John R. Cohn, MD: Israel Gets a Raw Deal Over in Great Britain

http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/13747

Earlier in the year, as reported in this column and elsewhere, Britain’s National Union of Journalists was roundly criticized for proposing a boycott of Israeli goods. On July 10, the Guardian newspaper, reported that this union’s executive council had announced it was abandoning the boycott measure.

“The boycott motion was highly controversial,” the newspaper reported, “and was attacked by critics including the Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, and Times columnist Michael Gove.”

Rather than being chastened by the response, the United Kingdom’s Israel-bashers chose to extend their campaign to boycott Israeli academics, which dates back to at least 2002. That, too, has never gained traction, despite periodic motions at meetings, letters to the editor and columns, frequently in the same Guardian newspaper, including a letter by Derek Summerfield and 125 others this past April 21.

On July 21, the British Medical Journal published a “feature” with the title “Head to Head. Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions?”

What followed were columns by Tom Hickey, chair of the University and Colleges Union (pro), and Michael Baum, professor emeritus of surgery at the University College of London (con).

Journal editor Fiona Godlee noted that her publication had run a similar “head to head” on whether Muslims should have faith-based health services.

Reiterating that their policy was opposed to the boycott proposal, Godlee observed: “The question of whether there should be a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is currently under serious consideration in the United Kingdom.” She deftly bypassed whether her publication was contributing to that state of affairs.

Health services in the United Kingdom are run by the government. Whether a particular segment of Britain’s population should be uniquely treated needs little justification for consideration in a British medical journal.

An academic boycott of the world’s only Jewish state is quite a different matter. The goal of the boycott’s proponents is to forcibly change the policy of a sovereign nation, located more than 2,000 miles from the British Isles.

Votes Provide Insight

The only obvious similarity is that both topics are contentious and potentially offensive to minority groups.

In this case, the Journal went a portentous step further, inviting readers to “vote.”

The initial totals were more than 90 percent opposed to the boycott. As the days went on, and partisans on both sides presumably mobilized, boycott supporters gained strength. Before closing the poll, some 28,178 votes were cast. Of those, 23 percent were for a boycott and 77 percent against. At least one person was identified who voted “yes” over 1,000 times. On the flip side, Journal pollsters identified a “no” voter who cast a more modest 142 negative votes.

While denying bigotry, Hickey wrote: “In the case of Israel, we are speaking about a society whose dominant self-image is one of a bastion of civilisation in a sea of medieval reaction. And we are speaking of a culture, both in Israel and in the long history of the Jewish Diaspora, in which education and scholarship are held in high regard.”

What else can it be but anti-Semitism when Israel is singled out, from among all of the nations of the world? Hickey acknowledged have that other countries have policies that “are barbaric and inhuman, such as China, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Zimbabwe.”

Understandably, critics condemned the Journal for giving the boycott additional and undeserved momentum — a boycott the publication claims to oppose. At the same time, it’s clear that like the ill-fated journalist union proposal, Journal readers reject boycotting Israel’s academics. Most important, the boycott’s proponents are now on record that they oppose Israel, uniquely among all the states of the world, because they hold Jews to a different standard.

The boycott’s underlying bigotry is unmasked for anyone who wants to see.

John R. Cohn MD is at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and serves on the Board of SPME

AUTHOR

John R. Cohn

John R. Cohn, Thomas Jefferson University, SPME Board of Directors

John R. Cohn, M.D., is a physician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (TJUH), in Philadelphia, PA, where he is the chief of the adult allergy and immunology section and Professor of Medicine. He is the immediate past president of the medical staff at TJUH.

In his Israel advocacy work he is a prolific letter writer whose letters and columns have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Haaretz, the Jewish Exponent, Lancet (an international medical journal based in the UK), and others. He was CAMERA’s “Letter Writer of the year” in 2003. He maintains a large email distribution of the original essays which he authors on various Israel-related topics.

He has spoken for numerous Jewish organizations, including Hadassah, the Philadelphia Jewish Federation and to a student group at Oxford University (UK). He and his wife were honored by Israel Bonds.

He wrote the monograph: “Advocating for Israel: A Resource Guide” for the 2010 CAMERA conference. It is valuable resource for all interested in maximizing their effectiveness in correcting the endless errors of fact and omission in our mainstream media. One piece of very valuable advice that he offers to other letter writers is: “Journalists and media are not our enemies, even those we don't agree with". Particularly for those of us in the academic community he urges a respectful and educational approach to journalists who have taken a wayward course.

In addition to the SPME board, Dr. Cohn is a member of a variety of professional and Jewish organizations, including serving on the boards of Hillel of Greater Philadelphia, the CAMERA regional advisory board, and Allergists for Israel (American allergists helping the Israeli allergist community). In the past he served on the board of the Philadelphia ADL. He participated in the 2010 CAMERA conference (“War by Other Means,” Boston University) where he led a panel with students on “Getting the Message Out,” and a break-out session called “Getting Published in the Mainstream Media.”

He is married, has three children and one grandchild. He belongs to two synagogues--he says with a chuckle, "So I always have one not to go to". He has been to Israel many times, including as a visiting professor at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. His first trip was at age 10, when Jerusalem was still a divided city; and he remembers vividly standing before the Mandelbaum Gate, wondering why he could not go through it to the Old City on the other side.

He adroitly balances his wide-ranging volunteer activities on behalf of Israel with his broad and complex medical and teaching practice (including authoring numerous professional publications) while successfully maintaining good relations with a broad spectrum of Jewish community leaders and organizations -- no small feat.

Regarding his involvement with SPME, Dr. Cohn acknowledged first and foremost SPME’s Immediate Past President, Professor Ed Beck. Dr. Cohn has long perceived that under Professor Beck’s guidance, SPME has been doing an essential job on college campuses; so he was honored when Professor Beck invited him to join the board.

He finds it easy to support and be active in SPME because being a Jewish American and a supporter of Israel presents no conflict due to the congruence of both countries’ interests, policies and priorities. It is clear that Israel’s cause is not a parochial issue. It is a just cause and its advocacy is advocacy for justice.

For Dr. Cohn, the need for SPME is clear. The resources of those who speak out on behalf of Israel are dwarfed by the funding sources available to those who seek to denigrate Israel. Israel's supporters don’t have large oil fields to underwrite their work. And the campus is a critical arena for work today on behalf of Israel, because this generation’s students are next generation’s leaders.

For advancing SPME’s work in the future, he would like to see the continued development of academically sound analyses to counter the prevailing anti-Israel ideology of all too much academic research and teaching on campuses and in professional fields today. He points to Lancet’s creation of a “Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance,” which asserts that Israel is to blame for poor health care for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The documented reality, however, is that life expectancy, infant mortality and other measures of health are better for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza than in many of the countries so critical of Israel This is in large part thanks to Israel.

Dr. Cohn asserts that we need more research, analysis and publications to counteract such misleading allegations.

Read all stories by John R. Cohn