed from view. Neither party has an exclusive tenancy on the moral or legal high ground and so, ineluctably, both must at some point be drawn to a compromise - which should be equitable, tolerable, enforceable, durable, universally recognised and be the result of unforced consent by all parties. We are presently far from this desirable outcome and it is legitimate to consider what steps those keen to promote progress might take. A simple boycott of academic institutions is not the answer but a more refined version, the boycotting of those specific institutions or persons who are known to be possessed of views that place them against a settlement, such as that described above, would be a more telling lever. The development of a globally observed list of proscribed persons and institutions could be developed by the administration of a carefully worked out questionnaire to all, not just Israelis, and the results posted on the web. Non-compliance with the questionnaire being recorded as just that, allowing others to interpret it at will. This sort of procedure could be useful in many situations and would avoid the partisan strife into which we so often descend. Yours sincerely Steven Ford Competing interests: None declared
Re: What's better than a boycott? 1 August 2007
Michael D Cohen, Medical Director Beeri Clinic Netanya Send response to journal: Re: Re: What's better than a boycott?	I would like to think that Israel's government, hopefully backed by the United States is sufficiently vigilant to be on the look out for Israel's survival. Nuclear cremation sounds a bit strong! It also seems obvious that there has to be a peace treaty. From much of the Arab world Israel's existence is such an anathema that Israel does need the "technological means to defend itself". I believe that Israel's population is much more inclined to a peace agreement than any Arab country (even the ones with whom we already have peace agreements) and certainly more so than the Palestinians. Therefore Dr Ford's questionnaire would result in boycotting far more Arabs (proportionally) than Israelis! In spite of this it still sounds a bit like the "thought police". Competing interests: I live in Israel.
Re: Re: What's better than a boycott? 1 August 2007
Steven Ford, GP Haydon & Allen valleys Medical Practice Send response to journal: Re: Re: Re: What's better than a boycott?	Sir Michael Cohen and I suspect the same thing - I apologise if my clumsy attempt at equipoise failed. Steve Ford Competing interests: None declared
Baum misses the point 1 August 2007
Robert J Shearer, Retired TA20 4JF Send response to journal: Re: Baum misses the point	It was good to see that Michael Baum agrees with the UCU that the academic boycott of Israel should be debated by contributing this article. However, he misses the point. No-one surely doubts that an Israeli doctor faced with a Palestinian patient will treat him in accordance with the highest ethical standards, but the isue is the ability of Palestinians to get to see a doctor. The restrictions on movement both within the OPT and between Israel and Palestine prevent patients' access. Israel as the occupying Power has the responsibility under International Law to provide medical care for the Palestinians equal to that provided for Israelis. This it fails to do. I have recently visited Gaza where there are no radiotherapy facilities. Gazans must therefore travel to Israel or East Jerusalem for treatment. The closures of the checkpoints documented by the UN make this virtually impossible. Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHR I)drew attention to one such case (A death Foretold). Michael should read this. The Dean of Al Quds Medical school has been unable to travel to visit the Gaza branch more than once in the past 10 years. Medical equipment is Gaza lies idle (I saw 6 dialysis machines out of action in El Shifa Hospital) because the necessary parts and technicians to fix them cannot come from the West Bank. Palestinian students cannot attend their lectures because of the unpredictable and arbitrary closures. I met students at Bethlehem University who were forced to leave home although they lived only a short distance away in Hebron in order to continue their studies. Numerous other examples can be cited. Michael is not entirely accurate when he refers to the position of Palestinian Israelis. He must know that many are Internally Displaced persons (IDP) and live in unrecognised villages, so they cannot register to vote. This applies most particularly to the Bedouin of the Negev, whom I visited recently. In the face of these abuses of Human Rights the Israeli academic establishment and the Israeli Medical Association are silent. It is only courageous individuals who speak out, academics like Dr Ilan Pappe, organisations like the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, PHR I, Machsom Watch, Breaking the Silence, Combatants for Peace, B'tselem and others. It is to support these Israelis as well as the Palestinians that we call for a boycott to shame the Israeli establishment into calling for an end to the occupation and to Human Rights abuses. Competing interests: None declared
How many Pentiums are needed to atone for Israel's carpet bombing of Lebanon 4 August 2007
andrew Rouse, Consultant in Public Health Heart of Birmingham PCT Send response to journal: Re: How many Pentiums are needed to atone for Israel's carpet bombing of Lebanon	Dr Baum concludes his paper with a statement based on a curious logic. He states that, if we use something (in this case Pentium technology) developed by a person from another nation’s university (Israel), we automatically condone any and all actions of that country’s academia. Now I suspect that there may be good reasons why Israeli academia should not be criticised. However a defence based on this logic is not one. For instance if Dr Baum’s logic applies to universities it should be generalisable to other institutions e.g. national Governments. This being the case, since we use and find the following useful, we would have no grounds for criticizing: • Cambodian government policy (The Killing Fields) because noodles – definitely a useful invention – were developed by a Cambodian. • Stalin’s Gulags because a Russian (Sikorsky) invented the helicopter • The excesses of Nazi Germany because the motor car is a result of German ingenuity (Benz , Daimler, Diesel, Otto, Siemens), as is the modern athletic shoe (ADolf DAS) Likewise Dr Baum’s logic would require that he refrain from criticizing unsavory Muslim countries since their nationals have invented and developed very many useful things (telescope, paper, cloth, soap, astronomy, navigation, algebra, possibly medical science and glass). And could Dr Baum quantify his logic? Could he tell us just how many Madison Avenues, NEJM, Disney cartoon and Audubon Societies the USA need produce before it can atone for the holocaust of the American Indians? Can there ever be enough Israeli inventions (indeed can there ever be enough inventions in the whole world) to atone for Israel’s carpet bombing of Lebanon? For many years I have held Dr Baum in high esteem and am rather appalled that – unlike his professional work – he has produced such a poorly thought out response. May we hope for a retraction and future submission of a better more logical paper? Competing interests: None declared
Unexceptional suffering 4 August 2007
