Urgent Action required: An attempt being made to have the Israel Medical Association expelled from the World Medical Association

Sunday, April 28, 2002

Dear Friends,

A critical situation has arisen!!!  An attempt is being made to expel the
Israel Medical Association from the World Medical Association. I have

received two separate requests for help.  The first is from the
Hadassah International with Canadian information, the second is from the American National Hadassah Association. If you are a doctor and know of any doctors they should participate in this effort to stop the expulsion. The vote is on May 1, this Wednesday. Send this to whoever you know! Use whichever challenge fits your needs. At the bottom is a article from the Jerusalem Post explaining the crisis.

It is of utmost urgency that you act now to write or phone in and to send this message to any doctors that you may know in ANY country in the world!!!

Letters and phone calls must pour in!!!

Shirley Anne Haber

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1)  WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED FROM HADASSAH INTERNATIONAL AND HADASSAH WOMEN'S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA A VERY URGENT CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION.

* The Israel Medical Association is threatened with expulsion from the World Medical Association, a world group of 130 national medical associations. For more about the World Medical Association, refer to the
WMA's website:  

www.wma.net/e/home.html
The Canadian branch of the World Medical Association is:

Canadian Medical Association
PO Box 8650
1867 Alta Vista Drive
Ottawa, Ontario  K1G 3Y6
tel: 1-613-731-9331
fax: 1-613-731-1779

Ms. Barbara Drew
Executive Vice President and Acting CEO

Dr John Williams
Director of Ethics

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2)  Please help on this very important issue!!!   

The following is a message from National  Hadassah President, Bonnie Lipton.

PLEASE MOBILIZE, MAKE THE PHONE CALLS AND FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERY PHYSICIAN YOU KNOW.

URGENT - CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION:

With the new wave of anti-Semitism expressed in Europe and
other areas, the efforts to isolate Israel are now extended to the
medical and scientific world.  We need to mobilize and, with the
right kind of advocacy within the academic, medical, scientific and
diplomatic communities - we can defeat the attempt to expel the
Israel Medical Association from the World Medical Association
on Wednesday, May 1, 2002.

The American Medical Association is an influential member of the
World Medical Association.  AMA members - your local physicians -
can weigh-in with the national and local AMA to urge this body to
make a strong statement to the WMA.  Medical and scientific
organizations must preserve their place above the medical fray.  
Thus, the AMA should communicate to the WMA that the
American body will withhold its dues and/or withdraw from the
WMA should Israel be expelled.

Please contact all AMA members that you know, and urge your
Hadassah members to do the same, to ask them to call the AMA.
Please have the AMA members or Hadassah members contact the
IZAIA Department, at IZAIADepartment@hadassah.org, to report
back on the response they receive from the AMA. Only Hadassah
can influence this process.  Our doctors in Israel are counting on
you to make sure that they are not isolated from the world
medical community.

Please use the following points when you reach out to AMA members:

* The Israel Medical Association is threatened with expulsion
from the World Medical Association, a world group of 130
national medical associations. For more about the World Medical
Association, refer to the WMA's website:  www.wma.net/e/home.html
<http://www.wma.net/e/home.html>

* The vote is happening in Geneva May 1st

* This vote MUST NOT PASS

* The American Medical Association (AMA) is a member of the WMA,
and holds a great deal of sway in that organization.  Please reach
out to all members of the AMA whom you know and ask them
to call the local AMA chapter, or the national AMA at 312-464-5000,
with the following message:

* The AMA should not continue its membership in the WMA if
the resolution to expel Israel from the world body passes on
May 1.

* The AMA stands for medical standards and advocacy regardless of
political, religious, or ethnic differences.

* The AMA must work to preserve the impartiality of the WMA by
defeating this resolution.

* Please use the following additional talking points in your outreach.

