Conservatives Anti-Semitic Friend Declares his Undying Sympathy for Israel!

I May Not like Jews but I Just Love Israel

Michal Kaminski - friend of British Conservatism

The row over the Tory Party’s choice of allies in the European Parliament rumbles on. In particular over Michal Kaminiski, member of the far-right Law and Justice Party in Poland’s Sejm and leader of the Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament. Leaving aside Robert Zile’s Freedom and Fatherland Party in Latvia, which has a soft spot for all those Latvian SS men who helped round up the Jews.

What is interesting in this debate is how, BNP style, Kaminiski’s retort to the allegation of anti-Semitism is: ‘What me? But I support Israel.’ And that is precisely the problem. It reminds me of a quotation in Francis Nicosia’s new book, ‘anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.’ [2008].

Nicosia is an American Professor of Political Science and an ardent Zionist who continually finds himself at odds with the evidence he uncovers. But despite his Zionism he notes that although today criticism of Zionism

‘is often dismissed as motivated by a deeper anti-Semitism, in Herzl’s day an opposite non-Jewish reaction, one of support for the Zionist idea, might have resulted in a similar reaction.’ [p.7]

His conclusion is that ‘Before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, active anti-Zionism… was largely a Jewish phenomenon…’ [13]

And that is precisely the point. If someone says that they believe Jews don’t belong in this country and should depart, then they are either an anti-semite or a Zionist or both. So it’s no surprise that Israel’s Ambassador to Britain, the intellectually challenged Ron Prossor, should be up there giving Kaminiski his full support. Likewise the Conservative Friends of Israel stand shoulder to shoulder with a man who has opposed any form of Polish apology for the massacre at Jedwabne (because Jews should apologise for the behaviour of the Soviet Union – understandable if you hold that Jews collectively were responsible for Stalin's atrocities or for Communism more generally, which is something Hitler certainly believed in.

Kaminski also paid homage to see General Pinochet when he was under house arrest in Britain, presenting him with some Catholic curiosity. Leaving aside of course his anti-gay credentials.

Now it may be, as some have argued, that Kaminski is more an opportunist than a fascist supporter. But regardless he makes a good bedfellow for both Israeli apologists and David Cameron. Interestingly, senior members of the Jewish Leadership Council have been spitting blood at the letter Vivian Wineman, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews sent David Cameron asking, ever so politely, about his new far-right friends.

We are told that ‘One JLC member described colleagues as “livid” at the timing of the letter. Another said he was “incandescent”. A senior Jewish Conservative said: “The Board has done itself a lot of damage. It is acting naively, it has been manipulated by left-wing interests into a completely inappropriate position. The irony is that the new Tory European group will be the most pro-Israel lobby group.”

Of course this is no irony at all. I can once remember watching a programme featuring one Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. He littered his conversation with anti-Semitic epithets, but this man was as pro-Zionist as you could get.

What of course the unnamed senior Jewish conservative meant is that ‘anti-Semitism’ is only a stick to beat the left and those horrible Muslims around the head with. It’s not actually mean to be taken seriously, as in anti-Semitism, hatred of Jews. ‘Anti-Semitism’ is merely a form of defamation and libel to be used against anti-racists in the name of Israel’s war against the Palestinians. It is effectively the conscious and deliberate misuse of the memory of those who died in the Final Solution to bolster Israel and US imperialism.

Kaminski admits wearing 'fascist' symbol
By Martin Bright and Jessica Elgot, October 10, 2009

Michal KaminskI, the Polish MEP at the centre of the controversy over David Cameron’s European alliances has admitted he wore the symbol of a totalitarion group, claims he had previously denied.

In an interview with the JC, Mr Kaminski was asked if he had ever said he was proud to wear the Chrobry Sword, the symbol of the National Radical Camp (ONR).