David S Halpin, Orthopaedic and trauma surgeon TQ13 9XR Send response to journal: Re: Unexceptional suffering	I perceive there is a good deal of denial within many responses. Where there is not denial, there is ignorance about the grotesque injustice and suffering that has been meted out to these people over 59 years. Moshe Machover sent me this statement yesterday. http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article476 5 Birzeit students arrested as Israeli army targets student population. Right to Education Campaign, Birzeit University, 1 August 2007 In the last 3 days, 5 Birzeit University students were arrested by the Israeli army, most of whom belong to the university's Student Council. The detainees are; Eyad Omar Abu Arqub, Fadi Yunis Jaber, Jalal Hosni Abu Khaled, Omar Abdelrazaq Abdellatif (all members of the Student Council) and Ahmad Mahmoud Hassan. The men were taken at night from their respective residences, 3 from their student accommodation in Birzeit village and 2 from their family homes around the West Bank . Under the military laws of the Israeli Occupation, membership of any student branch of a political party is illegal, automatically making thousands of students subject to arbitrary arrest. In practice, this sweeping power is used by the army as a tool for inciting political tensions amongst students as it chooses to arrest members of one group more than another. "The arrested students who worked for the Student Council focused solely on providing local academic support for students and nothing else. In reality, these arrests serve to discredit and obstruct the work of the Student Council as an institution and are not about providing security for Israel " - said Fadi Ahmad, president of the Student Council. In fact, this is not the first time that Birzeit Student Council is targeted by the occupation forces. Since 2004, the Israeli army has arrested 6 elected representatives of the Council, 3 of whom were presidents of the Council at the time of arrest. Birzeit University released a statement yesterday condemning these arrests and calling for an end to Israeli aggression and obstruction against Palestinian education. The Right to Education Campaign reiterates such a call and states that there are currently 99 Birzeit students in detention, 9 of which are held indefinitely without charge under the 1945 British Mandate law of 'Administrative Detention'. Moreover, the Campaign highlights that 60% of all arrests were made since 2004 when Israel also stopped all Gazans from studying in the West Bank and deported 4 Birzeit students back to Gaza . Since then, the army has also escalated its practice of arbitrary 'interviewing' where students with no political affiliation are taken for questioning about their friends and family for no particular reason. The Student Council states that at least 30% of the 2,200 students living in Birzeit village are subjected to such 'interviews'. The psychological pressure and anxiety generated from such interviews can amount to inhumane and degrading treatment under International Law. Students who object to such questioning are then harassed at checkpoints, denied work permits and subjected to house invasions. These forms of harassment are a breach of International Humanitarian Law which states that an occupying power should not disrupt the daily life of the occupied population (4th Geneva Convention). Student arrests, especially those under 'Administrative Detention', amount to a breach of the internationally recognized 'right to education', first enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protected by numerous UN bodies and conventions such as UNESCO, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I fully support the UCU boycott proposal, as well as a boycott of the IMA whilst there is silence amongst those who should know better. Competing interests: I founded the Dove and Dolphin Charity, the central aim of which is to promote the education and welfare of Palestinian children.
Whose big lie? 7 August 2007
Anton van der Merwe, Professor University of Oxford OX1 3RE Send response to journal: Re: Whose big lie?	The paragraph in Professor Baum's peace beginning 'First let me also dismiss the big lie that Israel is an apartheid state.' is misleading. Palestinians who live in Israel have been and continue to be subjected to considerable state-sanctioned discrimination, which caused a great deal of misery. For those who doubt this I suggest you read Susan Nathan's book 'The Other Side of Israel : My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide'. Competing interests: None declared
Professor Baum has not responded to my call to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc. 29 August 2007
derek a summerfield, Hon Sen Lect, Institute of Psychiatry, London Maudsley Hospital, SE5 8BB Send response to journal: Re: Professor Baum has not responded to my call to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc.	In the July 21 BMJ debate on the merits or demerits of an academic boycott of Israel, Michael Baum, an emeritus professor of surgery, was the author of the essay against a proposed boycott. One of his points was that “it is a lie to suggest that the Israeli Medical Association is complicit the ill-treatment of prisoners”. The reference he provided for this assertion was the response by IMA President Yoram Blachar in the BMJ in 2003 to my open letter of appeal on this subject. The lie, then, was mine. To assert this, on so charged a public issue, and in the world’s most publicised medical journal, is no small matter- it is capable of reassuring those who were harbouring some doubts about medical ethics in Israel, and of increasing the sense of security and indeed impunity with which interrogations of Palestinians are conducted in Israel.(Professor Baum did not seek to rebut the other main charge against the IMA: their refusal to speak out- as the World Medical Association (WMA) mandates- on systematic violations by the Israeli military of the Fourth Geneva Convention-guaranteed rights of a civilian population to unhindered access to the essentials for day-to-day life, including medical services, and for immunity for health professionals at work). The claim about lying is also of some bearing to my personal reputation as a doctor and human rights campaigner. I am also one of the main proponents of the call for the expulsion of the Israeli Medical Association from the WMA, and in a lengthy and well referenced rapid response on July 25 I sought to provide a comprehensive resume of the case against the IMA. In so doing I challenged Professor Baum to justify his claim and the scholarship upon which it was based, and to reply at bmj.com for others following the debate to weigh up. I also sent a copy to his email address. 5 weeks have passed and Professor Baum has not responded. I do not know what his intentions are, but to refuse would seem in the particular circumstances to be unprofessional and unethical. What he wrote is unambiguously an unconditional exoneration of the IMA in the face of “lies” about their conduct. I again appeal to him to justify this. Competing interests: None declared
Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist? 11 September 2007
