When Doctors Betray their core Ethics, “FIRST DO NO HARM!” 6/6/2025

                             When Doctors Betray their core Ethics, “FIRST DO NO HARM!”

The recent article, “The Shame of Israeli Medicine” in The New York Review of Books, presents a deeply disturbing account of how Israel’s medical establishment has aligned itself with a brutal campaign against Palestinians, abandoning core principles of medical ethics. Authors Neve Gordon, Guy Shalev, and Osama Tanous document systemic abuses—from hospitals refusing to treat wounded Palestinian detainees to doctors denying pain relief and even posting genocidal messages online.
According to their findings, the Israeli Medical Association and other health organizations have largely remained complicit as Israel has destroyed Gaza’s health system, killed over 1,400 healthcare workers, and detained hundreds of Palestinian medical professionals—often without charge or trial. Physicians were interrogated not for wrongdoing but for intelligence on hospital operations, violating international law.
Perhaps most chilling is the silencing of Palestinian healthcare workers within Israel, who make up nearly half of new doctors and nurses. Many have been fired or punished simply for expressing empathy for Gaza's victims. Co-author Osama Tanous, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was advised not to speak publicly, fearing retaliation.
This betrayal of medical ethics demands an urgent international response. The authors call on global medical institutions to suspend ties with Israeli counterparts until Israel halts its colonial policies and Palestinians achieve liberation. When doctors become instruments of oppression, it is not only a moral failure but a call to the world to act. Silence in the face of such complicity is not neutrality—it is endorsement.