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The American medical establishment is silent over the genocide in Gaza. Why?

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17 December 2024

What is one to make of the American medical establishment including its leading journals, which have remained stubbornly silent over the genocide unfolding before us all? Mondoweiss has published this excellent analysis including a compelling answer to the question. (Pictured is Dr Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, who just can’t bring himself to publish anything on Gaza.)

The willful and dangerous silence of the U.S. medical establishment on Gaza

Despite overwhelming documentation of plausible genocide and medical war crimes in Gaza, major U.S. medical organizations, journals, and lobbies have neglected their duty to take a stand against these atrocities.

By Mansoor Malik, Ravi Chandra and Gary S. Belkin  December 15, 2024  

Relatives and well-wishers offer prayers during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on December 7, 2024. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

Relatives and well-wishers offer prayers during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on December 7, 2024. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

The recent Israeli actions such as outlawing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and blocking aid to Northern Gaza, have intensified concerns that Israel is implementing a policy of starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This is in the background of at least 44,000 civilian deaths, two-thirds of whom are women and children, the killing of nearly 1,000 health workers, and the almost complete destruction of the healthcare infrastructure in Gaza. Even the U.S. government which normally provides unconditional support to Israel, was compelled to ask Israel to show proof that it is not deliberately causing starvation. The scale of Israeli atrocities in Gaza is simply horrific. Reports by 65 U.S. healthcare staff volunteering in Gaza, document children being shot in the head and chest by Israeli snipers. In a recent report, a UN Independent Commission of Enquiry found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israeli actions and demanded that “Israel must stop its wanton destruction of healthcare facilities in Gaza.”

In the 300-page meticulously detailed report released this week, Amnesty International, the world’s largest human rights organization in the world, concluded that Israel has been conducting deliberate genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in violation of the Genocide Convention. It analyzed hundreds of statements and actions by Israeli officials to clearly establish a genocidal intent, such as blocking food, water, fuel, and medical treatment. It documents the sadistic and malicious behavior of IDF soldiers, who kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure without any military necessity. Amnesty particularly documents atrocities against children and documents cases of direct and indiscriminate violence, resulting in deaths and life-altering injuries for thousands of children. Gaza has the largest cohort in the world of child amputees, who have no access to wound care or surgical facilities, as Israel has systematically destroyed all the healthcare facilities. Amnesty goes to great lengths in documenting the “physical and mental harm” and need for urgent medical and psychiatric care for the civilians in Gaza and emphasizes that Israel is prohibiting the civilian population from accessing healthcare, which is itself a genocidal act. These findings along with the previous ICJ decisions have significant implications for medical professional organizations as medical ethics, such as the AMA code of ethics (which all the U.S. medical professional organizations follow) is based on international law and the Geneva Conventions. Medical organizations are obligated to stand up against medical war crimes and genocide.

Despite the overwhelming human catastrophe and plausible genocide and medical war crimes in Gaza, major U.S. medical organizations, journals, and lobbies have failed to adopt a meaningful stance against these atrocities. Major medical organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the American Medical Association, and American Pediatric Associations have not called for a ceasefire or investigation of war crimes. This is in sharp contrast to their earlier reaction to the Ukraine war, the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and even the recent statements of the U.S. government.

Historical silence of medical organizations in the face of atrocities, such as the holocaust, has contributed to dehumanization and racism perpetuating these atrocities. The case of Doctors without Borders (MSF) is instructive in this regard. For many decades after its founding, in the wake of the Algerian War of Independence, MSF maintained a stance of political neutrality. However, after being caught in the Rwandan genocide, it realized the untenability of neutrality and called for a military intervention to stop the genocide. 

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine was finally forced to apologize for its silence about the Nazi holocaust from 1940-1943. In December 2023, it announced a new series titled “Recognizing Historical Injustices in Medicine and the Journal” to grapple with the fact that “Journal and other medical institutions have historically advocated and justified the mistreatment of groups on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion.” It is ironic that this move came at a point when one of the worst human catastrophes in modern history was unfolding in Gaza, yet NEJM has not published a single article on the deteriorating healthcare situation in Gaza. In fact, it has not mentioned occupation, military assaults, or blockades on Palestinians since 1986, while publishing multiple articles about Hamas attacks on Israel.

