British doctors demand Israel be banned from World Medical Association

Press TV
Thu, 21 Jan 2016 12:03 UTC

© www.ibtimes.co.uk

British doctors have called for the removal of Israel from the World Medical Association (WMA) over claims of "medical torture" on Palestinians seeking treatment.

Some 71 UK doctors have started to pressure the WMA to revoke the membership of the Israel Medical Association over claims that "our doctors perform medical torture on Palestinian patients,"said Ze'ev Feldman, the representative of the Israeli doctors, during a Knesset meeting held on the subject of boycotts against Israeli academic institutions on Wednesday.

If the British physicians succeed, the Tel Aviv regime will be banned from taking part in international medical conferences and publishing in journals. The move follows similar measures launched by scholars around the world over the past few months.

In December, over 200 South African scholars released a statement announcing their support of an academic boycott of Israel. In November, the American Anthropological Association, the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world, approved a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

Comment: The PTB in Israel are afraid the academic boycott would have a domino effect and radiate to all other scientific associations.

Moreover, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS, is gaining momentum in US college campuses and churches as well as in many places in Europe. The BDS movement seeks to end the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands.

Comment: The torture of Palestinian detainees and prisoners has been an ongoing since at least 1995, but more realistically for decades and nothing ever seems to come of it. The IMA turns a blind eye. Accusations backed, for years, by hundreds of doctors around the world have been ignored. Men, women and children who undergo torture abuses are not being reported by Israeli physicians and there is no medical intervention on behalf of patients who are mistreated. Doctors fail to keep proper medical records during interrogations and without evidence, there is no legal redress for the patient. If the WMA doesn't address this, it is complicit.