This is the link https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2347 Of the three authors, Professor Mads Gilbert has testified often to the elemental evil on display in the so called 'occupied territories' of Palestine. He is an anaesthetist and 'intensivist', and Professor of Emergency Medicineat the University Hospital of Tromso. He has often used his skills, with his great compassion, in the hospitals within Gaza tending to those being shot, shelled, bombed and burned.
The concluding paragraph here -There is no place for the misuse of medicine as an adjunct to state repression and violence. Such practices represent an abhorrent derogation of our professional values and responsibilities and are gross violations of our Palestinian colleagues’ basic right to life, health, and dignity. Torture not only destroys the lives of its victims but health worker participation and complicity in such acts corrodes the integrity of the health professions, and all those individuals and institutions that enable it. In the face of such violations, we have a moral and legal obligation, not only to speak out, but to act.
The fact is that the 'institutions' in the 'western democracies' in particular have been largely silent. Those are the Royal Colleges in Britain, the specialist associations, the 'unions' such as the BMA, and the GMC. The general influence which inhibits dissemination of the terrible truths is the universal and constant use of 'anti-semitic slur' as well as constant repetition of the Nazi holocaust with a large majority being Ashkenazim ie 'jews' without any genetic connection to those tribes among others in the fertile crescent in which a Judaic faith grew.
The term holocaust is given a special meaning and almost exclusive use in media narratives. It means simply - the mass killing of humans by humans. This is discussed here https://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/7-articles/political/137-hmd-a-grotesque-hypocrisy HMD is Holocaust Memorial Day.
Quote - I am disturbed however that the killing of thousands upon thousands of Japanese people by US atom bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not included in the short list of holocausts on your web site.
The letter concludes with an apt quotation of Milton Meyer but this proceeds it -
A larger consciousness by Howard Zinn, ZNet Commentary, 10 October 1999
Some years ago, when I was teaching at Boston University, I was asked by a Jewish group to give a talk on the Holocaust. I spoke that evening, but not about the Holocaust of World War II, not about the genocide of six million Jews. It was the mid-Eighties, and the United States government was supporting death squad governments in Central America, so I spoke of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of peasants in Guatemala and El Salvador, victims of American policy. My point was that the memory of the Jewish Holocaust should not be encircled by barbed wire, morally ghettoized, kept isolated from other genocides in history. It seemed to me that to remember what happened to Jews served no important purpose unless it aroused indignation, anger, action against all atrocities, anywhere in the world.
The Holocaust might serve a powerful purpose if it led us to think of the world today as wartime Germany where millions die while the rest of the population obediently goes about its business. It is a frightening thought that the Nazis, in defeat, were victorious: today Germany, tomorrow the world. That is, until we withdraw our obedience.
So at about 9.30 am 10-11-2025 I submitted this Rapid Response - a welcome feature of the BMJ since 1998. There had been no other responses by then.
I thank you for publishing this clear article written by witnesses. I write having been a witness myself since 16-02-2003 having arrived in Gaza at the end of the Voyage of the Dove and the Dolphin (1). My wife and I had chartered a Danish cargo vessel which took 50 tonnes of aid - including 40 of organic flour. This was to show our common humanity with fellow humans who were suffering greatly from an oppressive and unlawful occupation. This 20 minute pastiche of videos shows clearly that a genocide was in progress then.
The book by Professor Ilan Pappe who was born in Israel - The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, records the clear intention and the depravity of the forces clearing the population like 'stones from the field'.
I have witnessed a great deal myself and written extensively since that first visit of ten overall.
I do not shirk from the guilt of my own country into which I was born 14-04-1940. Britain has been guilty with other 'western democracies' in wars of aggression and in torture. Consider the 'war on Iraq'.
My evidence is recorded in personal communications and on these websites - (2) and (3)
1. https://youtu.be/CdTJG2ZswUg
2. https://doveanddolphin.co.uk/
3. https://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/
I published this on my website on the 24th January 2011 - https://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/6-articles/palestineisrael/107-the-methodical-shooting-of-boys-at-work-in-gaza-by-snipers-of-the-israeli-occupation-force
Quote from preface -
The deliberate injury of the limbs of 23 boys by high velocity weapons has been logged and described by Defence for Children International Palestine Branch (DCI-P) since March 2010. (1) Some of the facts have been published in national newspapers. These barbarous acts contravene international and national law but there are no judicial responses. The caring professions see the physical and mental pain of those who suffer and they should be in the vanguard in calling for this great cruelty to cease forthwith. Political leaders have failed to act. The Geneva Conventions Act 1957, which is of central importance in holding war criminals to account in the jurisdiction of the UK, is being emasculated.
The then editor Dr Fiona Godlee did not publish this, and two e-mails to the Lancet - editor Richard Horton, had no responses.
However - I am glad to see that Fiona Godlee is now standing firmly against the genocide -
https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/390/bmj.r1994.full.pdf
Quote - Our healthcare leaders share this special duty.11So far, their response has been muted.12We now need them—the royal colleges,
the medical associations and societies, the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association, and the NHS—to fully support their
members who feel compelled to take action. And we need them to raise their own voices loudly and clearly against the genocide and
our government’s complicity in it, against the systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza and the targeting of health
workers, and against this assault on our democratic right to peaceful protest.
So, as the barbarity grows ever greater - more of us join together.
Our foremost law officer must join us - without any equivocation -
Stop Press - BMJ Rapid Responses There are currently no published rapid responses available.
