Dear Colleagues:
During the on-going course of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in Gaza, we have witnessed a surge of anti-Semitic activity worldwide attempting to portray Israel as the “aggressor” while simultaneously advocating for boycotts against the state and its products.
Of the many examples we have seen, it is worth noting a “letter” published by the British medical journal The Lancet which attacks and blames Israel for its war with Hamas.
The letter entitled, “Open letter for the people in Gaza” claims that, “On the basis of our ethics and practice, we are denouncing what we witness in the aggression of Gaza by Israel. We ask our colleagues, old and young professionals, to denounce this Israeli aggression. We challenge the perversity of a propaganda that justifies the creation of an emergency to masquerade a massacre, a so-called defensive aggression. In reality it is a ruthless assault of unlimited duration, extent, and intensity.”
The extreme one-sidedness and partisanship expressed in the above, has illustrated a clear bias against Israel in addition, to a lack of understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict at large.
Consequently, we as a community of scholars devoted to legitimate public discourse especially, when it comes to the Middle East have issued a statement highlighting the fallacies of the Lancet article. Further, we have exposed two of the co-authors ties to Palestinian NGO’s all which have contributed to the skewed reality they have depicted.
To date, we have collected 2,082 of signatures if you have not signed on we encourage you to do so:
The Arab-Israeli conflict is by no means black and white and portraying it as such is dishonest and does a great disservice to those who truly want to understand the region. It is our obligation as academics to conduct serious research based on facts and not polemics.
As always, we welcome your feedback and article submissions.
Sincerely,
Asaf Romirowsky, PhD