derek a summerfield, Hon Sen Lect, Institute of Psychiatry, London Maudsley Hospital, SE5 8BB Send response to journal: Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?	Following Prof Michael Baum’s anti-boycott paper in the BMJ of July 21, I posted up Rapid Responses on July 25 - a comprehensive, referenced resume of the case against the Israeli Med Assoc (IMA) - and on 29 August. In both I challenged Prof Baum to provide citations of the independent evidence upon which his unconditional exoneration of the medical ethics track record of the IMA was based, and his allegation that my publications on this subject in the BMJ and Lancet were “ a lie”. By independent evidence I mean of course material whose standing is comparable to that of the sources I cited- which were drawn from Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, UN Social and Economic Council, Red Cross, Human Rights Watch etc. I had a mountain of material to choose from. Prof Baum has finally posted up a Rapid Response (5 Sept) in which he appears scornful of this request, calling it my “latest vilification” and “another iteration of his (my) well documented hatred for Israel”. I am but the messenger: why does he see no need to address the charges made, for example, by Amnesty (I gave the reference), that Israeli doctors have an institutionalised role in the interrogation suites whose routine output is torture? Prof Baum does provide 2 links as justification of his defence of the IMA. One is the Rapid Response at bmj.com posted up by Yoram Blachar, IMA President, on 25 May, following the collective call in the Guardian by 130 UK doctors for a boycott of the IMA/expulsion from the World Med Assoc. The other is the same statement verbatim from the IMA website. Would anyone call this independent evidence? So, if the accused declares he is not guilty, he is by this logic not guilty and no further evidence need be examined. Anyone suggesting that this is unsatisfactory is a liar motivated by irrational hatred. Given Prof Baum's role as author of 1 of the 2 initiating papers on the boycott debate, given the public importance of the question of medical collusion with torture and with Fourth Geneva Convention violations, given his academic standing as professor emeritus, given that he calls a fellow doctor a liar in the BMJ, there seems I’m afraid a lack of integrity in Prof Baum’s refusal to even comment on the independent evidence I cite,let alone produce counter evidence, and to slip so easily into character defamation. For the 3rd and I presume last time I respectfully call on him to do what all doctors should do in an era of evidence-based medicine. Competing interests: None declared
Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist? 12 September 2007
Jay Ilangaratne, Founder www.medical-journals.com Send response to journal: Re: Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?	It appears, Dr Summerfield's continuing onslaught against the IMA is based on "independent evidence" from "Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, UN Social and Economic Council, Red Cross, Human Rights Watch etc" and he invites Prof Baum to provide counter evidence from sources "whose standing is comparable to that of the sources" he had cited. First,I am not sure,and nor does Dr Summerfield seem to claim that any of the organisations/sources which he relies on to launch allegations against the IMA are truly independent per 'dictionary defintion'[1] which many would be familar with.Hence, without absolute verification of independence and imapartiality of Dr Summerfield's sources,or without better quality, actual evidence (eg.photographic evidence of doctors engaged in torture) it is less than safe to castigate the IMA or any doctor involved with that organisation. Similarly,if the IMA could be exonerated of the charges levelled by Dr Summerfield based on sources"comparable" to his (as expressly invited by Dr Summerfield),then such evidence too, would be of same unsafe value to what Dr Summerfield had hitherto provided. References [1] (i) free from outside control,(ii) self-governing,(iii) having or enough money to support one-self,(iv) not connected with another;seperate,(v) not supported by public funds--per Oxford English Dictionary 11 Sept.2007 Competing interests: None declared
Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist? 14 September 2007
Brian Robinson, Independent psychiatrist Milton Keynes MK5 6WB Send response to journal: Re: Re: Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?	Many responses to criticism of Israel are misleading and are governed more by emotion than by reason. Someone with my background (I came from a strongly Zionist Jewish family) can, I hope, understand that. Only a fool tries to deny that humanity always has a history, and that the present would not be the present without it. But the old truism asserts its imperative: we are where we are. One has to leave on one side how and why Israel came into existence and deal with what we have now. A whole lot of people came from somewhere else (for whatever reason) and displaced a whole lot of other people who'd lived there for centuries. There were massacres and village clearances. This very day there's an article in the Independent (Living off scraps: The West Bank's bitter harvest, by Donald Macintyre http://tinyurl.com/3atc53 ), and the present ongoing row over Israeli doctors' alleged complicity in torture is another example to add to the well documented Israeli perpetration of war crimes. You can intellectualise and rationalise till the cows come home and you can reframe statements to fit a pre-existing position, you can distract attention from what legitimate - and serious - critics have to say by imputing to them sinister motives, you can pick a few words they've used and allege that because less honourable people have used the same words the former are in the same camp as the latter. But no matter how sophisticated your discussion (nor how crude some of the vulgar alternatives) none of it washes away the stains. Israel has committed crimes (as have other countries, but I'm talking about Israel now). Israel has done these things (good and bad - most Jews respond favourably to the invitation to feel proud at Pentium chips) in the name of Jews, Jewry and often Judaism. The overwhelming majority of diaspora Jews have (at least until very recently, though some studies from the USA appear to cast doubt) supported, encouraged, praised, defended what Israel has done - crimes, war crimes, racist anti-Palestinian discrimination and all. If we diaspora Jews spoke out clearly, loudly and often, against these bad things and disassociated from them, say the way many of us joined the protests at British involvement in the invasion of Iraq, if that stance became the norm as much as its contraries now are, we would not be hated, would we? There is said, in certain quarters, to be an increase in antisemitism, but this isn't antisemitism, it's the expression of a revulsion at a people's complicity in wrongdoing. And because a real antisemite may say 'X', that's no reason to call someone else saying 'X' antisemitic, when 'X' is not only true but is regularly said by many Israelis themselves: witness the treatment meted out to Jimmy Carter. (Many Israelis: self-critical, not ‘self-hating’.) I still don't see what's wrong with the simple statement that people who hate wrong things being done are going to hate other people who support doing those wrong things. You come dispossess another people of their land, humiliate, imprison, torture them, even as you steal more of their land every day, and at the same time deny that you're doing any of this and proclaim that those who say you are are telling lies, and expect people not to hate you? You support all of this and then when people say it's bad, you shout, Antisemite? Or else you write sophisticated, or legalistic, or political dissertations to the same effect. Whether or not a medical, or an academic, boycott of Israeli institutions ever comes into being, the debate has certainly highlighted most of the issues and focussed minds. I see a certain similarity in the way some very religious people have responded (defensively) to the recent attacks on religion from Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Grayling, Dennett et al. And sometimes, as with Prof Baum, silence adds eloquently to the discourse. Competing interests: Signatory JfJfP; ICAHD UK.
