The British Medical Association’s annual meeting is becoming a “vehicle for Jew Hatred” after a doctor was heckled after she said she was a “practising Jew”.
Concerns have been raised about the “hostile” atmosphere at the conference in a letter from leaders from the Jewish medical community.
The Jewish Medical Association said they are worried about the number of motions that delegates had submitted calling for action against Israel – with around one in 10 policy proposals relating to the Israel and Palestine conflict.
Doctors said that this was a change of atmosphere compared to previous years where the focus had been on the NHS, staffing and patients, and said the shift was worrying that “the meeting environment could become itself a vehicle for discrimination and Jew hatred”.
During the conference, BMA members shouted “shame” at a female medic after she revealed she was Jewish.
Around 30 motions submitted for debate related to the Middle East conflict, which were removed from debates due to the risk of “being perceived as discriminatory, more specifically, anti-Semitic”.
The words Israel or Israeli appears 75 times in motions published ahead of the conference, said The Telegraph.
The union’s London regional council also submitted four calls for the BMA to boycott Israeli medical journals, conferences, and academic and commercial exchanges, claiming that the country is breaching human rights.
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They also called for the BMA to lobby the Government to stop supplying weapons to Netanyahu, stating that “Israel commits systematic apartheid” and Israel “continues to occupy and oppress the Palestinian people and to use disproportionate and indiscriminate force against civilians”.
Dr Joanna Sutton-Klein, an emergency doctor in Manchester, was the victim of heckling at the conference. She was voicing opposition to the decision to block debates on Israel and Palestine.
“One of the justifications for the silencing of these motions was that they might be perceived as anti-Semitic so I want to stand up here today as a practising Jew to say there is nothing Jewish about the attempt to remove motions that you disagree with,” with the heckling following shortly afterwards.
Doubling down on her disagreement with the block, she said: “The debates and arguments that we have as part of the BMA are essential,” she added.
During the conference, BMA members shouted “shame” at a female medic after she revealed she was Jewish
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“In Judaism, we have a value – Machloket l’Shem Shamayim – it means valuing disagreements for the sake of a bigger cause.”
Emma Runswick, deputy chair of council at the BMA, told delegates: “I want to say that it is completely unacceptable to shout ‘shame’ at somebody who has just said that they are a practising Jewish woman, there is absolutely no place for that in this Association.
“We reserve our shame for the governments and employers who mistreat us and our patients.”
