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;329:924All rapid responses
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To filter the flies... and swallow the elephants.
It does not seem to matter to Mr Steinberg that Mr Summersfied never
denies Israels right to self defence once in his article. Stienberg simply
assumes or fabricates this piece of information because he is appalled by
every notion that the palestinian people might be suffering from the
unlawful occupation and stateterrorist acts conducted by the israeli
goverment.
While Stienberg is morraly indignated by the fact that BMJ publishes
Summersfields article, meaning he would have liked this fly to be
filtered, he ignores the fact that the occupation per se is illegal as is
the construction of the apartheid wall, so deemed by the International
Court of Justice on july ninth of this year (http://www.icj-
cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm). But Stienberg chooses to
swallow this elephant.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I wish to commend the BMJ for publishing this extremely useful and
important paper. It succinctly expresses a myriad of human problems which
the Palestinians are facing, and directs our attention to them as
individual human beings in need of care, assistance and aid.
I found the paper informative, absent of bias and truthful. Please
continue to do follow up on this matter, whenever it is possible.
Regards,
Mary Rizzo
Competing interests:
Al-Awda Italia
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Is it remotely possible for us all to graciously 'Hold Fire' for just
a few highly reflective minutes ?
Our dearly beloved Palestinian Chairman (Yasser Arafat) is publicly
rumoured to have recently slipped into a frightfully deep coma . . .
barely a few hours after George .W. Bush suavely got re-elected as
President of the USA.
Perhaps both the Arabic and Jewish Responders could also use this
exceedingly eclectic forum to jointly 'Say A Little Prayer' (or 2) for the
Ailing PLO Revolutionary ; as he desperately deserves as much help as he
can get at the moment.
May God Bless Us All.
Competing interests:
Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM (Dublin) FRIPH (UK) FACAM (USA) also supervises an Interdisciplinary Revalidation Initiative (IRI) for Seasoned Practitioners in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Please kindly visit www.RoyalCAM.org for more details
Competing interests: No competing interests
How can it be true?
You admit yourself its one sided.
Isrealis don't want to hurt anyone... They clearly want peace,
democracy, and freedom. They have done so much in the world of medicine
and technology, for the good of all mankind. (which is what this site
should be about)
More to the point... What on earth is this doing in the BMJ... I
can't believe that the BMJ have published such one sided rubish.
It seems that there is some kind of campaign to support this article
by people with Arab names... Its seriously putting me off what used to be
a highly respected site.
Neil Bradon
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I've been amazed to see the virtual firestorm in response to this
article. Why? Not because of the overwhelmingly negative tone of the
responses--this is of course to be expected when one courageously speaks
obvious truth about a subject considered by most people to be a proverbial
'sacred cow'.
No, my amazement was caused by the fact I could find no attempted
factual refutation of the author's contentions in any of the responses,
just reams of what struck me as tangential or irrelevant criticism.
So I feel called to raise my voice in support of the author and the
humanitarian impulses implicit in BMJ's courageous publication of his
findings regarding the dismal state of medical care available to the
Palestinian people.
I am a resident of a country that preaches a humanitarian agenda but
practices one that creates widespread suffering and death. Recently my
fellow citizens and I have been forced to fund 200 billion USD for the
conquest and ongoing occupation of Iraq plus 319 million USD to provide
Israel with 5000 smart bombs.
Most US citizens believe these actions are well intended,
humanitarian acts, and are quite oblivious to the horrific toll these
actions take on the health and welfare of the innocent civilians in the
target countries. There is essentially no mainstream media coverage in the
US of the resulting health care crisis, so I am very thankful a highly
respected international medical journal such as BMJ can demonstrate the
courage and compassion to escalate this issue to the world's attention. I
believe this is quite relevant to the mission of the BMJ as I understand
it.
Thank you for listening!
Don Rahmlow
Portland, ME USA
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Sir
First I want to congratulate Mr Summerfield for his courage in saying
the truth in a time where it can be very costly doing so. I have not been
a member of the BMA so far but after I'v seen some of my pro-israeli
colleagues threatening to withdraw their membership in an attempt to
intimidate and pressurise the BMJ. After I have seen this very
unprofessional and shameful attitude I have decided that I will join the
BMA TODAY. I want to help in keeping up the good work.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I am an Emergency Physician on faculty at McMaster University,
arguably the home of evidence based medicine. Thus I read Dr.
Summerfield's essay with the doubtfulness that only years of EBM can
inculcate. His piece, while undoubtedly pleasing to those who have a
predisposed bias against Israel, is in fact absolute nonsense. Perhaps a
better term would be non-science.
I have had occasion to do some of my Emergency Medicine training in
Israel (an experience I would highly recommend to anyone with an interest
in A&E or Disaster Medicine) and have also had occasion to speak with
soldiers at the checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel. My
observations differ quite dramatically from Dr. Summerfield's article if
only since they were, for the most part, first hand.
There is no evidence to support most of his comments. In the interest
of brevity I will only give three examples.
Soldiers have not been authorised to fire on children and in fact a
review of Israeli law would show that soldiers have a legal right to
refuse immoral or unethical orders. Dr. Summerfield has obviously not done
any such review nor could he quote any policy statement to support his
accusation.
The majority of health care to Arabs in Israel and in the territories
is delivered by Israel at the Israeli tax payers expense. This despite
more than five billion dollars in aid that was poured in to the
Palestinian Authority and which remains in a large part unaccounted for.
