Guest post by Judeosphere
In October 2004, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a “personal view” by Derek Summerfield, in which he expressed his concern at what he saw as systematic violations of the fourth Geneva Convention by the IDF in Gaza. Summerfield generated considerable controversy when he (falsely) declared: “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.”
Now, almost five years later, Karl Sabbagh, an author and television producer, has published an article in the BMJ about the “Israel Lobby’s” orchestrated campaign to suppress debate following the publication of Summerfield’s article. After conducting a statistical analysis, he learned that many protest emails sent to the BMJ were done so at the urging of the American pro-Israel media watchdog group Honest Reporting, which posted a statement:
Beyond falsely branding Israel as guilty of ‘war crimes,’ deliberate child-killing, illegal colonization and apartheid, the article makes absolutely no mention of how Palestinian terror and political corruption have contributed to the unfortunate state of the Palestinian heath system. If you agree this article is inappropriate for a respected medical journal, send comments to British Medical Journal editor Kamran Abbasi, click here
In his BMJ article, Sabbagh concludes:
In the 60 years since the establishment of the state of Israel, attempts to present in print an account of Palestinian history and Palestinian rights have usually been met by swift and highly organised protests. Protesters have written in their hundreds to journals and newspapers, often using arguments supplied by a central publicity machine and phrased in suspiciously similar terms. These campaigns, and similar campaigns launched against publications that print material critical of Israel, seem fundamentally different from the normal discourse between readers and the publications they read.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with organising an effective lobby group, but lobbying for Israel seems to be in a different category from, say, lobbies against fluoridation and MMR vaccine. The ultimate goal of some of the groups that lobby for Israel or against Palestine is apparently the suppression of views they disagree with.
BMJ’s editors essentially endorsed this view, noting that “orchestrated campaigns can succeed in closing down debate.” However they did publish a counter-opinion by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. His advice to BMJ:
For journalists, especially those in the opinion business, there were few shocks in Sabbagh’s essay. They have come to learn that in today’s wired world, wading into any topic of controversy—not just Israel-Palestine—can bring an instant email bombardment. It simply comes with the territory.
So when I wrote in the Guardian during the US election campaign that the world’s verdict would be harsh if Americans were to reject Barack Obama in favour of John McCain, I received what I estimate were between 3000 and 4000 emails. At one point, they were arriving at the rate of 10 a minute.
And let’s not forget the BBC. The obscene phone calls by comedians Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross brought in 30 000 complaints in late 2008. In 2005, Jerry Springer: the Opera triggered 55 000, organised by Christian activists. In both cases there were demands that those responsible be sacked.
The harsh reality is that what Sabbagh described as a rare, exceptional event is increasingly common—and clearly not confined to the Israel-Palestine conflict. “These campaigns,” Sabbagh writes, “seem fundamentally different from the normal discourse between readers and the publications they read.” Would that that were so. Sadly, they have become commonplace. Many a battle hardened editor would have a simple word of advice to Sabbagh and the BMJ: grow a thicker skin.
There is a strong desire to see the pressure from pro-Israel activists as somehow unique. But each of the elements Sabbagh cites—demands for resignations, the enlisting of non-readers of the publication involved—have been present in these other cases. True, Israel-Palestine probably generates more venom than most topics, but that is hardly one-way traffic. In January 2009, anti-Israel activists forced their way into the offices of the pro-Israel lobby group, British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), damaging computer equipment, cutting phone lines, and throwing documents out of the window.
And the Jerusalem Post reports:
Prof. Elihu Richter, a public health expert and head of the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine’s Genocide Prevention Program, told The Jerusalem Post: “My own direct personal experience with the BMJ is that it does have a bias against things Jewish and Israeli.”
By contrast with the “repetitive opinion pieces the BMJ has published by Summerfield and others, it has rejected quality papers from Israeli researchers, including one on the fine trauma care Hadassah provides for all, including Palestinians, for the flimsiest of pretexts,” he says.
