We, Palestinian medical doctors in Israel, are pressured to observe massacres unfold in silence, which a few of our Israeli colleagues encourage.
“The residents of Gaza, who noticed match to show the hospitals into terrorist nests in an try to revenue from Western morality, are those who introduced their destruction upon themselves – terrorism should be eradicated all over the place and by all means. Attacking terrorist headquarters positioned inside a hospital is the precise factor, and even the obligation of the IDF.”
Israeli medical doctors
At first look, one may suppose that these are sentences written by extremists or fanatics, giving a military permission and encouragement to bomb hospitals. What’s stunning isn’t solely the assertion itself, however that it has been publicly signed by dozens of Israeli medical doctors and shared broadly on numerous social media platforms.
As a substitute of quick outrage and condemnation, the assertion resulted in what some known as a “reliable” public debate inside the Israeli medical neighborhood about whether or not or to not bomb Palestinian hospitals.
We, six Palestinian medical doctors working inside the Israeli well being system, are sickened to our core by the statements of a few of our fellow Israeli medical doctors we work with, calling on the Israeli military to bomb hospitals within the Gaza Strip.
Sadly, we will not say we have been shocked. As medical doctors educated and training on this system, we’re all too conscious of its embedded racism, militarism and hypocrisy cloaked in a false picture of a medical sector the place Arabs and Jews work collectively in concord and respect.
The latest letter from our Israeli colleagues issued at a time of massacres unfolding is a telling instance of what the Israeli healthcare system is absolutely like. It’s a system the place some medical doctors shamelessly and publicly assume the function of consultants to the military.
They use their place and career to not save lives, to not preach concerning the devastating results of conflict on civilians on either side and the need of discovering a peaceable political answer, however really to validate assaults on medical services, figuring out that this implies killing fellow medical doctors and sufferers.
On the similar time, this well being system has adopted a distinctly McCarthyist witch-hunt strategy in the direction of us, Palestinian medical doctors. In consequence, we can not have interaction in any mental or ethical dialog concerning the conflict. We’re anticipated to sentence Hamas and be part of the patriotic Israeli navy frenzy whereas silently watching our Jewish colleagues cheer the killing of harmless Palestinian civilians and assist the tightening of the blockade.
We drive to work day by day listening to the devastating information of the demise toll and destruction within the Gaza Strip and the West Financial institution. After we arrive, we placed on the masks that “the whole lot is okay” and endure the day by day loyalty checks and prying eyes of our colleagues. Throughout espresso breaks, we’re pressured to pay attention with a straight face to our Israeli colleagues casually dropping phrases like “flattering Gaza” and discussing the deserves of expelling its individuals.
We additionally see our Palestinian colleagues being interrogated, fired and shamed for no legitimate purpose. We’re very conscious of how the hospitals and clinics we work in have grow to be disciplinary arenas. In a “regular” place we’d be on the streets demanding an finish to the conflict and the massacres and calling for a peaceable answer. We might use our career and place to sentence the inhumane assaults on well being staff, services and civilian infrastructure.
We’re deeply conscious that the state of affairs is far more advanced than selecting sides, and we all know that each life misplaced is a tragedy, whether or not Israeli or Palestinian. However exactly due to this, we additionally know that historical past didn’t start on October 7, and that our individuals have been displaced, killed, injured and humiliated for many years, with the complete assist and involvement of our Israeli medical doctors.
We come to work day by day figuring out that our individuals are being killed, tortured and maimed by unlawful Israeli settlers and the Israeli military within the occupied West Financial institution. However we additionally know that we can not ask our fellow Israeli medical doctors “Do you condemn?”
We’ve been pressured to stay in an surroundings of coercion the place Palestinian demise is normalized and sometimes celebrated, however Israeli Jewish demise is seen as a tragedy that can not be accepted and necessitates revenge.
That is the fact the place Israeli nationwide safety is of excessive worth, however Palestinian nationwide safety is a darkish joke. It’s Jewish supremacy over life and demise that’s so normalized, particularly in such tragic occasions, when it explodes to disclose the true face of our Israeli colleagues and, sadly, the Western world and its medical establishments as nicely.
The normalization of Palestinian dehumanization displays the complicity of your entire world within the massacres going down within the Gaza Strip.
The medical career has a protracted and wealthy historical past of opposing conflict and its devastating results on well being. It has stood up in opposition to racism, colonialism and imperialist enlargement which have waged lethal wars.
We will clearly bear in mind the huge group of medical doctors in opposition to the US wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We noticed how medical doctors in america, within the aftermath of 9/11, organized to oppose and foyer in opposition to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, figuring out that it will result in extra deaths and never security.
However we’re additionally conscious that almost all of our Israeli Jewish colleagues are on the other aspect of this urge to guard civilians, as your entire Israeli well being care system has been mobilized to hitch the conflict effort and assist it.
The Israeli well being system not solely opposes Israel’s conflict, occupation and apartheid, but additionally prevents Palestinian medical doctors dwelling in Israel from talking up and organizing in opposition to them.
On this tragic and deplorable surroundings we stay and work in, we have now to cover our names and write anonymously to state the plain, as per our skilled obligation and oath. We’ve reached such a stage of demoralization and dehumanization that we’re pressured to observe massacres of Palestinian kids burned by Israeli phosphorus bombs and whole populations starved of meals and water, with out batting a watch, as if the whole lot is simply “regular.”
Not solely are we barred from volunteering to supply medical assist to the harmless Palestinian civilians, however we’re additionally not allowed to talk out in opposition to these state crimes with out risking our jobs and security.
We would like this letter to function an apology to our Palestinian individuals and colleagues within the Gaza Strip and to disclose our deep impotence and utter impotence.
We and the world have failed you.
We will solely hope that in future calmer days we will bear witness and communicate and write concerning the situations that allowed massacres to unfold and assist heal those that survived.