Formed in 1934, the extreme rightwing, nationalist ONR- Falanga was largely a student movement, but practised violent anti-Semitism including attacks on Jewish students, buildings and businesses, organised boycotts of Jewish businesses and attacks on left wing groups.
The group used the medieval symbol of the Mieczyk Chrobrego – the Chrobry sword,

Mr KaminskI categorically denied knowledge of wearing the Chrobry sword symbol.
He told the JC: “No, I never wear it. I don’t even know which symbol you are referring to.”
But Mr Kaminski later issued a clarification, where he admitted he had worn the badge.
He said:

"I did wear the sword, which was used around a millennia ago to crown Polish Kings, on my lapel on occasions. After 1989 it was used as one of the symbols of the Christian National Union and many Conservative politicians would wear it, including politicians now in the Civic Platform.

“In recent years it has been taken as a symbol by the Far Right. Although it is not the same, there are similarities with how the BNP in Britain has taken the Union Jack as their symbol.
“When I felt the symbol started having this meaning I stopped wearing it and I asked the rest of my party to stop too.”

He added: “I acknowledge that it is possible that my pronunciation was unclear, so I am happy to clarify his position on this controversial symbol."

EXCLUSIVE Michal Kaminski: 'I'm no antisemite'

When I finally interview Michal Kaminski he is looking extremely flustered, not to say hounded, by the attention he has received during his flying visit to Conservative Party conference. The controversial leader of David Cameron’s new allies in the European Parliament has been chased into a fringe meeting by a woman from Channel 4 and to the doors of a lunch hosted by Conservative Friends of Israel. Allegations about his far-right past have quite literally pursued him to a suite at Manchester’s Midland Hotel.

Here it is that the 37-year-old head of the new European Conservatives and Reformists grouping has chosen to explain his controversial past statements, which range from the Holocaust and the role of Jewish partisans in the Soviet occupation, to General Pinochet and homosexuality.

In his only interview with a British newspaper, he says he welcomes the opportunity to reassure readers of the JC that he is no antisemite.“If you grew up in Poland, if you saw the traces of the Holocaust in my country, the accusation of being an antisemite is, I think, really hard,” he says. “Being an antisemite is something which is contradictory to all my beliefs, starting with my religious beliefs as a Christian and ending with my political conservative views.”

He adds that he considers that western civilisation is essentially Judeo-Christian and therefore “created to a big extent by Jews”.

Mr Kaminski says that he understands the concerns raised by some of the allegations against him. His colourful CV has already caused acute embarrassment to the Conservative Party and provided ammunition to those who say Cameron has rejected the mainstream centre-right in Europe in favour of a rag-tag bunch of apologists for fascism. At the same time, his robust support for Israel provides Anglo-Jews with a dilemma. His status as guest of honour at the CFI lunch demonstrates the level of trust he commands among leading Jewish Tories. His visit to Israel last month saw him welcomed by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

But how does this square with Mr Kaminski’s political beginnings with the far-right National Revival of Poland party (NOP)? The party he joined as a teenager is said to have pledged that “Jews will be removed from Poland and their possessions confiscated”. His response is that he was just 15 when he joined the NOP in 1987 when it was still an underground movement. Two years later it merged into the mainstream Conservative Christian National Union. “It was for me the first available option to join the anti-Communist movement and when I was 17 I left this group,” he says, adding that there was no evidence of a neo-fascist tendency at the time. “When I was a member of them, I don’t remember. Maybe you will find that someone will… but as far as I know it was a party which was Catholic and nationalist-orientated.”

Mr Kaminski himself raises the issue of Jedwabne, a town in the north-east of Poland which was the site of a massacre of hundreds of its Jewish inhabitants in July 1941 by a mob of Poles. Sixty years later, the then Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski issued an apology for the atrocity, but the issue was hugely divisive. As the deputy in the Polish parliament responsible for the area, Mr Kaminski expressed his opposition to a generalised apology, a decision he stands by.

From the very beginning I was saying as a human being, as a Pole, that Jedwabne was a terrible crime, unfortunately committed by the Polish people. My point was from the very start: we are ashamed of these people, we have to condemn them, we have to judge them if they are still alive. But I don’t want to take the whole responsibility for this crime for the whole Polish nation.