The threatened academic boycott of Israel and the accusation that the Israel Medical association (IMA) is complicit in the torture of prisoners. 4 October 2007
Michael Baum, Professor of Surgery University College LondonLondon W1N 6AH Send response to journal: Re: The threatened academic boycott of Israel and the accusation that the Israel Medical association (IMA) is complicit in the torture of prisoners.	One of the ugliest consequences of the debate on the threatened academic boycott of Israel was to provide another opportunity for Dr Derek Summerfield to repeat his libel that the IMA is complicit in the torture of Palestinian detainees. My initial response and that of the IMA were insufficient to convince a number of your readers and the latest posting (14th September) from a Doctor Brian Robinson stated; “Prof Baum has still not provided independent evidence to justify his exoneration of the Israeli Med Assoc: does it exist?” In addition I have received several hate filled e mails implying that our silence could be interpreted as guilt. It is of course easy to make accusations but it takes time to collect the evidence to refute these allegations. I alerted the editor of the BMJ that I was working with the IMA to produce a once and for all statement that the IMA is not an arm of the Israeli government or the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and is not complicit in the torture of prisoners. I’m now happy to post it on their behalf. It has to be remembered that it is impossible to prove a negative. For example no one could prove that British doctors, members of the BMA, have never been involved in the torture of IRA prisoners during the Irish troubles or in the present war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. I have reasonable hope that the open minded and uncommitted of the readership will accept that the IMA is not involved in torture and takes its responsibility for the health and welfare of both Palestinian and Israeli Arabs very seriously. In the end peace can only emerge from the tentative journey from hate and fear, to mutual respect, trust and eventually to reconciliation. Yours Sincerely, Michael Baum Response from the Israel Medical Association (IMA) to Derek Summerfield in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) We have been asked to refute the allegations and so-called “evidence” produced by Derek Summerfield in his never-ending campaign against Israel. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to refute baseless allegations. The burden of proof should be on Summerfield to prove that his “facts” are true, and not on Prof Baum or the IMA to prove that they are not. I am curious to know what evidence Summerfield himself would provide to prove he is not involved in torture if we had accused him of being so. Nonetheless, as our silence is erroneously interpreted as admission, we will address some of the points raised by Summerfield in his most recent letter to the BMJ (Response and challenge to Professor Baum: what counts as evidence? BMJ 335 (7611) 125). The first source Summerfield brings is a quote by Amnesty International that Israeli doctors working with the security services “form part of a system in which detainees are tortured, ill-treated and humiliated in ways that place prison medical practice in conflict with medical ethics.” This statement is a blanket allegation without any proof attached. How can one hope to refute such allegations? One can show Dr Summerfield thousands of Israeli doctors whose ethical standards are above impeachment and who are no in no way involved in anything that can be construed as torture. Yet neither he, nor anyone else, has, despite repeated entreaties on our part to do so, provided us with the name of one doctor involved in torture in order that we might properly investigate the allegations. Summerfield states that Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) reported in 2003 that since 1992 they had been attempting to get the IMA to join their opposition to torture, but in vain. I can state with certainty that the IMA has always opposed torture, and, in addition, in the last several years, we have worked hand in hand with PHRI on various issues. In a recent three month period, ten letters went out to various officials and bodies in the army, government etc. after we received potentially problematic information from PHRI. Summerfield further claims that “Amnesty told me in the 1990s that they too had made various approaches to the IMA on this account and had always been rebuffed.” Unfortunately, no one at the IMA has any idea to what approaches he or they are referring. Summerfield slams Prof. Baum for using the statements of Dr Blachar as evidence against his claim that the IMA is complicit in the ill- treatment of prisoners. And yet he cavalierly asserts that “Torture continues to state policy in Israel” by relying on a Btselem report (an organization that can not be called neutral in their allegiances) that cites testimonies of 73 Palestinian detainees to “confirm that almost all Palestinian detainees suffer physical and mental abuse amounting to torture.” Summerfield continues to make unequivocal and uncorroborated statements such as “Palestinian health professionals are regularly shot dead or wounded on duty.” He also notes that health workers in ambulances are questioned and searched, people are detained at checkpoints and the security barrier has negatively affected coherence in the primary health system, statements which are likely true. Unfortunately, we are well aware of the difficult living conditions in which the Palestinian population finds itself. As long as terrorists continue to infiltrate from the Palestinian territories, the roadblocks are regrettably a security necessity. Further, ambulances and ill patients have abused the system in attempts to commit terrorist attacks, such as the 2005 case of Wafa al-Bas who took advantage of a humanitarian medical clearance granted to her by Israel to attempt a suicide bombing at Israel’s Soroka Hospital, the very hospital in which she was hospitalized for over a month early this year while doctors worked tirelessly to save her life, after she was severely burned in an accident at home. In addition, ambulances have been used on more than occasion to transport terrorist or explosives. For instance, on March 26 2002, Ahmed Jibril, a Tanzim operative and ambulance driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) was arrested while driving an ambulance belonging to the PRC in which were found an explosives belt and explosives under the stretcher on which lay a sick Palestinian child. Nidal Abd al Fatah Abdallah Nidal, an ambulance driver from Qalqilya employed by UNWRA, admitted to using the ambulance to transport weapons and explosives for Hammas. And Waffa Idris, a PRC employee, perpetrated the suicide bombing on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem in January 2002. She was dispatched by a PRC ambulance driver who is also a Tanzim operative, and she was assisted by another PRC employee. It is also believed she may have traveled in a PRC vehicle, and used PRC documents to go through IDF checkpoints. Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. Summerfield notes that “PHRI accused the IMA of basically being an arm of the political establishment.” However, neither he nor PHRI has provided any reason or evidence to support such an absurd claim. Unfortunately, I can not address, nor do I want to, all the usual rants made by Derek Summerfield, and his reliance on such known “politically neutral” bodies and figures such as Amnesty International, Btselem, Edward Said and Noam Chomsky to support his positions. Summerfield also takes issue with the fact that the WMA and the BMA have repeatedly refused to condemn the IMA and oppose an academic boycott against Israel. Does he feel that they, too, are an arm of the Israeli political establishment or perhaps there are unbiased, rational people who see things differently from him? Although, we do not feel the need to defend ourselves against the likes of Dr Summerfield, we will nonetheless cite a few examples of actions taken by the IMA and Israeli doctors in an effort to alleviate the difficult situation of Palestinian civilians: 1. 2,346 Palestinian children with birth defects were treated last year in Israeli hospitals (up from 1,604 in 2005), 29, 919 Palestinian patients were granted permits to undergo medical treatments in hospitals in Israel (up from 24,076 in 2005), and 1,600 Palestinian emergency patients were transferred by ambulance from the PA to hospitals in Israel (up from 800 in 2005). 2. IMA has intervened in cases where a Palestinian patient was to be evicted from an Israeli hospital due to lack of funds. For example, in one instance a patient was to be evicted from a Tel Aviv hospital because no money was forthcoming from the PA; IMA chair of ethics convinced the hospital to waive the charges if money was not received from the PA. 3. IMA has intervened, including petitions to the High Court of Justice, in situations where Palestinian patients, physicians or medical students encountered difficulties at Israeli checkpoints. Two examples: Joint IMA -PHR petition to HCJ regarding patients in need of life saving treatment (a settlement was reached in this case) and another regarding an entry permit for an AIDS patient (in this case, the petition was dismissed when the court found that there was a legitimate security interest in disallowing his entry). 4. The IMA has called for funds to be transferred to the PA in the form of food and medicine so that help could be given where it is truly needed, including a letter to the Minister of Health to see what the government is doing to prevent a shortage of medicine and medical supplies to the Palestinian territories. 5. The IMA has, at several points in the past, attempted to meet with its Palestinian counterparts in an effort to foster mutual cooperation and better understanding, including the release of a joint statement. Almost none of these meetings have taken place, because of refusal on the Palestinian side. 6. IMA has issued ethical statements regarding imprisonment in hospitals and has intervened where necessary. 7. IMA attempted to assist Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem gain recognition by the Council for Higher Education. 8. IMA issued a recent appeal to Israel Railways Authority regarding the unnecessary detention/discrimination by railway authorities of two Arab physicians. 9. IMA established a hotline for Arab physicians wishing to complain of discrimination at airport and action taken on their behalf. Although we are an apolitical organization, we certainly do speak out on behalf of the assurance of proper health services for the Palestinian population. I attach a sample letter (Appendix A) in this regard. Regarding Gaza in particular, I would remind you that Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip two years ago, in accordance with Palestinian wishes and at great economic and emotional expense to its own population, many of whom find themselves without jobs, homes or stability to this day. It is therefore incumbent upon the Palestinian leadership to ensure the health care services of its population there. Nonetheless, in cases where necessary health care was unavailable in either Gaza or the West Bank, Israel has frequently taken it upon itself to provide these services, often at its own expense. Regarding the issue of torture: we will once again-hopefully for the final time- unequivocally state that we completely oppose the involvement of physicians in anything that can be construed as torture. The IMA has taken a public stand against torture in various forums, in letters to the BMJ and as a signatory to the Tokyo Declaration. I attach a sample letter (Appendix B) we have recently written on this matter to Mr. Yuval Diskin, head of the Israel Security Agency (ISA). We also recently addressed this issue in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) where we stated our position that doctors employed by the ISA or security services and involved in the questioning of Palestinian detainees or prisoners are absolutely forbidden to take part or assist in any way in questioning that is accompanied by torture. (July 3, 2007). Finally, we have been working for the last several months to incorporate a translation (done by PHRI) of the Norwegian Medical Association/World Medical Association course on “Doctors working in prisons: human rights and ethical dilemmas”; this course was recently made available to Israeli doctors. Summerfield interprets the silence of Baum and the IMA as an admission of guilt. In actuality, it derives not from guilt but from an intense weariness of having to respond time and time again to baseless attacks from someone with a very clear agenda. Summerfield expects self-flagellation on our parts for wanting to live in peace, to protect our children from attack, for trying to balance security needs with the very real and pressing need to assure proper health services for all, Israeli and Palestinian. But for that we can not, and will not, apologize. Malke Borow, JD Manager, Division of Law and Policy Israel Medical Association Appendix A July 12, 2006 To: Maj.-Gen. Joseph Mishlav, Coordinator of activities in the Territories Brig.-Gen. Yechezkel Levi, Chief Medical Officer Brig.