The Lancet under attack

Today a joint letter signed by hundreds of eminent doctors was published deploring the anti-Semitic stand taken in recent months by that august journal and its editor, Dr Richard Horton. The fact that most of them are American Jews may go some way to explaining their grievance, namely that the Lancet has chosen to criticise the Israeli's actions in Gaza last year, which resulted in thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of injuries and in the aftermath, has refused to allow their victims to rebuild any of their infrastructure which was devastated after the onslaught.


They say, where's the balance? Why no criticism of Hamas, who would drive the Jews into the sea if that got the chance? I say, here we go again. This is exactly what happened in South Africa in the 70s and 80s, when the white masters insisted on "balanced" reporting and launching vicious attacks on anyone trying to report the naked facts of the situation. Don't you see what we're trying to do here? they complained. We are only trying to protect our own citizens and do the best to help the blacks to develop at their own pace, poor things. "Separate development" they called it, a highly rational approach to a very difficult problem, they said. And it was a line eagerly bought into by such towering statesmen and women as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, both of whom announcing they were "happy to do business" with the Apartheid regime.


Now the same thing is happening in Israel. For me this is not about balance. It's about truth. And the truth is, however unpalatable it may appear to the Zionist factions in the U.S. and elsewhere, that a powerful country is exercising its power over an oppressed minority who happen to be of from a different ethnic background. Put another way, Apartheid is alive and well today in the Holy Land- not my words but those of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a man who should know whereof he speaks.


So I say, power to you Dr Horton and the brave people behind him at the Lancet. You go on telling the truth- that's what doctors are supposed to do