Now Doctors Join Boycott Call
Senior physicians this week joined calls for a boycott of Israel by demanding the expulsion of the Israeli Medical Association from the international medical community.
Over 130 doctors called for UK hospitals to cease working with the IMA and to be removed from the World Medical Association.
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The declaration shocked Martin Sugarman, the head of a twinning group between Homerton Hospital in Hackney and Haifa’s Rambam Hospital.
He said: “If suicide bombers from Gaza and the West Bank never dressed as pregnant or sick patients trying to reach and blow up Israeli hospitals, if PLO ambulances did not transport terrorists and arms, then maybe there would be no need for the security fence, check points and free access to medical care by peaceful citizens.
“Despite all this, Israeli hospitals still treat free, Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and Gaza, with severe illnesses and conditions.”
It comes as opposition mounted towards last week’s National Union of Journalist’s resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli goods.
BBC staff launched a motion against the decision which was agreed at the Union’s Centenary Conference.
The proposal, which calls for a new ballot on the issue, was led by BBC technology correspondent Rory Cullen-Jones and sent to union members across the corporation condemning the decision agreed at the NUJ Centenary Conference.
He told TJ: “This is not taking a view on the Middle East Conflict. We are concerned as union members that our impartiality should not be brought into disrepute.”
Other NUJ members have rescinded their memberships. Journalist and Conservative MP Michael Gove returned his last week. He said: “A journalist’s union should be defending free speech, no nation in the Middle East is freer than Israel. To single it out for a boycott when one considers how human rights are treated in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and North Korea is indefensible.”
Anti-boycott group Engage has been coordinating a response to the resolution and is currently considering how to react.
Communal leaders were also critical of the motion, which calls for a boycott "similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa".
Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “In the past week we have seen mounting opposition to the NUJ boycott. We welcome the condemnation of decision by the Government and by many leading journalists.”
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