“Excluding the Israeli Medical Association from the community of medical associations around the world would be terrible. We need to act. We need to mobilize people globally.” Rosanna Supino, president of the Italian Jewish Medical Association, shared this message about the counter-petition signed by more than 5,000 doctors from 46 countries protesting the attempt to isolate Israeli medicine from international medical organizations. The campaign began in response to an appeal recently relaunched by The Lancet. Around 1,000 doctors called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association and its exclusion from the World Medical Association.
Supporters of the counter-petition argue that this request goes against the true mission of medicine, turning international medical organizations into places for political conflict instead of medical cooperation. The document, signed by doctors from many countries, including Canada, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, states that “medical organizations must remain places of scientific cooperation and universal values, not tools for political exclusion.” It also states that expelling or boycotting a national medical association is “an aggressive act that goes against our medical mission.”
For Supino, the appeal is an important sign, although the situation remains concerning. “The 5,000 signatures collected so far are clearly a positive result. We hope they will make a difference, even though many of us are pessimistic,” she said. She explained that the pressure comes not only from professional medical institutions, but also from a wider social climate. “This is not only about medical institutions, some of which are already behaving badly. There is also strong public hostility. Grassroots protests are ongoing, for example, among nurses.”
The counter-petition criticizes the one-sided nature of the accusations against the Israeli healthcare system. According to the signatories, the claims made against the Israeli Medical Association are “at worst falsehoods and at best controversial statements presented as facts.” The signatories argue that these accusations ignore Hamas’s role in destroying Gaza’s healthcare system and its use of civilian infrastructure for military and terrorist purposes.
The Jewish Medical Association’s position is consistent with this approach. “The duty of every healthcare professional is to protect human life without making ideological or geopolitical distinctions. The complete lack of reference to Israeli victims, wounded individuals, and hostages still being held, as well as the failure to distinguish between Gazan civilians and Hamas terrorists is unacceptable,” the association said, recalling another appeal promoted in Italy by the Healthcare Workers for Gaza network. “Medicine must remain a field of cooperation, not exclusion,” Supino concluded.
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Translated by Elizabeth El Khoury and revised by Caterina Mansani, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, trainees in the newsroom of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.