DOCTORS WORLDWIDE COUNTER BRITISH PHYSICIAN CALL FOR BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI DOCTORS

By • Edward S. Beck, President, SPME

May 18, 2007

" We are being innudated with support..." was the reply by Esti Sherbelis, International Public Relations Officer of the Israel Medical Association in response call for physicians signatures by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East to a letter from the the IMA to the British Medical Association and World Medical Association. This initiative was in response to a call by a 135 British physicians to ban the IMA from the World Medical Assocation recently published in the Guardian.

Dr. Edward S. Beck, President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East commented, " Over the last years the international academic and professional communities have seen an alarming rate of increase in anti-Israel activity by individuals of significant influence using distorted facts and propagandist tactics which do not further the cause of peace, but inflame possibilities for dialogue and collaboration."

Mark Pepys MD. Head of the Department of Medicine at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London asked that his name be added to the letter which, "demonstrated the malign falsehoods which comprise the call for a boycott of the IMA."

"It is objectionable as it interferes with the integrity of scientists and healthworkers and mingles science and politics." stated Prof.dr.L.Kater University Medical Center, Utrecht,the Netherlands.

George Fresh MD of Harvard Medical School write of his experiences of treating critically ill Palestinian patients who were transported to Israeli facilities who then returned to their homes in Gaza cured...all at the expense of Israel.

" Please add my name to the anti-bocott letter from physicians supporting the IMA and opposed to the actions of the 135 foolish British doctors attempting to get the World Medical Association to
boycott the Israel Medical Association." added F. Carl Grumet MD Professor of Pathology, emeritus
Stanford University.

"The targetting of a non political association with no ties to the government or its policies is wrong and clealy one sided as other associations across the muslim world are not called to answer for their governments' actions. Bruce Raphael MD Clinical Professor of Medicine, NYU Medical School. New York City"

"I note that I have personally rounded at Hadassah Mount Scopus with both Israeli and Palestinian residents on Israeli and Palestinian patients. All were treated equally and well." wrote

David Siegel MD, Chief of Medicine VA Northern California Health Care System, Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Medicine School of Medicine, University of California Davis.

Robert H. Seller, MD, FACP, emeritus professor of Medicine and Family Medicine, Medical School of the State University of New York writes: "I am appalled at the attempt on the part of a group of British physicians to have Israel expelled from the World Health Organization. This is political bias of the worst kind. "

Philip Lemper, MD of Itaca NY points out,"...I worked at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem 1969 to 1970. At that time groups of physicians from the ophthalmology department would go to Gaza in order to provide care. The people there has essentially no access to ophthalmic care during the Egyptian occupation. It might be worthwhile to point this out to the Guardian."

Among the many prominent physicians included who signed this letter include, but certainly were not limited to: Harvey Risch and Edward Kaplan, Yale University; Edgar Pick, Sackler School of Medicine; Oliver Harari, Hammersmith Hospital London; Jean Claude Gluckman, Marie Curie Medical School, France; F.Carl Grumet and Ralph Rabkin, Stanford University Medical School; David Fisher, Harvard University Medical School; Stuart Sprague, Northwestern University School of Medicine; Harvey Arbesman, David Kaye, Robert Seller and Leonard Katz, University of Buffalo Medical School; Bruce Raphael, NYU Medical School; Michael Goldberg, Aaron Manson, Warren Widmann and Mitchell Berman, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Jack Greenberg; Drexel University Medical School; Alan Geller, Tufts University Medical School; Gabe Vorobiof, University of Rochester School of Medicine; Ashley Grossman, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London; Robert Epstein, University of Virginia; Daniel Vorobiof, Johannesburg, South Africa; David Levine and Stephen Lerner, Wayne State University Medical Center; Rosyln Seligman, University of Cincinnati; Jack Arbiser, Emory University; Kenneth Norwich, University of Toronto; and David Seigle, University of California, Davis and many more others. This list is by no means complete.

In addition, Andrew Marks MD of Columbia University and head of International Academic Friends of Israel has launched a similiar initiative to gather physician colleagues support against any boycott of Israel physicians.

For Further Information Contact: Dr. Edward S. Beck, President Scholars for Peace in the Middle East