Psyche, Science, and Society

Physicians for Human Rights — Israel: IDF violated medical ethics

Physicians for Human Rights — Israel has claimed that:

Israel violated medical ethics in Gaza: report

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel’s army violated codes of ethics and international law during the war in Gaza by attacking medics and refusing to allow the treatment of wounded, a human rights group charged on Monday.

The actions reflect a “demonisation of Palestinians (which) bears a heavy price for Israeli society,” warned a report by Physicians for Human Rights that called for an independent body to investigate the military’s conduct during its 22-day Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that ended on January 18.

The Israeli army said it had not yet concluded its investigation, but that fighters from Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement had battled under cover of ambulances and medical facilities.

Among the offences listed by the Israeli non-governmental organisation are “attacks on medical personnel; damage to medical facilities and indiscriminate attacks on civilians not involved in the fighting.”

“Israel placed numerous obstacles in the course of the operation that impeded emergency medical evacuation of the sick and wounded and also caused families to be trapped for days without food, water and medications,” the report said.

“The actions … violate directives of international law which forbid attacks on medical centres and medical teams during fighting” and “blatantly violated codes of ethics.”

During the offensive, Israeli fire killed 16 Palestinian medical personnel and wounded 25 others while eight hospitals and 26 primary care clinics were attacked, according to figures from the United Nations and the group.

Among the specific incidents cited is that of a Mr. Shurrab whose two sons were shot by Israeli forces while the trio drove toward the southern city of Khan Yunis on January 16.

“One of the sons died immediately, the other bled to death for 12 hours,” it said. “All that time the Israeli soldiers were within a short distance from the Shurrabs but did not provide any assistance despite the father’s repeated requests.”

Such incidents reflect a general demonisation of Palestinians, a process that “reached its nadir when soldiers in an army that flaunts its morality declined to help evacuate injured civilians and trapped families, when soldiers acted in a trigger-happy manner as they opened fire on ambulances, medical installations and medical personnel.”

“We have noticed a stark decline in IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) morals concerning the Palestinian population of Gaza, which in reality amounts to a contempt for Palestinian lives,” said Dani Filc, the chairman of the group.

“It is critical that the investigation of Operation Cast Lead is completed by a neutral, external investigator without ties to the IDF.”

The army said that it was investigating the claims in a “thorough” manner and said its forces were instructed to “act with the utmost caution in order not to cause harm to medical vehicles and medical facilities.”

“Throughout the fighting, Hamas methodically made use of medical vehicles, facilities and uniforms in order to conceal and camouflage terrorist activity, and in general used ambulances to carry terror activists and weapons,” it said in a statement.

“Hamas used ambulances to ‘rescue’ terror activists from the battlefield and used hospitals and medical facilities as hiding places.”

Such actions “greatly complicated the coordination of rescue and medical evacuation.

“It must be emphasised that under international law, the protections afforded to medical teams or ‘protected institutions’… cease to exist when these medical teams or institutions are not used for humanitarian purposes rather for carrying out actions intended to harm the State of Israel,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, army chief of staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi on Monday dismissed separate allegations of wanton killing of civilians during the Gaza offensive, based on soldiers’ testimonies published last week.

“I do not believe that IDF troops hurt Palestinian civilians in cold blood,” Ashkenazi said in a speech.

“We will wait the outcome of an investigation, but my impression is that the IDF acted morally and if such cases did take place they were isolated.”

March 23rd, 2009

Clemons: Time for civil society to act against Geitner plan

Steve Clemons doesn’t like the Geitner plan at all:

Regrettably, the Obama administration seems to be fumbling the ball on an economic policy course that restores confidence in the American economy on both the optics level and also on a substantive front that reorganizes the “social contract” and design of the real economy in the U.S.

Obama, in his ‘loyalty’ to his current economic team and the mistakes they are making is the antithesis of Abraham Lincoln. Obama may have tried to mimic Lincoln’s “team of rivals” approach to politics — but he needs to read the chapters on the number of generals Lincoln fired during the Civil War to finally get things moved forward.

Obama may need to fire a number of his economic generals who have been trying to restore Wall Street to what it once was — not boldly and critically reorganize the financial sector in a way that the dysfunctional behavior that characterized its bubble success is dismantled and reshaped.

Civil society should not wait quietly while Obama’s team continues to fumble — and while its key economic policy chiefs play “point the finger” at their colleagues behind the scenes. It’s time for serious discussion about what needs to be done. . .and we need better benchmarks than we have for applauding, critiquing, and simply measuring the policy steps the administration is taking.

March 23rd, 2009

My latest chapter on APA: Closing Eyes to Atrocities

My latest book chapter, Closing Eyes to Atrocities: U.S. Psychologists, Detainee Interrogations, and the Response of the American Psychological Association is now available.  This  is a chapter in Goodman, R. & Roseman, M.J. (2009). Interrogations, Forced Feedings, and the Role of Health Professionals: New Perspectives on International Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School.

My chapter can be downloaded here or from http://tinyurl.com/cc9yw4.

Here is the publisher’s description of the book:

The involvement of health professionals in human rights and humanitarian law violations has again become a live issue as a consequence of the U.S. prosecution of conflicts with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq. Health professionals-including MDs trained in psychiatry and PhDs trained in behavioral psychology-have reportedly advised and assisted in coercive interrogation. Health professionals have also been involved in forced feedings. Such practices would not be unique to the United States nor the most extreme forms of abuse in the world. The direct involvement of medical professionals in torture, covering up extrajudicial killings, and other extreme conduct is a phenomenon common to many societies and periods of national crisis. Indeed, the widespread and repeated nature of this problem has led to the development of important legal and ethical codes on the subject. Those codes, however, are notoriously insufficient in many cases. A reexamination of the international norms, as developed in human rights law, humanitarian law, and professional ethics can shed light on these issues. However, in addition to those instruments, the struggle to end such violations requires understanding human behavior and the role of formal and informal institutional pressures. In this volume, a wide range of prominent practitioners and scholars explore these issues. Their insights provide significant potential for reforming institutions to assist health professionals maintain their legal and ethical obligations in times of national crisis.

March 23rd, 2009

Kuttner: Bank bailout risk and likely to fail

Robert Kuttner doesn’t like the bank bailout plan any more than does Paul Krugman:

It all adds up to the most expensive and risky way of trying to recapitalize banks, and the least likely to succeed. Instead of simplifying, it is adding complexity and leverage. In effect, Geithner is doubling down on the same kinds of speculations that crashed the system. This time, however, the government guarantees are explicitly negotiated in advance, rather than being cobbled together after the crash.

It is now up to Obama:

Barack Obama is a president of great promise, reassurance, and political skill. In the next few weeks, we will learn how he performs in a crisis that is being worsened by his own appointees.

March 23rd, 2009