UK doctors call for boycott of Israeli Medical Association
Palestine-Israel-UK, Politics, 4/23/2007

Some 130 distinguished doctors in Britain Saturday called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) and its expulsion from the World Medical Association (WMA).

"The IMA has forfeited its right to membership of the international medical community," said the doctors, led by Professor of Surgical Science at University College of London Colin Green and award-winning Dr Pauline Cutting.

"The Israeli Medical Association has a duty to protest about war crimes of this kind, but has refused to do so. Appeals to the World Medical Association and the British Medical Association have also been rebuffed," they said.

The call comes after 18 leading Palestinian health organizations appealed to fellow professionals abroad in March to recognize how the IMA has forfeited its right to membership of the international medical community.

In a letter to the Guardian, the doctors expressed grave concern about the health-related impact of Israeli policy on Palestinian society.

"Persistent violations of medical ethics have accompanied Israel's occupation. The Israeli Defense Force has systematically flouted the fourth Geneva convention guaranteeing a civilian population unfettered access to medical services," they said.

Their letter reported that instead of being given immunity, medical staff had been killed with hundreds of ambulances fired upon by Israeli troops.

"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 willfully bombed," it said.

The doctors further warned that the passage of essential medicines like anti-cancer drugs and kidney dialysis fluids were blocked, while in the West Bank, the apartheid wall has "destroyed any coherence in the primary health system." In Gaza, UN rapporteurs have repeatedly described the situation as a humanitarian catastrophe, with 25 per cent of children clinically malnourished.

Calling for a boycott of the IMA, the doctors said that there had been a precedent set for its expulsion from the WMA set during the apartheid era when the Medical Association of South Africa was expelled.

"A boycott is an ethical and moral imperative when conventional channels do not function. Otherwise, we are merely turning away," they warned.

Previous Stories:
  Abbas meets Blair   (2/21/2007)
  UK church leaders pledge to be voice of voiceless in Bethlehem   (12/23/2006)
  UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission to occupied Palestinian territory   (7/7/2006)
  Human Rights group says Israel violate Geneva convention   (7/5/2006)
  Switzerland: Israel has violated international humanitarian law   (7/4/2006)

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