--  Medicine and science transcend politics, religion and nationality
--  Medicine can be a bridge to peace among nations
--  Israel has played a major role in improving healthcare around the
world  especially in developing countries and for humanitarian
causes in times of  natural disasters and world-wide epidemics
******************************************************

Israeli doctors risk expulsion from world body

By Judy Siegel, The Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2002

(April 24) - The Israel Medical Association (IMA) is in danger of being
ousted from the World Medical Association (WMA), whose members include 130
national medical associations, because of the ongoing political campaign
against Israel. The WMA due to meet in Geneva next week, will discuss
charges made against Israel. The WMA's second-highest official is IMA
chairman Dr. Yoram Blachar.

The IMA delegation to Geneva is taking a large amount of written and
audiovisual material to defend Israel. "We think the chance of being ousted
from the WMA is small, but we do expect verbal attacks and anti-Israeli
resolutions," said Blachar, who has close personal ties with many WMA
officials.  The WMA's member organizations represent millions of physicians
around the world - including those in Egypt, Syria, and other Moslem
countries such as Indonesia and former Soviet republics.

The antagonism towards Israel was clear at last week's meeting in Vienna of
the European Forum of the European Medical Associations, part of the World
Health Organization, which Blachar attended. Critical resolutions were
introduced by the Swedish and British delegations, but they did not pass
because they required unanimity, said Blachar. "Weeks ago we received calls
from IMA members and affiliated specialists' societies such as the Israel
Pediatrics Society and the Israel Cardiology Society, who had fielded
criticism from counterparts abroad," said Blachar.

The IMA, a non-political professional organization, has been publicly silent
about the controversy until now. It has some 20,000 members, including
hundreds of Arab Israeli doctors. It decided to set up a committee to
investigate charges made against the IDF as a result of Operation Defensive
Shield, and complaints against Israeli security forces by the World Health
Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The special committee of 16 formalized the IMA's position on medical
services in times of armed conflict, and offered to serve as liaison between
the medical profession and security forces. The committee included Prof.
Rafi Walden, a vascular surgeon at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, a leader
of Physicians for Human Rights and a son-in-law of Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres; Dr. Darwasha Aziz, an Arab who heads the emergency department at
Ha'emek Hospital in Afula; Prof. Moshe Revah, director of Rambam Hospital in
Haifa; Prof. Carmel Shalev, head of the Unit for Ethics and Human Rights at
the Gertner Institute in Tel Hashomer; Prof. Avinoam Reches, a senior
neurologist and chairman of the IMA's ethics bureau; law Prof. Francis Radai
of the Hebrew University; and Tel Aviv University Sackler Medical school
dean Prof. Menachem Fainaru.

The position paper denounces terrorism and the indiscriminate killing of
innocent civilians, and attacked the misuse of ambulances, such as when
explosives were hidden in a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance near
Ramallah.

The IMA committee drafted a declaration affirming their allegiance to the
Hippocratic Oath that posits life as a supreme value. It declared "that our
obligation as doctors and as human beings to the people of both nations
[Israelis and Palestinians] takes precedence over any dispute or
confrontation. The declaration condemned "any restriction, constraint, or
attempt to hinder the work of medical teams in the performance of their
professional duties which is not necessitated by the realities of the
situation." Blachar asked Dr. Ron Pundak, an architect of the Oslo Agreement
who now works at the Peres Peace Center, to find a Palestinian counterpart
to sign the declaration. But Pundak, said Blachar, did not get back with a
name.

Blachar and Reches sent letters to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense
Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, asking them to investigate charges Israeli
security forces have unnecessarily harmed the provision of health services
to the Palestinians. The doctors noted IMA members have all served in the
IDF and know it acts according to international agreements requiring ethical
behavior during combat. "From past experience, we know that even in times of
armed conflict, the IDF considers itself obligated to attend to the basic
needs of the civilian population under its control.
"Nevertheless, it is possible the security forces and the IDF, in the course
of their difficult task of dealing with the wave of murderous terror
attacks, have deviated from these norms," they wrote.
Three weeks after the letters were sent, and after calls to their offices
this week, the IMA has not received any response from Sharon or Ben-Eliezer,
Blachar said.