In his July 28, 2010 blog post Moonbats Against Israel Alan Dershowitz made unfounded allegations about Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the international medical humanitarian organization. His criticisms were based on erroneous reporting in July in the Israeli daily Haaretz, on what allegedly transpired between a group of Israeli doctors and an MSF medical team in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) earlier this summer.
After a fuel truck explosion killed and injured hundreds of people in the village of Uvira in DRC in early July, MSF medical teams there began treating people. A team of specialist surgeons from Israel arrived within days to work alongside MSF staff. Articles in Haaretz alleged that the MSF team was hostile toward the Israeli doctors due to opposition to Israeli policies. Mr. Dershowitz went further, calling MSF "bigoted" and claimed that my colleagues refused to work with their counterparts because of an alleged institutional anti-Israel bias.
Here are the facts: both medical teams shared -- and worked together toward -- the commongoal of providing the best possible treatment to those most in need. Cooperation continueswith the exchange of medical data on the 64 remaining burn patients in MSF's care.
Taking the initial allegations seriously, MSF carried out a thorough review of the collaboration withthe Israeli team. Both Dr. Eyal Winkler, who led the Israeli team from the Sheba Medical Centerin Tel Hashomer, and Gila Garaway, an Israeli citizen with extensive experience working in DRCand who escorted the Israeli team, have assured MSF that the five-day collaboration was indeeda positive one. Dr. Winkler wrote in a Hebrew-language blog post on Ynet that there was "perfect teamwork with the people from MSF."
See MSF's letter to the editor of Haaretz here.
Fundamental to MSF's work are the principles of neutrality and impartiality, and of always actingin the best interests of our patients. All MSF staff members are obliged to respect medicalethics and international humanitarian law, as well as to display a general attitude and conductcharacterized by non-discrimination. Suggestions that MSF would put the welfare of its patientsat risk due to political or other biases are simply unfounded.
Mr. Dershowitz made additional accusations against MSF regarding our work in Gaza duringIsrael's Operation Cast Lead in January 2009, carried out in response to Hamas rocket fireagainst Israeli civilians. He claimed we described the situation as "worse than the Darfurgenocide in the Sudan." This is incorrect.
MSF has worked in Darfur for several years. In 2004, it published one of the firstretrospective mortality studies describing the impact of the violence there. With medical teams operating inGaza, MSF was well positioned to credibly speak out about the reality of high numbers of civilianswounded and killed there during an extremely compressed timeframe. This speaking out -- in bothDarfur and Gaza -- was consistent with MSF's bearing witness to the suffering of populations indanger in numerous conflict areas.
But at no time did MSF representatives falsely claim that the consequences of the Israelioffensive in Gaza resulted in a greater overall toll than that exacted by the violence in Darfur.
MSF routinely describes publicly the humanitarian impact of hostilities on civilians, as witnessedby our medical teams. We pay particular attention in conflict situations to the measures taken by belligerents to spare civilians during the conduct of hostilities. In the last year, MSF has spoken out about the impact of conflict on civilians in Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, DRC, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. MSF also has a track record of speaking out when its teams have witnessed civilians injured or killed as a result of internecine Palestinian violence in Gaza, as it did in June 2007, for example.
For nearly 40 years, MSF's humanitarian action has been guided by the principles of alleviatingthe suffering of victims of violence, epidemics, and natural disasters. Contrary to Mr.Dershowitz's accusations, this is done through the provision of impartial and neutral medicalassistance that is independent of political, religious, or other interests.
Matthew Spitzer, MD
President, US Section of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)