He adds that he doesn’t believe the Jedwabne massacre should be classified on the same level as the Holocaust. “I think that it’s unfair comparing it with Nazi crimes and putting it with the same level as the Nazi policy.”

More difficult for Mr Kaminski (and potentially Mr Cameron) is the suggestion that the Polish politician claimed no apology should be made until Jews apologised for alleged Jewish crimes of collaboration with the Soviet Union. His answer is ingenious. He says that asking the Poles as a whole to apologise for Jedwabne would make as much sense as asking the Jews to apologise for alleged Jewish involvement in Communist crimes.It is a theme to which he returns later in the interview:

My position is that there were acts of collaboration of the Jewish people with the Soviet army when the Soviet army came to Poland. It’s a fact. It’s a historical fact… If you are asking the Polish nation to apologise for the crime made in Jedwabne, you would require from the whole Jewish nation to apologise for what some Jewish Communists did in Eastern Poland.

I ask him about an interview he gave to the ultra-nationalist Polish newspaper Nacza Polska at the time of the apology, when he is alleged to have said he would only apologise for Jedwabne when “someone from the Jewish side will apologise for what the Jews did during the Soviet occupation between 1939 and 1941, for the mass collaboration of the Jewish people with the Soviet occupier.” He claims he does not remember giving the interview. Does he recognise the words as his? “I absolutely do not recognise them. It was nine years ago.” He adds that official statements at the time made his position on the matter clear. I ask him about his use of the slogan “Poland is for the Poles”, which is said to have associations with pre-war Polish ultra-nationalism. He says he had been referring to Poland’s corruption scandals of 2000 when the new democracy was seriously under threat. “We have to give Poland to Poles but….not in a racial or nationalistic sense but in terms of democracy. We want to give back Polish democracy to the Poles, to the citizens.”

I ask him to clarify claims that he expressed pride in wearing the Chrobry sword, the symbol of the National Radical Camp Falanga, a Catholic totalitarian group formed in 1935. He issues a categorical denial: “No, I never wear it. I don’t even know which symbol you are referring to." [Mr Kaminski later clarified his position, claiming he had in fact worn the symbol]

There is no doubt there has been a concerted attempt by David Cameron’s political enemies to discredit Mr Kaminski. But there are areas of his own political biography where he admits he made serious errors of judgment. In 1999, he visited the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London, an event he described as “the most important moment of my whole life”. He later made a statement to the Polish parliament saying he regretted his actions. He says: “I think I made a mistake visiting Pinochet. A decent politician should have the courage to admit the mistake”.

I wonder if he thinks it was also a mistake to have described homosexuals as “pedaly”, a derogatory term akin to “shirt-lifters”. Again he admits an error of judgement. “I said I would never use these words again. But please remember it was a word used commonly by Polish politicians about homosexuals. “Since I discovered that this word was offensive in the eyes of homosexuals, I never used it again.” As we end the interview he talks of his pride at heading up the new conservative grouping in the European parliament and his great respect for British Conservatism. But Mr Kaminski cannot have imagined that he would end up as such a controversial figure for the party that has inspired his politics for so long.

The creation of the ECR has been a huge risk for David Cameron, brought about because he needed to provide some “red meat” to the Eurosceptics in his party. In the final irony, though, it turns out that Mr Kaminski is himself an enthusiastic Europhile who has embraced the Lisbon Treaty so hated by the right-wing of the British Conservative Party. “I was on the side of those who were in favour of the Lisbon Treaty. It is well known in Poland. It is not a secret,” he says. I apologise that so much of the interview has been taken up by allegations from Mr Kaminski’s political enemies. To his credit he says that it has been important to answer his critics.

UPDATE: Mr Kaminski made the following statement to the JC on Friday:

I did wear the sword, which was used around a millennia ago to crown Polish Kings, on my lapel on occasions. After 1989 it was used as one of the symbols of the Christian National Union and many Conservative politicians would wear it, including politicians now in the Civic Platform. In recent years it has been taken as a symbol by the Far Right. Although it is not the same, there are similarities with how the BNP in Britainhas taken the Union Jack as their symbol. When I felt the symbol started having this meaning I stopped wearing it and I asked the rest of my party to stop too.

