A letter written on behalf of 70 doctors protesting a “deeply shocking” anti-Israel letter published two weeks ago has been sent to the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
The 70 doctors write that the BMJ should not have published the original letter, which blamed “Israeli military occupation and restrictions placed upon the Palestinian population” for the 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, reported the Jewish Chronicle.
One of the doctors behind the complain letter told the Chronicle that the journal’s publication of the anti-Israel letter “risks encouraging racism at a time when many doctors and patients feel vulnerable and afraid of the biased and threatening response of some colleagues to Israel’s right to self-defence.”
The complain letter mentioned recent incidents of Jew hatred experienced by patients and health professionals in the UK. An example given was anti-Semitic comments posted to Physician Mums’ Group UK, a 21,000-member female doctor group on Facebook, where some Jewish doctors were also singled out in private messages by Pro-Palestinian activists.
One of the 215 signatories to the anti-Israel letter was orthopedic surgeon Dr. Swee Ang who in 2014 sent out a mass email featuring an anti-Semitic video made by former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke. Ang subsequently claimed to not be familiar with Duke.
The letter’s signatories have remained anonymous, stating a worry of increasing workplace anti-Semitism.