The World Medical Association (WMA) has defended its Israeli member organisation against calls for its suspension, which are detailed in an article published on Saturday in The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals.
The campaign, led by the People's Health Movement (PHM), Artsen voor Gaza (Doctors for Gaza) and the Health Advisory Council of the Jewish Voice for Peace, argues that the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) should be expelled from the WMA over the association's “failure to speak out against the genocide of Palestinians, the destruction of health-care infrastructure, and the torture and killing of health-care workers in Gaza”.
The petition seeks to place the suspension of the IMA on the agenda of the WMA's annual general assembly later this year.
But the WMA said in comments provided to The Lancet that it “stands against exclusion of any of its members for the actions of their governments – doing so diminishes our ability to call out injustices, and threatens shrinking the dialogue among physicians at this critical time when consensus in support of our medical ethics is so needed.
It continued that it “deeply values inclusion and believes engagement with its 117 constituent national medical association members is vital to advancing health and medical ethics globally.
“Preserving dialogue and cooperation among physicians internationally is essential in a world fractured by escalating conflicts and humanitarian crises.
“The IMA, one of our founding members and a strong advocate for WMA ethics and policies, has engaged in the development of our statements on Gaza, and has itself approached the Israeli government with shared concerns from the medical profession on many occasions.
The IMA also rejected the allegations, describing them as “at worst, lies, and at best, highly contested allegations presented as fact”.
It added that calls for its expulsion “seem to confuse a country's government with its medical association, an extremely dangerous precedent” and that “the petition ignores any role of Hamas in the destruction of Gaza's health-care system, such as their deliberate strategy of hiding beneath and within hospitals and using hospitals for military command centers and ammunition storage, in violation of Article 19 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Among those backing the campaign for the suspension of the IMA is Leslie London, a professor at the University of Cape Town and member of PHM South Africa, who accused the IMA of having “colluded in the unspeakable treatment of Palestinians during this war”.
Two more medical professionals are quoted in The Lancet: Juliette Mattijsen, a Dutch doctor and co-coordinator of PHM Europe, said that the IMA is “not upholding its medical oath” and Derek Summerfield, honorary senior clinical lecturer at King's College London, who claimed that the IMA has “broken every WMA rule in the book”.
The PHM wants the issue of suspending the IMA from the WMA to appear on the agenda of the WMA general assembly, which is held annually.
This year’s event is being held in Rotterdam, beginning on October 7, which coincides with the third anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel, and lasting until October 10.
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823, and is considered one of the world’s most impactful academic journals.
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