The immorality of treating terrorists first by Michael Freund

...Those hurt by the terrorist did not choose to have a sharp instrument plunged into their bodies. The pain inflicted upon them was against their will, whereas the terrorist intentionally chose to cause injury, knowing full well that he too might end up wounded or dead. To overlook this fundamental difference, and to declare the terrorist worthy of being treated first, is to place his agony and suffering on par with that of his targets, which is not only offensive but inherently unjust.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
23 December '15..

This past week, the Israel Medical Association (IMA) unambiguously demonstrated that the possession of a degree in medicine does not necessarily imply sagacity or even common sense.

In a decision so profoundly disturbing that it beggars belief, the group reversed a policy in place since 2008, and declared that medical personnel must now provide care to victims based solely on the severity of their wounds, even if that means treating a terrorist before his victims.

This determination, as well as its timing, which comes at the height of a Palestinian wave of terrorism, marks a low point for what passes for medical ethics and public morality, and pressure should immediately be brought to bear on the IMA to reverse its scandalous ruling.

Seven years ago, the organization's Ethics Board published guidelines based on the principle that "charity begins at home," namely that the Israeli victims of a terrorist attack should receive medical attention prior to the Palestinian who perpetrated the assault against them.

This, after all, is a reasonable and logical standard, one that takes into account the moral context in which people are being treated, where there is a clear and unambiguous distinction to be drawn between those who harm the innocent and the innocent who have been harmed.

But recently, after a left-wing outfit which calls itself Physicians for Human Rights complained, the IMA retreated from its position, preferring instead to rely solely on the gravity of a person's wounds as the determining factor in who should be treated first.

If this is what passes for scruples among Israel's medical establishment, then something has gone terribly wrong with the system.

What the esteemed ethicists at the IMA fail to understand is that to equate the attacker with his victim, and to thereby strip the scene of its moral context, is itself an immoral act.

Terrorists may be human beings, but that isn't their only defining characteristic. When someone picks up a knife or weapon or straps an explosive belt to his body and uses them to harm the innocent, the moral thing to do is to give preference to the victims, not the villain.

Those hurt by the terrorist did not choose to have a sharp instrument plunged into their bodies. The pain inflicted upon them was against their will, whereas the terrorist intentionally chose to cause injury, knowing full well that he too might end up wounded or dead.

To overlook this fundamental difference, and to declare the terrorist worthy of being treated first, is to place his agony and suffering on par with that of his targets, which is not only offensive but inherently unjust.

Everything possible should be done to reverse this ‎shameful decision

...ZAKA emergency response service Director Yehuda Meshi Zahav was outraged by the decision: ‎‎"We will instruct our volunteers to first treat injured Jewish victim, without thinking twice," he said. ‎‎"And only after [will they treat] the terrorist murderer who carried out the attack. Despite the ethical ‎code which mandates the most injured victim be treated first, you must know morality has a limit. If we ‎will not keep our distinction, we will lose our direction. Even in Halachah, it is written: All who are merciful to ‎the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful."‎ Not being merciful to the cruel is what our tradition teaches. Foreign-funded, hostile NGOs such as ‎Physicians for Human Rights must not be allowed to dictate life-and-death issues for Israeli citizens ‎through an unelected body such as the IMA.

Judith Bergman..
Israel Hayom..
22 December '15..

The Israeli Medical Association has reversed a 2008 decision mandating that doctors at the scene of a ‎terrorist attack treat victims before the terrorist, regardless of the severity of the attacker's wounds. ‎

Only a week ago -- in the midst of an unprecedented terror wave of stabbings and car rammings -- a ‎change was suddenly made to the medical ethics regulations, literally out of the blue. The IMA Ethics Board's guideline stipulated that "charity begins at home" -- that is, in a case ‎where personnel or equipment are in short supply in a multi-casualty terrorist attack, the victims should ‎be treated before the terrorists. It was decided to eliminate that instruction and the only rule that ‎remains in place is the one that decrees that the wounded must be treated according to the severity of ‎their condition and ability to survive, and no other criteria. In practice, this means that the terrorist would ‎have to be treated before his victims, if it turns out that his wounds were more severe than theirs, which ‎is entirely feasible, if he has been shot by the IDF or an armed citizen.‎

