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Human crisis in Israeli occupied territories

BMJ 2006;332:1276 (27 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7552.1276-b

Letter Humanitarian crisis in Israeli occupied territories

EDITOR ”Why has there been so little international outcry about the humanitarian crisis in the Israeli occupied territories reported in the BMJ and by the Physicians for Human Rights Israel?''1 2 It is stunning how documentation from international and regional human rights organisations, all pointing the same way (Amnesty International alone has issued 301 reports since September 2003), is ignored or dismissed as evidence of anti-Israel bias or of anti-Semitism. It is hard not to conclude that behind this selective blindness is a view of the captive Palestinian population as not in the same moral universe.

We should note with shame that the International Committee of the BMA, who are members of the World Medical Association (WMA, the international watchdog on medical ethics), has not raised in that forum the grotesque events unfolding in the occupied territories, still less challenged the persistent silence of fellow members, the Israeli Medical Association. The WMA is in violation of its own mandate. For the BMA International Committee, as members of the WMA, to ignore such massive and sustained violations of the Geneva convention, which guarantees a population's right to health care, and not to challenge the silence of the relevant national medical association, is to demonstrate straightforward collusion. If this is not a form of medical malpractice then I have lost my bearings: it should be a matter for the General Medical Council. I call on BMA members to speak out where it matters, including at the annual representatives meeting next month. I would be happy to hear from members who feel this cannot go on.

Derek A Summerfield, honorary senior lecturer
Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, London SE5 8AP This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Competing interests: None declared.

References
1.McGreal C. Aid withdrawal is bringing health service in Gaza to brink of collapse. BMJ 2006;332: 1171. (20 May.)[Free Full Text]
2.Report: Collapse of the Palestinian health system. www.phr.org.il/phr/article.asp?articleid=338&catid=55&pcat=-1〈=ENG (accessed 20 May 2006).
3.Amnesty International. www.amnesty.org.uk/
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