-Gen. Avichai Mandelbeit, Chief Military Prosecutor Re: Invitation to a meeting regarding the health status in the territories-promoting cooperation between the IMA and relevant bodies The IMA has been repeatedly approached by both local and foreign organizations regarding the status of the civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza. It goes without saying that we do not address political or security issues; nonetheless, we are sure that you share our belief that we must do everything in our power to preserve an acceptable level of health even during armed conflict and to concern ourselves with the essential humanitarian needs of the civilian population. The IMA is interested in trying to advance fruitful cooperation with you, in order to improve the channels of communication and activity between us, to understand the scope of inquiries you receive and to see how the IMA can take part in medical and humanitarian aid to the civilian population during this difficult period. Therefore, we would kindly request a joint meeting. We will be in touch within the next few days in order to schedule such a meeting and hope you will positively answer our request. Sincerely, Dr. Yoram Blachar President Israeli Medical Association (Translated from the Hebrew) Appendix B July 12, þ2007 To: Mr. Yuval Diskin Head of the Israel Security Agency Re: Reports of B’tselem and the Center for the Protection of the Individual on the matter of torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees- implications for medical personnel working in interrogation centers We would appreciate your response to the enclosed letter, which was forwarded to us yesterday. It appears from the letter that the report in question allegedly raises suspicion that the ISA still uses physical and emotional measures that can be defined as torture. We would note that the position of the IMA on this matter remains as it always was, namely that it is absolutely forbidden for doctors employed by the ISA or security services and involved in the questioning of Palestinian detainees or prisoners are absolutely forbidden to take part or assist in any way in questioning that is accompanied by torture. We, too, would like to receive answers to the questions posed in the letter of Physicians for Human Rights, and would appreciate a response at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Dr. Yoram Blachar President Israeli Medical Association (Translated from the Hebrew) Competing interests: I wrote the opposing piece in the debate
Professor Baum, as a Doctor: please treat the cause not the symptom 12 October 2007
Mamdouh EL-Adl, Consultant Psychiatrist Princess Marina Hospital, Upton, Northampton NN5 6UH Send response to journal: Re: Professor Baum, as a Doctor: please treat the cause not the symptom	Editor It seems that Professor Baum did not pay any attention to treating the cause & decided to limit his article to looking for a symptomatic treatment! 1.Israel is a democracy! 2.Israel is multicultural! 3.If you want to boycott, do not use USB! 4.Some Jews established a charity in Gaza to treat Palestinian children. 5.Israeli Doctors treat Palestinian & Israeli patients equally! 6.Boycott will harm peace initiative! 1.Israel is a democracy: Does any democracy have the right to occupy the land of another nation? Of course no. Thus being democratic does not give Israel the right to occupy Palestine. However the elected Israeli Prime Minister has a different view. The Israeli plan:- "I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people’s eternal and historic right to this entire land." Ehud Olmert, Israeli Prime Minister, to the US House of Representatives, June 2006 [1} Does Professor Michael Baum support this view? 2.Israel is multicultural! [2] - Israel is the only country that considers religion as the nationality of its citizens i.e. any Jew is entitled to be an Israeli citizen anytime s/he wants. It is important to know that the numbers of Palestinians in Israel (Muslim & Christians) is in progressive decline due to the aggressive Israeli policies supported by the Israeli military machine. -Israel was established in 1948 based on the claim that the Jews lived in this land 5000 years ago & have the right to return to it. On the other hand the Palestinians who were driven out of their lands by the Zionist armed groups since 1948 are denied the right to return back to their homes. The Israeli government denies the Palestinians the right to return after 50 years, while the Zionists claim the right to occupy Palestine 5000 years later. -Yuri Avneri, an Israeli peace activist stated in one of his articles: “When tanks overrun cars, destroy houses, topple electricity poles, open water pipes, leave behind them thousands of homeless people and cause children to drink from puddles in the street, it causes terrible hatred. A Palestinian child, who sees all this with his eyes, becomes the suicide-bomber of tomorrow”[3]. Is this what could be considered by Professor Baum multicultural! 3.Professor Baum stated in his article: “If you want to boycott, do not use USB, .. because it is made in Israel!!” [2]. The right question should be: Is their a reason to boycott? If the boycott is for supporting human rights, should we sacrifice supporting human rights to use the Israeli made USB!! 4.Some Jews established a charity in Gaza to treat Palestinian children! Does this justify the Israeli occupation of Palestine & the violation of basic human rights of the Palestinians? Establishing this charity neither justifies the occupation nor reduces the size of the crimes that have been committed & still continued against the Palestinians since the establishment of the Zionist state. 5. Israeli doctors treat Palestinian & Jewish patients equally [2]. - Is equity in care a basic human right or a privilege offered to Palestinian patients by the kind hearted occupying power? Under the IV Geneva Convention, the occupying power is responsible for the people under its occupation. So the healthcare of all Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation is the responsibility of Israel. Lastly, it should be said: Do not treat the Palestinians when ill if treating them justifies to you occupying their land. Doctors are taught in the medical school to treat the cause & not to limit their care to treating the symptom. However Professor M Baum in his article did not condemn the Israeli occupation of Palestine & its disastrous impact on the life of all Palestinians. Instead Professor Baum was only minded with highlighting the help offered by Israeli doctors to relief some of the Palestinian misery. Michael Baum should have bravely stated that the route cause of the problem is Occupation & should have called for the end of this occupation. However he has chosen not to treat the cause, Why?!. I wonder: Would Professor Baum pass a medical student in the exam if this medical student focused only on the symptomatic treatment. 6.Boycott will harm peace initiative! Where is peace? Can we have Peace without Justice?!!!!! Dani Filc, chairperson PHR Israel PHR Israel stated: When extreme poverty results from the deliberate destruction of the economic infrastructure, we would expect them to make their stand clear as to the dire results on Palestinians’ health and demand the end of this policy. When faced with a humanitarian crisis, we would expect them to lead a struggle for changing the policy that causes it, at least regarding the health issues [4]. Dr M EL-Adl Consultant Psychiatrist References 1. Halpin D, Educate How? www.bmj/rapidresponse, accessed on 10.08.07 2. Baum M, Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? No. BMJ 2007;335(7611):125 (21 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39266.509016.AD 3. Avneri Y, wais.stanford.edu/Israel/israel_viewofyury42002.html - 5k, accessed on 10.08.07 4. Dani Filc, Do we take ethics seriously? www.bmj/rapid response, 11.05.07/accessed on 10.08.07 Competing interests: None declared
Professor Baum still not answering and handing over to IMA 12 October 2007