Analysis by Political Editor Martin Bright Editor Stephen Pollard

Goldstone report on Israels attack on Gaza now published

Israel has opened an international campaign to protest a United Nations report which ruled it committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during its offensive on the Gaza Strip earlier this year. The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Israel was "appalled and disappointed" by the damning report. "The UN body has dealt a huge blow to governments seeking to defend their citizens from terror," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. Palmor said the report's conclusions were "so disconnected with realities on ground that one cannot but wonder on which planet was the Gaza Strip they visited."
It raises the question on which planet the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry is living, most likely not in Gaza.
The report states that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups committed war crimes and acts that were likely crimes against humanity during the fighting in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

In a 547-page report, the mission said both Israeli and Palestinian authorities must engage in "good faith, independent
roceedings" to investigate their own sides within six months, or the UN Security Council should refer the case to the International Criminal Court's prosecutor in The Hague.
You can read the report yourself by clicking on the title.
(citations from Haaretz newspaper)

Time to boycott Israel For the sake of our children, I am convinced that an international boycott is the only way to save Israel from itself

• Neve Gordon (also published in the LA Times)
• guardian, Friday 21 August 2009 09.00 BST

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokeswoman, an actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of antisemitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend co-operation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a binational democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest could return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality. Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics is moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organisations from all over the world formulated the 10-point campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity". For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

Fatah's Gauntlet

by Amira Hass
Ha'aretz 19/08/2009
The decision by Fatah's Sixth Congress that the movement is sticking to negotiations as a means of achieving independence, statehood and peace is an admission that the use of arms during the second intifada was disastrous. That is a difficult admission for a movement founded on the sanctification of the armed struggle. And despite being tacit, it is a brave admission for Fatah at a time when most Palestinians are convinced that Israel does not want peace. Nevertheless, the decision has sparked a few questions from the side of the occupied. The first question is whether Fatah's courage will hold firm if another uprising against the occupation erupts. Or, in other words, whether Fatah is capable of leading an uprising without falling into the trap of the fantasy known as "armed struggle." The second question relates to the negotiations. The conditions that the congress said must be met before talks can resume reflect criticism of the complacent way in which Palestinian representatives have conducted negotiations. Indeed, the authors of the congress' platform beat their breasts over the negligence that caused the first negotiators to omit from the Oslo accords the demand that settlement construction be stopped, the goal of statehood and any mention of the state's borders. But even if Fatah's veteran negotiators wise up and change their negotiating tactics, is it not too late? No new negotiations will be enough on their own to remove the facts on the ground that Israel has created. It is only natural that people subject to foreign domination seek other means of achieving independence in the spectrum between armed struggle and peace talks. Therefore, it is logical that Fatah declared at its congress that it is not giving up other legitimate forms of struggle (boycotts, acts of popular resistance against the settlements) alongside the negotiations. The question this begs is whether this can become more than mere words. After all, this is the same Fatah that entrenched itself so deeply in its status as the ruling party, and the attendant minor perks, that even during the most frustrating of the Oslo years, it refrained from developing the option of mass civil disobedience. This is the same Fatah that still sees the establishment of the Palestinian Authority - i.e. the establishment of governmental institutions that are, by nature, crippled - as a huge achievement. Neither the Palestinian Authority, which is an institution concerned with maintaining its existence, nor Fatah, which is concerned with maintaining its huge achievement, have dared to expand the popular protests against the separation fence, of which they boast, into a real popular revolt. The PA is more concerned with recruiting masses of young men into its police forces, whose goal is to suppress "disturbances" (and impose order on Palestinian cities, where the chief disturbers of the peace were Fatah's own frustrated and quarrelsome armed men). Their foreign trainers are not preparing them to confront armed Israeli soldiers with bare chests. Masses of Palestinians tried this during the first intifada, and the early days of the second as well. And the Israel Defense Forces showed them that in its view, like that of many Israelis, a popular uprising by Palestinians is a no less legitimate target for suppression than the use of live fire - as is proven by its lethal dispersal of demonstrations against the fence and its nighttime raids and arrests of demonstrators and organizers. The popular revolt at the beginning of the second intifada was killed off by the decision to use weapons, which senior Fatah officials either encouraged or were dragged into when the number of Palestinian casualties mounted. But those who opted for weapons misinterpreted both Israel's intentions and its might. Granted, even without suicide bombings, Israel did and is still doing everything in its power to annex West Bank lands. But the indiscriminate use of weapons, against soldiers and civilians alike, gave Israel a pretext for erecting the fence, making disproportionate use of lethal weaponry and dictating to the PA. If the results have been so disastrous, why are they not discussed openly? It is hard to hold a debate on the weapons fantasy when thousands of families have lost loved ones because of it. It is hard to hold such a debate when thousands of Palestinians have paid with their freedom, including many who never held a gun. It is hard to hold such a debate when people who participated in this fantasy have been elected to Fatah's central committee. Moreover, such a debate might have addressed the way senior Fatah members used the "armed struggle" to divert public criticism of the PA and its failures, and salvage Fatah's prestige as a liberation movement. The schizophrenia of being both a government and a liberation movement (as it defines itself) is one of Fatah's most salient characteristics. Can Fatah, which sees the PA as a huge achievement, manage to pick up the gauntlet of popular resistance that it itself threw down?

