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The Israeli guest of the Ophthalmological Society of South Africa has not opposed Sheba Hospital’s relationship with the regime’s military establishment, nor condemned the ongoing genocide.
By IQBAL JASSAT
Has the Ophthalmological Society of South Africa (OSSA) lost its vision?
Or has it selectively chosen to be blind-sighted to the worst horrors inflicted on Palestinians by Israel’s war criminals?
OSSA’s leadership is best positioned to answer these questions which have arisen as it prepares to host the 53rd OSSA Congress at the Sandton Convention Centre February 12 to 15.
And of course it is probably aware that due to its own shortsightedness (pardon the pun) the event is likely to be boycotted and subject to protests given its controversial decision to invite an Israeli medical person despite massive objections from OSSA members.
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The person is Didi Fabian from Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv. Due to the objections and in line with the principles of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), this invitation was later withdrawn and subsequently reinstated.
The rationale provided by PACBI and OSSA members for objecting to Fabian’s participation makes perfect sense: The Israeli medical establishment is very much complicit in Israel’s human rights violations. They also argued that despite Fabian’s individual acts of humanity as a doctor, he is ‘a director of ophthalmology at a hospital that is deeply integrated at all levels with the Israeli army and collaborates with it in its genocide of Palestinians’.
They also claimed that he has not opposed Sheba Hospital’s relationship with the regime’s military establishment, nor condemned the ongoing genocide.
An additional concern centred on Fabian, who like most Israelis would have ‘served in the army’, contributing to ‘the repression of Palestinian life’.
According to South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) there are reports of doctors actually facilitating torture in several Israel detention centres.
‘Such doctors are current incarnations of the Nazi ones of the past. There are others who have signed petitions supporting the genocide in Gaza. Still others have simply kept their silence, allowing crimes against humanity to occur – helping to create the conditions under which they thrive’, said SAJFP.
In line with the global boycott movement against Zionism and Apartheid-Israel, as well as individuals and institutions aligned to the regime’s widespread violations of fundamental human rights, OSSA ought neither be surprised nor shocked that its inclusion of Fabian has been met with such outrage.
Supporting the boycott of any individual who collaborates with the Israeli army – either directly or through their institutional affiliations – has zero to do with antisemitism.
SAJFP is categoric: ‘We reject the accusation that such boycotts are antisemitic and we affirm that the struggle against Zionism and against the oppressive state of Israel is not an attack on Jews in general, but simply a rejection of the ideology of Jewish supremacy’.
Many will argue that OSSA’s flip flopping by initially responding positively to the objections and thereafter succumbing to pressure by reinviting Fabian, is a reflection of its political naivety in respect of Israel’s illegal occupation, settlements, detention and torture, and genocide.
Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at a recent briefing to the Security Council on the provision of healthcare in Gaza – a matter that has to be a priority for OSSA – emphasised that a human rights catastrophe continues to unfold in Gaza before the eyes of the world.
Surely OSSA cannot turn a blind eye to Turk’s damning report that ‘destruction of hospitals across Gaza goes beyond depriving Palestinians of their right to access adequate healthcare’!
Nor can it ignore the appeal made by the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who stressed that current priorities include meeting urgent health needs, supporting the operation of hospitals and primary care facilities, and transporting patients inside and outside Gaza to receive specialised medical care.
Is It too late for OSSA to once again disinvite Fabian and ensure that by doing so it will be abiding by universal medical ethics which the majority of its members are assumed to respect?
Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of the Media Review Network, Johannesburg.