Christopher J Burns-Cox, consultant physician Southend Farm,, Wotton-under-Edge GLOS GL12 7PB Send response to journal: Re: Professor Baum still not answering and handing over to IMA	Yet again (October 4) the Professor has not responded to the facts in the reports from multiple Human Rights Organisations listed by Derek Summerfield.For an academic deliberately to ignore the evidence is strange indeed and suggests an attempt at denial. There is plenty of evidence of the disgrace of Israelis officially, purposefully and deliberately causing pain and suffering to Palestinian detainees - amongst others. The Israeli government has claimed that detainees are 'under constant medical supervision'. In 2001 the BMA, a close friend of the IMA, published a handbook 'The Medical Profession and Human Rights'. It was written by its Human Rights steering group chaired by Professor Vivienne Nathanson. It includes a description of prolonged torture of a Palestinian detainee (p64) and states that the Israeli authorities use 'forms of pressure which might constitute torture or cruel and degrading treatment'. (Evidence obtained under torture is legally valid in Israel.) The book (p65) states that 'Israeli doctors examined detainees prior to interrogation to ensure they were fit enough to withstand the 'moderate physicial pressure'. I can see it is very difficult for a Zionist and for the IMA to accept that the Israeli government and Medical Association is involved in torturing and that denial is one, albeit disgraceful, way of coping but the facts are thoroughly out in the public domain. Seek ye the truth where it may be found, Professsor Baum, but I am not sure the IMA is its sacred repository! The IMA in its response is still in denial and veers off the point in an oft repeated fabrication that Palestinian ambulances frequently carry bombs and suicide bombers. In fact the Jewish American Medical Project has recently analysed these stories and found only one instance and the truth of that was debatable. The Jerusalem Post agreed with this report! What is undoubtedly true and carefully documented is the slaughter of Palestinian health workers and attacks on ambulances being shot at and many staff injured and killed. Appended to the IMA response are two letters. The first is to Officials including the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Military Prosecutor of 'the territories'asking for a meeting and reassurance about the state of health of the Palestinians. This interest might be reassuring but why was the letter sent as recently as July 12 2007? Is this merely belated or sent as a tactic in panic? It is tragic that those Israeli doctors who do chose to practice according to internationally acceptable ethical standards are led by an organisation that betrays them so openly. All the Palestinian health organisations and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have called for the IMA to be boycotted and a group of UK doctors agrees. We have waited too long already. It is in the interests of Israelis, their doctors and of the Palestinians that the IMA be boycotted to help it come to its senses. It would be a surprise, but a wonderful one, if the BMA acted according to its official principles and assisted in this. Competing interests: None declared
Royal Society of Medicine under attack by pro-Israel doctors 18 October 2007
derek a summerfield, Hon Sen Lect, Institute of Psychiatry, London Maudsley Hospital, SE5 8BB Send response to journal: Re: Royal Society of Medicine under attack by pro-Israel doctors	In relation to the debate about academic boycott and freedom, it seems relevant to record another way in which the refusal to address the voluminous and independent evidence of medical ethical violations in Israel is being maintained. The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) has lately been under attack. Months ago I was invited to speak at an RSM conference on Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health, to contribute to a session on the role of health professionals in conflict situations. Reflecting my research interests and publications on medical ethics since 1992, my main case study was on Israel/Palestine. Once the conference was publicised, the RSM became subject to pressure from some pro-Israel doctors to remove me from the conference programme and went so far as to threaten a challenge to the RSM constitution as a charity if they were to permit a "political" (and biased) person to speak. After weeks of this the RSM decided that if the entire conference was to be saved I would have to be asked to withdraw, and I was rung up to this effect. In the end the RSM steeled itself and decided to go ahead, and the conference was held on 9th October. The editors of UK medical journals publishing human rights material on the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been subject to comparable pressures; in the USA pro-Israel groups are hounding- and effectively- individual academics, conferences, publishers, and universities. These are ominous developments, recalling the era of McCarthyism. Competing interests: None declared
Is freedom of opinion under attack? 21 October 2007
Patrick Hudson, plastic surgeon Albuquerque, USA, 87102 Send response to journal: Re: Is freedom of opinion under attack?	If Summerfield is truthful, this has become a question of freedom of opinion and I want to know the facts. In response to Tom Hickey's paper, I replied under the heading "bigger problem or just rhetoric" - 24 July 2007. Has the problem of intimidation raised its head at the RSM? I hope not, but it is time for a full and public investigation by the BMA and RSM. When Sommerfield says the "RSM became subject to pressure from some pro- Israel doctors to remove me from the conference programme and went so far as to threaten a challenge to the RSM constitution ...". I ask specifically: who called, when did they call, what did they say etc.? If it is shown that this happened, then appropriate censure is needed. At this point we have not had such an investigation and I call on organized medicine in the UK to do so. Let's put this matter to rest and get the facts, so nobody feels uncomfortable expressing their opinion. Competing interests: None declared
Re: Is freedom of opinion under attack? 28 October 2007
Mamdouh EL-Adl, Consultant Psychiatrist Princess Marina Hospital, Northampton NN5 6UH Send response to journal: Re: Re: Is freedom of opinion under attack?	Dear Editor I share Mr Patrick Hudson (plastic surgeon) the concern about what Dr Summerfield mentioned. If Scientific Societies, Medical Associations & maybe Universities in UK are subjected to pressure to stop their support to the Boycott Campaign in support of Human rights & Medical Ethics, this would be really very worrying. I support Mr Hudson's call for a public investigation to make this matter clearer. Hope this is not too much to ask for. Mamdouh EL-Adl Consultant Psychiatrist Competing interests: None declared
Re: Royal Society of Medicine under attack by pro-Israel doctors 30 October 2007