response to 'First, Do No Harm' - A matter of medical ethics alone

To the Editor

Defenders of the Israeli Medical Association and Dr Yoram Blachar may be quick to claim that “cynical manipulation characterizes the broader campaign against Blachar” but there is no evidence that it the case. I signed the petition because I believe there is a simple question to be answered - Is the professional leadership of a global medical body an appropriate position for Dr Blachar? I believe not, and I outline the reasons below. There is no sinister agenda, no anti-semitism at play, no hatred for Jews and no cyncism – only medical ethics at stake. It is important that readers of Forward realise that, and not be led astray by unfounded and often inflammatory allegations to the contrary.

Dr Blachar has been in a leadership position in the IMA since 1995, during which period the IMA has failed to act against reports of medical complicity in torture. Instead of initiating their own inquiries, the IMA and Dr Blachar have repeatedly asked for others to present ‘evidence.’ And, even when presented with such evidence by various human rights groups, the IMA and Dr Blachar have not taken proactive steps to investigate or remediate the situation. Ironically, it is human rights NGO’s in Israel, such as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel that have had to take on this responsibility, with far less power and access to resources than the IMA. PHR-Israel, I am informed, in its recent efforts to investigate cases, is typically given partial files with no registrations from the period of investigation by the authorities.

The IMA has not used its standing in Israel and relative power to gain access to the information that is critical for investigating and preventing cases of torture and medical complicity. Yet, this is exactly what many human rights groups and professional bodies expect of national professional associations and it is exactly the standard that was applied in criticising medical bodies in South Africa who refused to investigate allegations of torture and human rights violations under apartheid. Having lived through a period in South Africa where black peoples’ lives were dispensable because medical professional organizations did not have enough ‘evidence’ to act, I am convinced it is not enough to stand back and wait. It is this leadership upon which Dr Blachar should be judged, since he is now assuming global leadership of the medical profession.

A lot is made about Dr Blachar and the IMA writing letters to Israeli military authorities to restate what are existing international ethical guidelines, which have been cited as evidence of the IMA’s compliance with international norms. This is the most passive form of action and it is easy to understand why such actions are ignored by the security forces and have had little effect. In South Africa under apartheid, the then Medical Association of South African (MASA) established medical panels for detainees in response to allegations of torture by security forces and made much of these panels in national and international counterpropaganda to combat criticisms of apartheid. But, as confirmed at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings in 1997, these were token structures set up to deflect criticism of the MASA when human rights bodies in South Africa were begging them to take more proactive steps. By its own admission, such steps were designed to protect the Association from criticism rather than the victims of human rights violations of security forces.



