{"id":253610,"date":"2024-02-05T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=253610"},"modified":"2024-02-01T06:13:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T06:13:47","slug":"the-silence-of-the-damned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/02\/the-silence-of-the-damned\/","title":{"rendered":"The Silence of the Damned"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Sword of Damocles – by Mr. Fish<\/p><\/div>\n

Our leading humanitarian and civic institutions, including major medical institutions, refuse to denounce Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza. This exposes their hypocrisy and complicity.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

31 Jan 2024<\/em> – There is no effective health care system<\/a> left in Gaza. Infants are dying<\/a>. Children are having their limbs amputated<\/a> without anesthesia. Thousands of cancer patients and those in need of dialysis lack treatment<\/a>. The last cancer hospital in Gaza has ceased functioning<\/a>. An estimated 50,000 pregnant women<\/a> have no safe place to give birth. They undergo cesarean sections without anesthesia<\/a>. Miscarriage rates are up<\/a> 300 percent since the Israeli assault began. The wounded bleed<\/a> to death. There is no<\/a> sanitation or clean water. Hospitals have been bombed and shelled. Nasser Hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza, is \u201cnear collapse<\/a>.\u201d Clinics, along with ambulances<\/a> \u2013 79 in Gaza and over 212 in the West Bank \u2013 have been destroyed<\/a>. Some 400 doctors, nurses, medics and healthcare workers have been killed<\/a> \u2014 more than<\/a> the total of all healthcare workers killed in conflicts around the world combined since 2016. Over 100 more<\/a> have been detained, interrogated, beaten and tortured<\/a>, or disappeared by Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n

Israeli soldiers routinely enter hospitals to carry out forced evacuations \u2013 on Wednesday troops entered al-Amal Hospital<\/a> in Khan Younis and demanded doctors and displaced Palestinians leave \u2013 as well as round up detainees, including the wounded, sick and medical staff. On Tuesday, disguised as hospital workers and civilians, Israeli soldiers entered Jenin\u2019s Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank and assassinated<\/a> three Palestinians as they slept.<\/p>\n

The cuts to funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) \u2014 collective punishment for the alleged involvement<\/a> in the Oct. 7 attack of 12 of its 13,000<\/a> UNRWA workers\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0 will accelerate the horror, turning the attacks, starvation, lack of health care and spread of infectious diseases in Gaza into a tidal wave of death.<\/p>\n

The evidence-free charges, which include the accusation that 10 percent of all of UNRWA\u2019s Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, appeared<\/a> in the Wall Street Journal. The reporter, Carrie-Keller Lynn, served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Given the numerous lies Israel has employed to justify its genocide, including \u201cbeheaded babies<\/a>\u201d and \u201cmass rape<\/a>,\u201d it is reasonable to assume this may be another fabrication.<\/p>\n

The allegations, of which details remain scant<\/a>, are apparently based on confessions<\/a> by Palestinian detainees \u2014 most certainly after being beaten or tortured. These allegations were enough to see 17 countries including<\/a> the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Australia and Japan cut<\/a> or delay<\/a> funding to the vital U.N. agency. UNRWA is all that stands between the Palestinians in Gaza and famine. A handful of countries, including Ireland, Norway and Turkey, maintain their funding.<\/p>\n

Eight of the UNRWA employees accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, where 1,139 people were killed and 240 abducted, were fired<\/a>. Two have been suspended. UNRWA has promised an investigation. They account for 0.04 percent of UNRWA\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n

Israel is seeking to destroy not only Gaza\u2019s health care system and infrastructure, but UNRWA which provides<\/a> food and aid to 2 million Palestinians. The object is to make Gaza uninhabitable and ethnically cleanse the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands are already starving<\/a>. Over 70 percent of the housing has been destroyed<\/a>. More than 26,700 people have been killed<\/a> and over 65,600 have been injured<\/a>. Thousands are missing. Some 90 percent of Gaza\u2019s pre-war population has been displaced<\/a>, with many living in the open. Palestinians have been reduced<\/a> to eating grass and drinking contaminated water.<\/p>\n

Noga Arbell, a former Israeli foreign ministry official, during a discussion in the Israeli parliament on Jan. 4, stated<\/a>: \u201cIt will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA, and this destruction must begin immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> on Wednesday, saying UNWRA was \u201ctotally infiltrated<\/a> by Hamas,\u201d reiterated the call to shut UNRWA down.<\/p>\n

