US – Features

The Israeli Medical Association and doctors’ complicity in torture

By John S Yudkin

(source: British Mediacal Journal)

A recent BMJ news report outlined the reasons behind the call by 725 doctors from 43 countries for the former chairman of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), Yoram Blachar, to step down as president of the World Medical Association (WMA).1 The doctors’ petition, addressed to Edward Hill, chairman of the WMA Council, documented a series of reports, going back to 1996,2 of cases in which Israeli doctors have been accused of complicity in torture and where the IMA had failed either to respond to or fully to investigate the charges. Although Dr Blachar is no longer the IMA president and concludes his term as WMA president this month, the petition still raises important questions concerning the IMA’s commitment to investigate and tackle possible complicity of Israeli doctors in the torture of prisoners and detainees.

Read More »Doctors and human rights

By Revd Frank Julian Gelli

(source: Father Frank’s Rants-Rant Number 369)  

Open Letter to Islamophobe Dutch MP Geert Wilders
 
Dear Mr Wilders,
 
They say you can only take a horse to the water, you can’t make it drink. But human beings are not horses.  Unlike animals, they can be reasoned with. I offer these few remarks in the faint hope you are amenable to reason.
It is about your recent speech to the Alliance of Patriots in New York. In which you paint an apocalyptic picture of ‘the Islamization of Europe’. You describe some European cities with Muslim neighbourhoods in lurid terms. It is a world ‘where women walk around in figureless tents…Their husbands, or slave holders, if you prefer, walk three steps ahead’.

Mr Wilders, I live bang near one of those areas in West London. I often visit Whitechapel and Edgware Road – parts of our colourful Londonistan – I have never seen a Muslim woman walking behind her husband. Rather, the mothers stroll about in a proud, dignified manner, alongside the men. Nothing in their behaviour suggests a subordinate role, let alone slavery. And there are tons of lively, even feisty Muslim girls wearing all sorts of gear.

True, they may not, as a rule, behave like permissive, liberated females, baring the flesh, hugging and kissing partners in public, no. I would even guess most of them don’t sleep with boys before marriage. But since when are chastity, modesty and self-restraint so bad? The traditional, Christian mores of the Western civilisation which you claim to uphold used to prize such things, no?

Read More »Priests letter to islamophobe

By Robyn Rosen

(source: www.thejc.com)

Frankie Boyle: refuses to apologies for anti-Israel joke

Comedian Frankie Boyle has described Israel as an “aggressive, terrorist” and “apartheid” state during an attack on the BBC’s decision to apologise for a joke he made about Jews.

The Scottish comedian, who has appeared on Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You, made the comments in an open letter responding to the BBC Trust editorial standards committee’s apology earlier this week.Mr Boyle made the original remarks on Radio 4’s Political Animal in June 2008 and said: “I’m quite interested in the Middle East, I’m actually studying that Israeli army martial arts. And I know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.

“I’ve got an analogy which explains the whole thing quite well: if you imagine that Palestine is a cake – well, that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.”

Read More »Frankie boyle Isarael is apartheid terrorist

By Basharat Peer & Sasha Polakow-Suransky

(source: Boston.com)

Richard Holbrooke spent the final two years of his life struggling to bring peace to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but officially he was never allowed to touch the issue of Kashmir. In the wake of last week’s WikiLeaks revelations of the Indian government’s use of torture against Kashmiri prisoners, the time has come to put Kashmir back on the map and include it in discussions of a broader regional peace — one that would extend to Afghanistan as well.

The longstanding dispute over Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region, has poisoned relations between Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan for decades; spawned and sustained anti-Indian terrorist groups; prevented Pakistan’s army from fighting extremists along its border with Afghanistan; and proved deadly for the Kashmiris caught in between.

In early July, the bodies of three young laborers killed by Indian troops were discovered in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, unleashing a wave of protests. Police fired tear gas at protesters in Srinagar and killed a 17-year-old student, who was simply passing by. Soon, young Kashmiris armed with stones were battling Indian troops, who responded with bullets. An intense military curfew followed. From July to September, the Kashmiri intifada raged on killing 110 and injuring at least 1,500.

India has long resisted any outside attempt to mediate in Kashmir. The Indian government panicked after Barack Obama’s historic election in November 2008, fearing that Obama might appoint Bill Clinton as a special envoy to Kashmir as he had suggested during the campaign. And even before Holbrooke’s post was announced in January 2009, Indian officials and their allies in Washington lobbied furiously to have the words India and Kashmir excluded from the veteran US diplomat’s portfolio. India did not want to be seen as paying the price for US failures in Afghanistan by being forced to negotiate on Kashmir

Read More »All roads lead to Kashmir