This situation is hardly unique to NEJM. American medical organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) were prompt in condemning Hamas attacks but have not adopted any position on the Israeli war crimes, genocide, destruction of all the major hospitals, and killing of healthcare workers in Gaza, even in the face of decisions by International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. AMA has rejected calls from its members to discuss a ceasefire resolution in the guise of maintaining neutrality, notwithstanding its forceful condemnation of the loss of civilian life in Ukraine and Israel. The authors had a similar experience with the American Psychiatric Association (APA) when efforts to establish a peace caucus were blocked by the APA leadership. Our efforts to include seminars about Islamophobia, the Gaza genocide, or even inter-faith peace promotion, in the APA annual meeting, were also rejected.   Worse still, any effort to highlight civilian suffering in Gaza is dubbed “Pro-Hamas”, “supporting terrorism” or even “antisemitic” by the AMA, APA, and the U.S. medical establishment. 

De facto censorship of Israeli policies is well recognized in U.S. academia because of the powerful pro-Israel lobby. A study of publication patterns between 1990–2016 indicated that as compared with the U.S.-based medical journals, the UK journals published substantially more articles related to the dire health conditions of Palestinians. Interestingly, pro-Israel lobby groups label UK medical journals with “anti-Israel” bias, while ignoring the absence of a balanced perspective in U.S. medical journals.  

This willful ignorance of the wholesale slaughter, starvation, and the deliberate destruction of medical infrastructure displayed by the U.S. medical associations, journals, and lobbies is particularly troubling. It is discriminatory, racist, myopic, disingenuous, and dangerous. It not only prevents the mobilization of resources by the U.S. medical community to help the people of Gaza but also furthers a retreat of U.S. medical profession from safeguarding free speech, academic freedom, democratic values, struggle for social justice and erodes the moral standing of the profession.

 It is beyond shameful that after forceful and immediate denouncement of the Hamas attacks and Ukraine war, the AMA and APA have still not condemned the equally heinous and much more prolonged and voluminous crimes against humanity by Israel. Medical organizations must speak out against this ongoing genocide, brutality, and dehumanization that is being funded by our tax dollars, weapons, and political shielding. Ethical rules must to applied universally without regard for political calculations or favoritism, as indeed demanded by the AMA code of ethics. As in the case of Nazi holocaust, one could argue that if the substantial U.S. medical establishment had advocated for peace and accountability of war crimes, many lives could have been saved in Gaza.

 December 15, 2024 2:35 pm

A bit of relevant history – in 2007 a group of British doctors called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association –

A group of British doctors has called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) and its expulsion from the World Medical Association (WMA) in a letter published in the Guardian newspaper. The petition, signed by 130 doctors, argues that by refusing to criticise Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, the IMA is failing to uphold international medical ethical standards….The Israel Defense Forces “have systematically flouted the fourth Geneva convention guaranteeing a civilian population unfettered access to medical services and immunity for medical staff,” the letter says, citing reports of soldiers attacking ambulances; patients and essential drugs obstructed at checkpoints, and bombing of the public health infrastructure….Derek Summerfield of the Institute of Psychiatry, one of the letter’s organisers, said a boycott was the only remaining option when all normal channels have been exhausted. “We’ve sent exhaustive reports, with evidence carefully documented by leading human rights organisations, to the IMA, the World Medical Association, and the BMA, but they’ve been ignored.”…

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1857772/#:~:text=The%20petition%2C%20signed%20by%20130,uphold%20international%20medical%20ethical%20standards.

Same story in Electronic Intifada:

130 UK Physicians Call for a Boycott of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) and its expulsion from the World Medical Association (WMA)…“…Persistent violations of medical ethics have accompanied Israel’s occupation. The Israeli Defence Force has systematically flouted the fourth Geneva convention guaranteeing a civilian population unfettered access to medical services and immunity for medical staff. Ambulances are fired on (hundreds of cases) and their personnel killed. Desperately ill people, and newborn babies, die at checkpoints because soldiers bar the way to hospital. The public-health infrastructure, including water and electricity supplies, is wilfully bombed, and the passage of essential medicines like anti-cancerdrugs and kidney dialysis fluids blocked. In the West Bank, the apartheid wall has destroyed any coherence in the primary health system. UN rapporteurs have described Gaza as a humanitarian catastrophe, with 25 percent of children clinically malnourished.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-physicians-call-boycott-israeli-medical-association/755

afmeyers

 December 16, 2024 11:50 am

You refer to the “American Pediatric Association”, but what you mean is the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). There has been an effort by concerned pediatricians to get the AAP to denounce the genocide; so far, it’s been unsuccessful.

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