If UNWRA is abolished it puts into question the Palestinian\u2019s status as refugees, imperiling the \u201cRight of Return<\/a>,\u201d the demand, long rejected by Israel, that Palestinians be allowed to go back to their homes in what is now Israel.<\/p>\n

“It’s time for the international community and the UN itself to understand that UNRWA’s mission must be terminated,” Netanyahu told<\/a> visiting UN delegates, according to a statement from his office. “It seeks to preserve the issue of Palestinian refugees. We must replace UNRWA with other UN agencies and other aid agencies, if we want to solve the Gaza problem as we plan to do.”<\/p>\n

More than 152 of UNRWA\u2019s employees in Gaza \u2014 including school principals, teachers, health workers, a gynecologist, engineers, support staff and a psychologist \u2014 have been killed<\/a> since the Israeli attacks began. Over 141 UNRWA facilities have been bombed into rubble. The death toll is the largest loss of staff<\/a> during a conflict in the U.N.\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The destruction of healthcare facilities and targeting of doctors, nurses, medics and staff is especially repugnant. It means the most vulnerable, the sick, infants, the wounded and elderly, and those who care for them, are often condemned to death.<\/p>\n

Palestinian doctors are pleading<\/a> with doctors and medical organizations from around the world to decry the assault on the healthcare system and mobilize their institutions to protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world must condemn the acts against medical professionals happening in Gaza,\u201d writes<\/a> the director of Al-Shifa hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, who was arrested<\/a> along with other medical personnel by the Israelis in November 2023 while evacuating with a World Health Organization (WHO) convoy, and who remains in custody. \u201cThis Correspondence is a call for every human being, all medical communities, and all health-care professionals around the world to call for these anti-hospital activities inside and around the hospitals to stop, which is a civilian obligation according to international law, the UN, and WHO.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these institutions \u2014 with a few notable exceptions such as The American Public Health Association that has called<\/a> for a ceasefire \u2014 have either remained silent or, as with Dr. Matthew K. Wynia, the director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado, attempted to justify<\/a> Israeli war crimes. These doctors \u2014 who somehow find it acceptable that in Gaza a child is killed<\/a> every 10 minutes on average \u2014 are accomplices to genocide and stand in violation of the Geneva Convention. They embrace death as a solution, not life.<\/p>\n

Robert Jay Lifton in his book \u201cThe Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide<\/a>\u201d writes that \u201cgenocidal projects require the active participation of educated professionals \u2014 physicians, scientists, engineers, military leaders, lawyers, clergy, university professors and other teachers \u2014 who combine to create not only the technology of genocide but much of its ideological rationale, moral climate, and organizational process.\u201d<\/p>\n

A group of 100 Israeli doctors in November 2023 defended<\/a> the bombing of hospitals in Gaza, claiming they were used as Hamas command centers, a charge Israel has been unable<\/a> to verify.<\/p>\n

The deans of U.S. medical schools and leading medical organizations, especially the American Medical Association (AMA), have joined the ranks of universities, law schools, churches and the media to turn their backs on the Palestinians. The AMA shut down<\/a> a debate on a ceasefire resolution among its members and has called for<\/a> \u201cmedical neutrality,\u201d although it abandoned \u201cmedical neutrality\u201d to denounce<\/a> Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

There is a cost to denouncing this genocide, a cost they do not intend to pay. They fear being attacked. They fear destroying their careers. They fear losing funding. They fear a loss of status. They fear persecution. They fear social isolation. This fear makes them complicit.<\/p>\n

And what of those who do speak out? They are branded as antisemites and supporters of terrorism. George Washington University clinical psychology professor Lara Sheehi was pushed out<\/a> of her job. The former head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, was denied<\/a> a fellowship at Harvard\u2019s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy because of his alleged \u201canti-Israel bias.\u201d San Francisco professor Rabab Abdulhadi was sued<\/a> for supporting Palestinian rights. Shahd Abusalama<\/a> was suspended<\/a> from Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K after a vicious smear campaign, although the institution later settled<\/a> her discrimination claim against it. Professor Jasbir Puar at Rutgers University is an ongoing target<\/a> for the Israel lobby and endures constant harassment. Medical students and faculty in Canada face suspension or expulsion<\/a> if they publicly criticize Israel.<\/p>\n