Why do I say that it is not enough to simply pronounce yourself opposed to torture? In the late 1980s, I was working as a doctor in a rural part of South Africa and attended to a black activist who had been most horribly tortured under interrogation during his detention some months previously. He told me how, in a semi-conscious state, he overhead a medical doctor advising the police how to cover up evidence of his torture if he died. However, he lived to tell his story about his torture and the collusion of the doctor a decade later to a Truth and Reconciliation hearing in 1997. The doctor involved was interviewed the next day by the media, denied the claim and stated that (translated from Afrikaans) “…such behaviour is absolutely contrary to my ethical beliefs as a doctor. But most of all it is directly against my deepest values as a person.” I tell this story because I know that the detainee’s story was entirely consistent with the evidence presented to me. Although Dr Blachar can claim that his “position as well as the position of the leadership of the IMA is firmly and unequivocally against torture of any kind,” it is easy to say you are against torture. What matters, particularly when you are in a position to give leadership to other doctors vulnerable to state pressure, is what you actually do to prevent it and to hold accountable those who allow torture to take place.



A lot has been said about Dr Blachar’s comments published in the Lancet on ‘moderate physical pressure’ being legal. On the one hand, it is claimed he never indicated his support for ‘moderate physical pressure.’ On the other hand, critics cite it as evidence that he tolerated torture. This argument is to miss the point. When, in 1998, the IMA was approached by PHR-Israel, together with prison and police doctors, to clarify its stance on this question of moderate physical pressure, so as to give guidance to prison doctors, it avoided taking any position, and only did so after the Israeli High Court made a legal pronouncement that moderate physical pressure did, indeed, constitute a form of torture. Rather than adopt an independent and critical analysis of the situation, the IMA, under Dr Blachar’s leadership, deferred an ethical judgment to a legal one.

This is exactly what the MASA and the then-South African Medical and Dental Council did in South Africa in the late 1980’s, in trying to avoid disciplining the doctors who were complicit in the notorious and tragic torture and death of Mr Steve Biko. Mr Biko was a political detainee who suffered a head injury whilst being assaulted during interrogation and whose medical care was subjugated to the interests of the security forces, resulting in his death. The medical authorities constantly resorted to a legal fiction to avoid taking action against the doctors concerned, a case which medical students worldwide continue to hear about in their ethics teaching. This approach of hiding behind the law is not the leadership I want at the head of the global organization of doctors today. I want a leader who is able to separate the law from ethics, who is able to stand up for what is the right principle and who will not hide behind legal niceties. It is not a matter of casting “guilt by association” to hold the head of the IMA responsible for not displaying firm leadership. It is his actions and lack of action, when they were most needed, which matter.

So, to call for Dr Yoram Blachar to step down has nothing to do with his ethnicity or my ethnicity, which is also Jewish, or one’s views about the political resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is simply a matter of medical ethics. To say that it is not appropriate for Dr Blachar to preside over the World Medical Association is to say that international standards of medical ethics deserve better.

Professor Leslie London, University of Cape Town, South Africa





Professor Leslie London

Health and Human Rights programme

School of Public Health and Family Medicine

Health Sciences Faculty

University of Cape Town

Anzio Road

Observatory

7925

South Africa

Response letter to IMA letter from Prof Yudkin

An Open Letter to Israeli Doctors who are Members of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel


Dear Colleagues

I have seen, and had translated for me, the letter of 21st July 2009 from Dr Yoram Blachar, President of the Israeli Medical Association addressed to doctors who are members of PHR-I. He explains that he feels that the actions of PHR-I in publicising internationally their concerns about medical complicity in torture is responsible for feeding ‘anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist anti-Semitism.’ He describes the petition of 725 doctors calling for his expulsion from the post of President of the World Medical Association, and the questioning to which he was subjected at the British Medical Association annual conference, implying that the attacks are coming from ‘Moslem and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli doctors.’ I would like to challenge some of these assertions, suggesting not only that Dr Blachar and the IMA still have issues which require answers, but also that the challenges are coming from a position of human rights, and not anti-semitism.