Nicholas J Naftalin, Emeritus Consultant Gynaecologist University Hospitals of Leicester NHST Send response to journal: Re: Re: Royal Society of Medicine under attack by pro-Israel doctors	As someone who attended the meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine on Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health on 9th October'07,I came to hear the invited speakers address the topic advertised. The stated objective of the session on the Role of Professionals in Conflict, was Reflection and Reconciliation. Dr Summerfield effectively ignored the agenda and gave an unbalanced political diatribe which was obviously well practiced and in no way focussed on Religion, Spirituality or Mental Health. There is plenty of opportunity for him to express his views in our free society, but not by exploiting the good offices of the Royal Society, which states in its charter that it is apolitical. I also doubt if CPD points would have been awarded for his presentation if the accreditors had reviewed it in advance. It is the responsibility of all organisations to prevent their good offices being abused and I commend the RSM for trying, although in the event, Dr Summerfield's prejudices clearly outweighed any responsibility he felt towards his audience. Competing interests: None declared
Re: Is Freedom of opinion under attack? 6 November 2007
Mamdouh EL-Adl, Consultant Psychiatrist Princess Marina Hospital, Northampton NN1 3EB Send response to journal: Re: Re: Is Freedom of opinion under attack?	Editor Mr Naftalin attended a meeting & has his views about Dr Summerfield's presentation at this particular meeting. As I have not attended this meeting, I am not in a position to comment on Dr Summerfield presentation or Dr Naftalin's view. However, the question was not Dr Summerfield's presentation or the meeting. The question raised by Mr Hudson & myself was about freedom of opinion in UK and whether scientific societies, professional bodies or individual professionals are under attack or not? I wish Mr Naftalin has focused on the question & how to address this problem rather than attacking Dr Summerfield. CPD meetings are highly important. However in many of these CPD meetings we may or may not share the same opinion of the presenter(s). This does not at all mean that we have the right to devalue them. I wonder: is freedom of opinion a basic human right for all or Dr Summerfield is not included? Competing interests: None declared
Torture and the Israeli Medical Association: request for correction 21 January 2009
derek a summerfield, Hon Sen Lect, Institute of Psychiatry, London Maudsley Hospital, SE5 8BB Send response to journal: Re: Torture and the Israeli Medical Association: request for correction	In a paper in the BMJ in 2007 Professor Michael Baum wrote that it was a “lie” to suggest that the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) was complicit in the ill-treatment of prisoners. (1) He cited a rebuttal by IMA President Yoram Blachar of an open letter of mine, both in the BMJ. (2) (3) The “lie”, then, was mine. This issue was one of the subjects of a meeting in Tel Aviv on 10 December 2008 between Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) and the IMA. The IMA was represented by, among others, Yoram Blachar, just inaugurated as President of the World Medical Association (WMA), the official body overseeing medical ethics worldwide. The WMA’s Declaration of Tokyo (1975) prohibits doctors from condoning or participating in the practice of torture, and mandates them to speak out when they encounter it. PHRI demanded a response by the IMA to the 2007 “Ticking Bombs” report of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, which PHRI had sent to the IMA in advance of the meeting. (4) Based on detailed testimonies, this report confirms what Amnesty International reported as far back as 1996, that Israeli doctors form an integral part of the running of interrogations units whose everyday practice is torture.(5) A copy of Yoram Blachar’s letter in the Lancet, in which he defended the use of “moderate physical pressure” (a practice which the UN Committee Against Torture had condemned as torture), was also made available to the meeting. (6) Professor Baum was also present on December 10 and was referred to the evidence, which PHRI had in any event sent to him personally prior to the meeting. He should also now be aware of the 2008 Annual Report of the United Against Torture Coalition, a coalition of 14 Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, a publication to which PHRI contributed. The Coalition addressed the UN Committee Against Torture thus: “Since the Committee last reviewed Israel, the practice of torture and ill-treatment has continued unabated (and) is both widespread and systematic. The UAT Coalition has recorded evidence of acts, omissions and complicity by agents of the State at all levels. Until this culture of impunity is addressed this situation is unlikely to improve”.(7) It is normal practice that if a significant error in a paper in an academic journal is identified subsequently, a correction is published. Few subjects could be more relevant to the moral standing of the medical profession (8) and there is also the imputation that I have lied in the BMJ. What I had to say in 2003 was not a lie then and it is not a lie now. In 2003 there had been convincing evidence from reputable and reliable sources, widely available for some years, of which the IMA must therefore have been aware, that Israeli doctors had been involved in the ill- treatment of prisoners and yet such conduct had apparently continued unabated, without intervention by the IMA. For this reason alone what I had to say in 2003 was not a lie. Moreover, at the meeting on 10 December 2008, more recent, compelling evidence of Israeli doctors’ continuing involvement in torture was presented specifically to Professor Baum. Thus I ask Professor Baum whether in the light of the evidence of which he is now aware he needs to publish a correction. 1 Baum M. Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? No. BMJ 2007;335:125. 2 Blachar Y. Medical ethics, the Israeli Medical Association, and the state of the World Medical Association: IMA president’s response to open letter to the BMA. BMJ 2003:327:1107. 3 Summerfield D. Medical ethics, the Israeli Medical Association, and the state of the World Medical Association. Open letter to the BMA. BMJ 2003;327:561. 4 Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. “Ticking Bombs”: testimonies of torture victims in Israel. Jerusalem: Public Committee Against Torture In Israel. 2007. http://www.stoptorture.org.il/files/140[1].pdf 5 Amnesty International. "Under constant medical supervision". Torture, ill-treatment and the health professions in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Amnesty International 1996. MDE 15/37/96. 6 Blachar Y. The truth about Israeli medical ethics. Lancet 1997;350:1247. 7 Defence for Children International: Palestine Section. UAT Report: Torture and Ill-treatment in Israel and the OPT. www.dci-pal.org. 2008. 8 Miles S. Doctors’ complicity with torture. It is time for sanctions. BMJ 2008;337:a1088. Competing interests: I have had academic involvement with health and human rights-related issues, including medical ethics,in Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1992