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For up to the minute news on the JONATHAN POLLARD CASE, please visit the OFFICIAL page at http://www.jonathanpollard.org/
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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
***********************************************
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
********************************************************** 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.
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