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Reviews PERSONAL VIEWS

Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes

BMJ 2004; 329 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7471.924 (Published 14 October 2004) Cite this as: BMJ 2004;329:924

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One-sided nonsense

This article is nothing short of a diatribe that fails to give a true
impression of the situation in Israel and the Disputed Territories. Dr
Summerfield describes the situation as if Israel has no interest other
than to kill and maim for its sake only.

The truth is a complex one. The fact as illustrated by the lynching
in Ramallah is that the Palestinians do not recognise Jewish rights at all
in the Middle East. We can see this from their actions in the 1920s
(Hebron for example in 1929). Their media is filled with Nazi-like
propaganda and teaches children to kill. This is not a 'response' as some
would like to say. This is an a priori attempt to demonise Jews. The
results of this were clear recently when a Jewish mother and her 4
children were shot in their car by Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza
strip and then the 4 children were shot dead at point-blank range.
Israeli soldiers have not acted perfectly and mistakes have happened. I
would even go so far as to say that some have been guilty of brutality,
but the alternatives would mean even more killing of Jews.

Palestinians have used every means to kill Jews including tranferring
weapons in ambulances, and child abuse -such as using teenagers as suicide
bombers and as human shields. To blame Israel is not only ignorant but as
we can see in France and elsewhere, the cause of a huge increase in anti-
semitic attacks - of which I have been a victim myself.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

27 October 2004
Daniel J S Youngerwood
GP Principle
London W1