Derek Summerfield
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Derek Summerfield is an honorary senior lecturer at London's Institute of Psychiatry.
[edit] Political views and controversies
Summerfield is notable for his editorial published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on October 16, 2004 concerning what he described as the level of Israeli violence against Palestinian children.
He wrote that:
- "the Israeli army, with utter impunity, has killed more unarmed Palestinian civilians since September 2000 than the number of people who died on September 11, 2001. In conducting 238 extrajudicial executions the army has also killed 186 bystanders (including 26 women and 39 children). Two thirds of the 621 children (two thirds under 15 years) killed at checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest — the sniper's wound. Clearly, soldiers are routinely authorised to shoot to kill children in situations of minimal or no threat."
Summerfield also wrote that he felt some medical institutions and political leaders do not speak out about the alleged Israeli atrocities against children because they are "silenced by a fear of being labelled 'anti-semitic,' a term used in a morally corrupt way by the pro-Israel lobby in order to silence. How are we to affect this shocking situation, one which to this South African-born doctor has gone further than the excesses of the apartheid era."
[edit] Reactions and responses
The allegations caused wave of responses on the pages of the BMJ and elsewhere. In her response BMJ Engaging In Malpractice, Beth Goodtree, free-lance writer and winner of the 2004 Israel Hasbara Award [1], noted that Summerfield "does not state... the breakdown of what type of person was killed - terrorist or civilian. Nor does he give the source for his 'facts'." Basing on the Fourth Geneva Convention, she argues that "a combatant hiding among a civilian population may not use said population as a human shield and is responsible for any casualties or deaths incurred. This means that the Arabs themselves are responsible for all of their civilian casualties, since they never, ever engage in lawful warfare to include the wearing of uniforms (to thus distinguish themselves from civilian populations), or stage operations and barracks, as well as retreats to non-civilian areas. In each case of Israeli military action, said action was taken in response to Arab acts of war against the Israeli civilian population."
Irwin Mansdorf, a member of Task Force on Medical and Public Health Issues, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, points out the "routine... care that Palestinians continue to receive, even today after years of conflict, in Israeli hospitals and from Israeli physicians. Unlike Israeli civilians, who dare not set foot in Palestinian villages for fear of being attacked and killed, Palestinian Arabs receive care in Israel that they could not receive in any neighbouring Arab country. In the last few months alone nearly 200 Palestinian children who were referred under a joint Israeli-Palestinian programme to treat children with serious medical conditions have already undergone major surgery at Israeli hospitals at no cost to the families. Another 350-400 Palestinian children have undergone free diagnostic testing."
Simon Fellerman mentions a similar program called Saving Children. "Started by the Peres Peace Center, this programme enables hundreds of Palestinian children to receive free medical care, in particular cardiac surgery, from Israeli surgeons... The Oslo Accords awarded the Palestinian Authority full responsibility for all health matters in the West Bank and Gaza from 1994. Since then the Palestinians have benefited from approximately $10 Billion in international aid ([2]). Yet not even one new hospital can be named... Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority has not succeeded in building sufficient medical infrastructure to serve its populace, despite receiving, according to Nigel Roberts of the World Bank, "the highest per capita aid transfer in the history of foreign aid anywhere."