I do not regard myself as anti-semitic: I am Jewish, have many relatives who live in Israel, and had a Jewish National Fund collection box by our telephone throughout my childhood. Yet I have raised with Dr Blachar a series of questions, about torture, about access to medical care for patients from Gaza, and about attacks on health care facilities during Operation Cast Lead, in the form of an article in the Lancet in April (attached). I contrasted the powerful position statement on torture on the IMA website with the failure of that body to respond adequately to the PCATI report, published in May 2007, in which detailed testimonies of 9 torture victims included names of medical personnel involved in their management, 6 of these being IMA members. The reasons for medical involvement varied, but included a 29-year-old man with a sacral ulcer and consequent permanent foot drop following interrogation. During this time, over a 4 day period he was intermittently tied by 4 limbs arched back over a chair with a sharp edge to the seat. In response to concerted pressure, the Chairman of the IMA Ethics Committee reported having contacted and spoken to ‘most of those listed,’ all of whom denied either any connection with the prison services or, for the 3 who were so employed, any involvement in interrogations, torture, or medical approval for this. What is missing is any evidence that the inquiry went further than these conversations, as might be expected in such circumstances. For example, was there contact with the hospitals where the prisoners were treated, or were the medical records examined?

The question which needs considering by the IMA President, its Ethics Committee, and its members, is whether the security risks facing Israel can be allowed to override human rights. Are members of PHR-I, or of the IMA, willing to accept that one in three patients being referred from Gaza for medical care is being denied entry to Israel on ‘security grounds,’ this seemingly comprising in several instances the names and telephone numbers of relatives or friends who may be Hamas sympathizers? In particular, I would contend that as the President of the WMA, Dr Blachar needs to re-examine the role of the medical profession in defending human rights. Failure to investigate to the level of accepted international norms could imply an anxiety that there is veracity in the claims. To imply that such calls are no more than a concerted anti-Israeli, or even anti-semitic, campaign is to attempt to silence critics.

The events of the last 9 months have seen a marked shift in world opinion regarding Israel. While the causes of these changes may relate, in part, to changes in policy with new governments in Israel and the US, and in part to the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, there is undoubtedly a rising tide of anti-Israeli sentiment in many countries. But to dismiss all criticisms as the consequence of anti-semitism is naïve, particularly if this is used as an excuse for inaction, or even for failing to listen to the criticism.

Like Dr Blachar, I hope you will act in accordance with your conscience. But I have nothing but praise for an organization, like PHR-I, which is acting as a powerful tool for the national conscience, despite all the brickbats thrown in its way.

Yours sincerely
Professor John S Yudkin MD FRCP
Emeritus Professor of Medicine,
University College London

Open letter from IMA to PHR-I doctors

Translation from the Hebrew by PHR-Israel. All emphases are in the original.

IMA website (Hebrew): About IMA > IMA activities > International relations > to doctors who are members of PHR-Israel

To doctors who are members of PHR-Israel

21 July 2009: IMA Chair, Dr. Yoram Blachar, publishes a letter in which he explains to doctors who are members of PHR-Israel, why IMA has decided to sever all contacts with the association.

To doctors who are members of the PHR-Israel association

I appeal to you first of all as Israeli doctors who are members of IMA and additionally as members of PHR-Israel. I want to share with you my hard feelings following recent developments.

For some 14 years IMA, and myself at its head, have served as a defensive barrier between international anti-Israeli bodies and the doctors of the State of Israel, against baseless attacks, according to which, inter alia, the doctors of the State of Israel are allegedly actively involved in the torture of Palestinian prisoners, and/or are accused of allegedly ignoring such phenomena.

These are baseless accusations that are expressed, for instance, in medical journals such as the Lancet, the BMJ and the Journal of the Royal College of Medicine.

