Response to a letter in the Lancet on Healing and Peacemaking

March 15, 2005

Letter to the Editor

The Lancet

Samer Jabbour’s letter (“ Healing and peace making in the middle east: challenges for doctors, January 25, 2005 http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04cmt309web.pdf 1), in response to Skinner et al notes the difficult questions on the relationship between political processes and cooperative health care in regions of intense conflict. However, Jabbour’s letter itself highlights the complexities and the dangers of partisanship, and the barriers to cooperation and mutual understanding. His narrative recognizes only the Palestinian view, the “daily suffering” of Palestinian doctors, and their alleged desire for “solidarity, of which they receive little, rather than offers of cooperation”. The failure to acknowledge the suffering of Israelis after five decades of warfare and continuing terrorism is illustrative of the need for two-way cooperation, in order to promote empathy and mutuality, in contrast to exacerbating the conflict. Similarly, Jabbour’s definitions of justice and legitimacy are entirely one sided, asserting that “Palestinian doctors think cooperating is like offering Israel the benefits of peaceful relations before Israel has given justice to the Palestinians.” But to end this long and bitter conflict, and heal the wounds inflicted by violence and decades of rejectionism, the Israeli view of historic justice must also be included.

In addition, Jabbour cites the work of a small and highly controversial organization, known as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. This NGO, however, has been shown to be politically and ideologically biased in favor of the Palestinian position, and its reports lack credibility. {1} Rather than promoting mutual understanding and compromise, such partisan politicization of medical cooperation can only undermine efforts to reach a peaceful outcome and to end the deadly violence and brutality. The non-partisan efforts of Skinner, et al, may be of limited impact, but at least they are moving both Israelis and Arabs, doctors and patients, in the right direction.

1. http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v3n06/MDMPHRISecBarrierReportNotCredible.htm

accessed March 15, 2005

Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg

Director, Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation
Political Studies, Bar Ilan University
Ramat Gan, Israel
and Editor, www.ngo-monitor.org

mail@ngo-monitor.org

I declare that I have no conflicts of interest

Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg is a member of there Medical and Public Health Task Force of Scholar for Peace in the Middle East and on its Board of Directors.

AUTHOR

Gerald M. Steinberg

Prof. Gerald Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor and professor of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University, where he founded the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation. His research interests include international relations, Middle East diplomacy and security, the politics of human rights and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Israeli politics and arms control.

NGO Monitor was founded following the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa, where powerful NGOs, claiming to promote human rights, hijacked the principles of morality and international law. NGO Monitor provides information and analysis, promotes accountability, and supports discussion on the reports and activities of NGOs claiming to advance human rights and humanitarian agendas.

In 2013, Professor Steinberg accepted the prestigious Menachem Begin Prize on behalf of NGO Monitor, recognizing its “Efforts exposing the political agenda and ideological basis of humanitarian organizations that use the Discourse of human rights to discredit Israel and to undermine its position among the nations of the world.”

Steinberg is a member of Israel Council of Foreign Affairs; the Israel Higher-Education Council, Committee on Public Policy; advisory board of the Israel Law Review International, the research working group of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), and participates in the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA). He also speaks at a variety of high-level government sessions and academic conferences worldwide.

Publications include “NGOs, Human Rights, and Political Warfare in the Arab-Israel Conflict" (Israel Studies); "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" (Israel Law Review); and Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGO Fact-Finding (co-author), Nijhoff, Leiden, 2012.

His op-ed columns have been published in Wall St. Journal (Europe), Financial Times, Ha’aretz,International Herald Tribune, Jerusalem Post, and other publications. He has appeared as a commentator on the BBC, CBC, CNN, and NPR.

Read all stories by Gerald M. Steinberg