“The individuals of Gaza, who felt it vital to show hospitals into terrorist nests in an try to benefit from Western morality, are those who introduced upon themselves their destruction – terrorism should be eradicated all over the place and by any means vital. Attacking terrorist headquarters in a hospital is the appropriate and even the obligation of the IDF.”
On first examination, you may suppose that these are sentences written by extremists or fanatics, giving permission and encouragement to a military to bomb hospitals. What’s stunning will not be solely the assertion itself, but in addition that it was publicly signed by dozens of Israeli docs and broadly shared on numerous social media platforms.
As a substitute of speedy outrage and condemnation, the assertion resulted in what some known as a “authentic” public debate throughout the Israeli medical group over whether or not to bomb Palestinian hospitals.
We, six Palestinian docs working throughout the Israeli healthcare system, are sickened to our core by the statements of a few of our colleagues, Israeli docs with whom we work, calling on the Israeli military to bomb hospitals within the Gaza Strip.
Sadly, we won’t say we had been shocked. As physicians educated and training on this system, we’re all too conscious of its inherent racism, militarism and hypocrisy, obscured by a false picture of a medical area the place Arabs and Jews work collectively in concord and respect.
The latest letter from our Israeli colleagues, issued at a time of escalating carnage, is a putting instance of what Israel’s healthcare system actually appears to be like like. It’s a system through which some docs shamelessly and publicly tackle the position of advisors to the navy.
They use their place and occupation to not save lives, to not preach concerning the devastating penalties of warfare for civilians on each side and the necessity to discover a peaceable political answer, however slightly to validate assaults on medical amenities, realizing that this implies killing fellow docs and sufferers.
On the identical time, this healthcare system has adopted a decidedly McCarthyist witch hunt strategy in the direction of us Palestinian docs. Because of this, we can’t have any mental or ethical conversations concerning the warfare. We’re anticipated to sentence Hamas and be part of the patriotic Israeli navy frenzy whereas we silently watch our Jewish colleagues cheer for the homicide of harmless Palestinian civilians and approve the tightening of the blockade.
We drive to work daily and take heed to the devastating information concerning the loss of life toll and destruction within the Gaza Strip and the West Financial institution. After we arrive, we placed on that “the whole lot is okay” masks and endure the every day loyalty check and scrutinizing eyes of our colleagues. Throughout espresso breaks, we’re compelled to pay attention with a straight face as our Israeli colleagues casually drop phrases like “flattening Gaza” and focus on the deserves of expelling the inhabitants.
We additionally see our Palestinian colleagues being interrogated, fired and shamed with out simply trigger. We’re very conscious of how the hospitals and clinics through which we work have turn out to be disciplining arenas. In a ‘regular’ place we’d take to the streets, demand an finish to the warfare and the massacres and plead for a peaceable answer. We’d use our occupation and place to denounce the inhumane assaults on healthcare staff, amenities and civilian infrastructure.
We’re deeply conscious that the state of affairs is way more advanced than taking sides and we all know that each life misplaced is a tragedy, whether or not Israeli or Palestinian. However it’s exactly due to this that 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 total assist and involvement of our fellow Israeli docs.
We come to work daily figuring out that our individuals are being killed, tortured and maimed by unlawful Israeli settlers and the Israeli military within the occupied territory of the West Financial institution. Nevertheless, we additionally know that we can’t ask our fellow Israeli docs, “Do you condemn?”
We’re compelled to stay in a coercive surroundings the place Palestinian loss of life is normalized and sometimes celebrated, however Israeli Jewish loss of life is seen as a tragedy that can’t be accepted and necessitates revenge.
That is the truth, the place Israeli nationwide safety is of nice worth, however Palestinian nationwide safety is a darkish joke. It’s the Jewish supremacy of life and loss of life that has turn out to be so normalized, particularly in such tragic occasions when it explodes and exposes the true face of our Israeli colleagues, and sadly additionally of the Western world and its medical establishments.
The normalization of Palestinian dehumanization displays the complicity of all the world within the massacres happening within the Gaza Strip.
The medical occupation has an extended and wealthy historical past of opposing warfare and its devastating well being penalties. The nation has resisted racism, colonialism and imperial enlargement, which have led to lethal wars.
We are able to nonetheless vividly bear in mind the huge group of docs in opposition to the American wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We noticed how docs within the US organized within the aftermath of September 11 to oppose and foyer in opposition to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, figuring out that this may result in extra deaths and never safety.
However we’re additionally conscious that almost all of our fellow Israeli Jewish colleagues are on the alternative facet of this drive to guard civilians, as all the Israeli healthcare system has been mobilized to hitch the warfare effort and to assist this.
The Israeli healthcare system not solely doesn’t oppose the Israeli warfare, occupation and apartheid, but in addition prevents Palestinian docs residing in Israel from talking out and organizing in opposition to them.
On this tragic and deplorable surroundings through which we stay and work, we should conceal our names and write anonymously to state the plain, in accordance with our skilled obligation and oath. We have now reached such a degree of demoralization and dehumanization that we’re compelled to look at massacres, with Palestinian youngsters being burned by Israeli phosphorus bombs and full populations ravenous with out meals and water, with out blinking an eye fixed, as if the whole lot was simply “regular.” is.
Not solely are we prohibited from voluntarily offering medical assist to harmless Palestinian civilians, however we’re additionally prohibited from talking out in opposition to these state crimes with out endangering our jobs and safety.
We wish this letter to function an apology to our Palestinian individuals and our colleagues within the Gaza Strip, and to reveal our profound powerlessness and whole powerlessness.
We and the world have failed you.
We are able to solely hope that in future, calmer days we will testify, converse and write concerning the circumstances that allowed massacres to happen and that we will contribute to the therapeutic of those that survived.
Editor’s be aware: Suad, Layla and Samir are pseudonyms. This op-ed was written by them together with three different Palestinian docs working in Israel. They write anonymously for worry of bodily {and professional} retaliation.
The views expressed on this article are these of the authors and don’t essentially mirror the editorial place of Al Jazeera.