The danger is not only that the Israeli crimes are denounced. The danger, more importantly, is that the moral bankruptcy and cowardice of the institutions and their leaders are exposed.<\/p>\n

This brings me to Dr. Rupa Marya, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), whose call to halt<\/a> bombing hospitals and to examine the impact of Zionism as a racist ideology unleashed a torrent of vitriolic attacks against her, attacks tacitly endorsed by the medical school where she works.<\/p>\n

She has been slandered as an antisemite and targeted by the Canary Mission<\/a>, a Zionist organization that seeks to defame and destroy the careers of students and faculty that criticize Israel and defend Palestinian rights. She has had speaking engagements rescinded<\/a> and received death threats and messages such as: \u201ckill yourself you retarded grifting n*gger,\u201d \u201cJew baiting c*nt,\u201d and \u201cWhite people are the greatest people on Earth. You know this.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see her statement on the campaign against her here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is a striking contrast between the treatment of Dr. Marya and the physicians who cheer on the genocide. UCSF physician Matt Cooperberg, who is the Helen Diller Family Chair in Urology, \u2018liked\u2019 social media posts such as<\/a> \u201cREMOVE Palestinians FORM [sic] MAP\u201d and a quote by former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir: \u201cWe are able to forgive the the [sic] arabs for killing our children. We are unable to forgive the arabs for forcing us to kill their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCooperberg\u2019s endowed chair comes from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, UCSF\u2019s largest donor<\/a>, which to date has gifted some $1.15 billion dollars to the health campus,\u201d Dr. Marya writes. \u201cIn 2018, due to a mistake on a tax form, the Helen Diller Family Foundation was exposed<\/a> as a funder of the Canary Mission<\/a>. The Foundation attempted to erase its connection after this exposure<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues:<\/p>\n

As a faculty member at UCSF, disgraced dermatologist Howard Maibach <\/a>exposed and injected over 2,600 imprisoned Black and brown people with chemicals in experiments that echoed the experiments put on trial <\/a>at the Doctors\u2019 Trial<\/a> just a few years before he went to medical school in Pennsylvania. There he studied under Albert Kligman, who taught him how to exploit Black people for medical experimentation, documented extensively in the horror nonfiction book, Acres of Skin<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Maibach also advanced notions of racial differences in skin<\/a>, furthering racist ideas from the pseudoscience of eugenics. Race is a social construct<\/a> that enshrines supremacism. It is not a biological reality.<\/p>\n

Most of Maibach\u2019s experiments were conducted without informed consent, and while UCSF issued an apology,<\/a> Maibach is still employed by the University of California. His family supports the Friends of the IDF, <\/a>and he is represented by Alan Dershowitz, who also argued for the bombing of hospitals<\/a> in Gaza. Dershowitz attempted to prevent me from speaking at the AMA\u2019s first National Health Equity Grand Rounds<\/a>, where scholar Harriet Washington, who studies medical experimentation on Black people, highlighted Maibach\u2019s racist practices. In the wake of George Floyd\u2019s murder, UCSF faculty, trainees and students of color brought Maibach\u2019s story to light, <\/a>and many have expressed their horror that they have to continue to sit in the same room as this man during Dermatology Grand Rounds. But the problem is not just one man. It is a system that allows someone with these values and actions to continue to be present in our learning and practicing community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The dehumanization of Palestinians is lifted from the playbook of all settler colonial projects, including our own. This racism, where people of color are branded<\/a> as \u201chuman animals,\u201d is coded within the DNA of our institutions. It infects those chosen to lead these institutions. It lies at the core of our national identity. It is why the two ruling parties and the institutions that sustain them side with Israel. It feeds the perverted logic of funneling weapons and billions of dollars in support to sustain Israel\u2019s occupation and genocide.<\/p>\n

History will not judge us kindly.\u00a0But it will revere those who, under siege, found the courage to say no.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times,\u00a0where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief. He previously worked overseas for\u00a0<\/em>The Dallas Morning News,\u00a0The Christian Science Monitor, and<\/em> NPR. He used to be the host of the Emmy Award-nominated <\/em>RT America show\u00a0<\/em>On Contact.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2024 Chris Hedges<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – chrishedges.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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