Unfortunately, various organizations, and particularly PHR-Israel are contributing to the international offensive against us. For years we have appealed to PHR-Israel to give us the personal details of those who were allegedly involved in torture so that we could relate to each case individually – but we received no such details from PHR-Israel.

On one single occasion, about 13 names were transferred to us, of doctors who were allegedly involved in torture or degradation of Palestinian detainees, by the organization PCATI (Public Committee Against Torture in Israel) and not by PHR-Israel. An investigation into the subject, held by Prof. Reches, the head of IMA's Ethics Board, showed that among the doctors accused, some had never worked in those facilities, and three who had worked there, categorically denied any connection to the accusations. Of course the accusations are "based" on one-sided testimonies with no supporting evidence. By the way, since participation in torture is a criminal offence, the accusers are free to submit a complaint to the police or to the Attorney General.

I would like to state that we are open to criticism and in several meetings that the leadership of IMA held with the Board of PHR-Israel we clarified our position. Nonetheless, we objected strongly to criticism when it was expressed in international fora. Time and again, we begged PHR's Board to avoid using the international arena, blackening names and slinging mud at the doctors of Israel and at IMA, but in vain. The infuriating reality is that the activities of PHR-Israel constitute fertile ground for anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist anti-Semitism.

It would seem that this issue reached a new climax when about one month ago a petition signed by 725 doctors was published, calling for my expulsion from my position as the president of the World Medical Association (WMA). Dr. Ruchama Marton, President of PHR-Israel, also signed this petition!!!

It is important for me to emphasize that in any case I am about to end my role at WMA in October, so that the personal issue is marginal. The issue is much more problematic, and it involves the harnessing of the world medical community to a struggle against us, the doctors in Israel, and against the Israeli medical system, supposedly as part of the regional political system, and by blackening our names and slinging mud at us doctors.

Matters have gone so far, that in one of the discussions held this week in the annual conference of the British Medical Association (BMA) (to which I was invited as president of the WMA), a stormy discussion was held in which very hard and baseless accusations were directed at IMA and the State of Israel. The discussion was polarized and reached a point where the situation in the State of Israel was compared in the same breath to the situation in Darfur and Sri Lanka, states in which, as is known, genocide and blood baths are taking place!

The speakers at the conference stated several times that they had drawn the information that they were basing their claims on from PHR-Israel and that if an organization of Israeli doctors makes such a claim, who are we, the Moslem and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli doctors, to doubt the credibility of information from PHR-Israel?!!.

What was absurd was that it was our friends at the BMA who prevented the members of the conference from adopting hard resolutions at the end of the discussion, and they were the ones who assisted us in withstanding the rising wave of Israel-haters.

The damage caused by this activity of PHR-Israel against IMA is great and it hurts each of us – it is an expression of a clear position against the medical community in the State of Israel and against the organization that you are members of!

I do not thing that there are differences in our worldview with regard to torture and involvement of doctors [in torture]. In order that there should be no doubt about it, although I feel that in the light of the position we have voiced repeatedly, it is superfluous to emphasize that IMA and myself as its leader are strictly opposed to torture and to degrading treatment of Palestinian or other prisoners and detainees. We demand that a doctor who was witness to torture or to its consequences report it – all according to the international conventions of the WMA of which we are signatories.

The leadership of PHR-Israel directs accusations against us in the international arena in a manner that is very difficult to erase, in the face of growing tendencies of waves of anti-Semitism. I wish to stress that IMA is not a political body and any attempt of PHR-Israel to tie the policies of the government to the policies of IMA is irrelevant.

I deliberated for a long time about whether I should appeal to you, since IMA has always been open to criticism, but from the feelings I get on the ground, I think not all of you are aware of this activity of PHR-Israel and of the damage it is causing to the doctors of the State of Israel and to IMA.

In the light of the above, IMA has decided to sever all ties with PHR-Israel and I hope that you will act in this regard in accordance with your conscience.

Regards,

Dr. Yoram Blachar

Chair, IMA