Not only are the Israeli's providing the care they are also providing the
training for Arab physicians in their hospitals alongside Israelis. I have
witnessed this myself.
The routine Palestinian use of UN vehicles and ambulances to
transport bombs and terrorists -in flagrant breach of the Geneva
Convention- has made it unsafe for Israel to allow Red Crescent ambulances
into the country. As a result Israel has had to establish a routine of
sending ambulances to checkpoints where they wait for ambulances coming
from within the territories. Upon arrival the patient is transferred from
the Palestinian vehicle to the Israeli then taken to hospital. This means
that an Israeli ambulance is withdrawn from service while this occurs,
causing a profound impact on ambulance response times within Israel. If a
bomb goes off when one ambulance is at the checkpoint that is one less
vehicle able to respond to the emergency.
Political vitriol has no room in a scientific journal, particularly
if the facts are wrong. This paper was more than just wrong, it was biased
in the extreme. If one of my residents submitted research like this I
would fail it. Why the BMJ would publish it is a mystery to me. Most EBM
journals would have trashed it, not only because it is hateful but more so
because one looks foolish publishing nonsense.
Dr. Daniel Kollek
Associate Professor - Emergency Medicine,
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I find that the concern that many of the respondants with pro-
Palestinian sympathies show for Palestinian children killed by the Israeli
Defense Forces is a tad hypocritical. While there are a very few
documented cases of Israeli soldiers who have exceeded their
responsibilities to protect Israeli civilians and this has resulted in the
deaths of Palestinian children (and in each of these cases an official
inquiry as to the circumstances of exactly what happened is held and the
offending soldier punished if found guilty), the vast majority of these
children were killed because they were standing too near to an armed
terrorist who was the intended target of the soldier. The death of the
child Mohammed Dura, which was caught on camera and shown all over the
world, was naturally attributed to those "awful trigger-happy Israelis",
yet an in-depth investigation by a German journalist showed that it was
far more likely that he was in fact caught in cross-fire and killed by
Palestinian gunfire.
Just this week, a 16 year old boy blew himself and 3 innocent Israeli
civilians up at a vegetable market in Tel Aviv - his mother, according to
the Israeli press, was furious with his dispatchers for sending someone so
young. Again today, it was reported in our local press that: "A 15-year-
old potential suicide bomber was arrested by soldiers of the Charuv
Battalion in the Rafadiya neighborhood in Nablus early Thursday morning.
The youth had been recruited by the Fatah - Aksa Martyrs Brigade to carry
out the attack" (Jerusalem Post Internet Edition).
A few months ago another 16-year old boy, who was mentally retarded
with a mental age of about 8, was also stopped at a checkpoint while on
his way to Israel to blow himself, and as many other people as possible,
up. On that occasion the soldiers manning the checkpoint sent a mechanical
robot to him and gave him instructions how to remove his explosive belt
safely.
Children are being recruited more and more as human bombs since they
attract less suspicion. If this is not blatant child abuse, then I don't
know what is. These poor kids are lured with the promise of paradise and
70 (or 72) virgins in heaven - what brain-washing.
When the Palestinians can send children to be suicide bombers, I find
it somewhat hypocritical, to put it mildly, that they create such a
hulabaloo about children killed in other situations. As a previous
correspondant noted, any responsible parent would keep their kids indoors
during fighting, not encourage them to go out and take part. The crocodile
tears shed over these children are solely a means of yet again "showing
the world" what terrible people these Israelis are, with no explanation of
the circumstances. Well, the "world" should take note of the terrible
child abuse being perpetrated by the dispatchers of these teenage bombs.
Competing interests:
I am an ex-pat British Jew now living in Israel and I want to feel free to buy vegetables without being blown up.
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The article explains the injustice and the war crimes committed
against the innocent palestinians , i congratulate you for your courage in
writing and publishing this article.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Why Medicine and Politics must mix when it comes to Israel
Monday, November 1, 2004
The Palestinian Medical Relief Society reports that an injured
17-year-old boy was taken out of an ambulance by Israeli occupation forces
and shot dead in Jenin.
Mohammad Abu Aita, 17 years old, was injured during an Israeli
incursion in Jenin around 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 28 October. He was shot
with live bullets in his left thigh and abdomen, but medical workers
stopped the bleeding. He was in stable condition and able to give his
information to an ambulance driver, Muntaser 'Abd Ar-Rahim.
As the ambulance was transporting the boy to a hospital, six Israeli
Jeeps surrounded the ambulance and forced them to pull over. According to
the driver, the medical workers were compelled to exit the ambulance and
lay on the ground as they were searched by Israeli occupation soldiers.
Israeli soldiers opened the back of the ambulance, and 'Abd Ar-Rahim tried
to convince them to leave because the boy was injured. Israeli soldiers
said they would take him to an Israeli hospital. They
took him away in a military vehicle painted with a Star of David, the type
that is often used both for invasions and as an ambulance.
Israeli soldiers detained 'Abd Ar-Rahim for about an hour near the
ambulance, and when he was released, he was shocked to learn that Israelis
had called the Palestinian side to come take the boy's body. Doctors
reported that he was killed by live bullets to his chest and abdomen.
The murder of an injured prisoner is a war crime under the Fourth
Geneva Convention. The cold-blooded murder of children is a crime against
humanity.
For more information contact The Palestine Monitor
+972 (0)2 2985372 or +972 (0)59 254218
http://www.palestinemonitor.org
Competing interests:
None declared
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