The IMA not only made its decision without any prior public debate, but it clearly ‎sought to hide it from the public, which is even more troubling and sinister. ‎

Israel Hayom reported that the announcement about the revocation of the previous rule simply ‎appeared on the IMA's website and that "the IMA was apparently concerned about ‎widespread political and ethical criticism of its decision." ‎

The IMA has every reason to be concerned. Such a decision of life and death, taken behind the back of ‎the Israeli public and sneaked into policy by a mere announcement on a website is odious in itself. But it ‎gets worse. ‎

One has to ask oneself why the IMA decided to reverse this crucial guideline? Here is the reason in all its ‎tragic simplicity: In October, members of Physicians for Human Rights contacted IMA Chairman Dr. Leonid ‎Edelman and IMA Ethics Board Chairwoman Dr. Tami Karni. Their demand: Cancel the "charity begins at ‎home" clause in the regulations on treating terrorism victims. Physicians for Human Rights argued in a ‎letter that the organization was convinced that the principle went against the ethical principles that have guided the ‎medical community until now. Following the appeal by members of Physicians for Human Rights, the ‎Ethics Board held a discussion on Dec. 1. At its conclusion, a decision was taken to accede to the ‎organization's request and cancel the "care for your own" clause entirely. According to Ethics Board ‎members, most members agreed with the decision. ‎

It is interesting that one appeal from a nongovernmental organization can reverse the policy on such a crucial question for an ‎entire nation just like that, isn't it? Since Physicians for Human Rights wield such tremendous influence, ‎being able to sway the entire IMA Ethics Board, it is relevant to look in depth at who they are.‎

Human Rights Watch Unravelling: Helena Cobban's Immorality

Gerald Steinberg

NGO Monitor Blog

29 October 09

While Human Rights Watch (HRW), headed by Kenneth Roth, attempts to defend itself from the powerful critique levelled by founder Robert Bernstein in the New York Times, Helena Cobban — on the board of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division — added further evidence of total moral collapse.

In her October 22 posting, Cobban attacked Bernstein for ostensibly advocating an “old fashioned” view of human rights in which some kinds of societies (open and democratic) are better than others (closed and tyrannical). Continuing with an eerily similar kind of argument, Cobban then expounded her views on Hamas, demonstrating how this ostensibly stalwart defender of universal human rights is actually an apologist for terror. In her January 2009 blog post Cobban is quite convinced Hamas is little more than a social welfare and educational organization made out to be a “terrorist organization” [she uses those quotation marks herself] by the US State Department. Cobban praises Hamas for its “systems for educating successive generations of youth and for cultivating leadership skills in a broad array of skill-sets.” The mind boggles.

In this moral twisted universe, Helena Cobban seems to think that all violence is equal, and equally bad. In a December 2008 post she argues that Israel and Hamas are morally equal because they both use violence. For Ms. Cobban, it would seem that Israel’s attempts to defend its citizens from murderous attack are indistinguishable from the actions of those who violently strive to kill Israelis and Jews. This moral equivalence is repugnant, and is akin to condemning a woman for fighting a would-be rapist, since both use violence.

All rights, all countries, all violence, cannot be equal simply by virtue of their all being rights, countries, or violence. Universal human rights are based on the ability to make such fundamental moral distinctions - in which we acknowledge that freedom is better than tyranny, health is better than suffering, choice is better than coercion. For a HRW Middle East Division board member to erase the critical differences between immoral aggression and self-defense is simply another sign of the profound moral confusion in this organization that exploits the rhetoric while destroying the substance of human rights.

Hat tip to AugeanStables, “Hullo, Can you see Florida from here?”: Helena Cobban opens a window onto the “global hamoulah” of progressives

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Poll Me Once, Poll Me Twice

Noah Pollak
Contentions
07 August 09

Since its founding, J Street has employed polling as a central tactic in its effort to convince people that American Jewish opinion on Israel is ideologically aligned with its own far-Left views. The three-step is simple but shrewd: if Jewish opinion does not support your agenda, 1) create some polls to show that it does; 2) declare yourself the new mainstream; 3) accuse the traditional organizations of being the real extremists.

Much skepticism of J Street’s polls has accompanied their release, and many have pointed out their clever, results-oriented phrasing. But this hasn’t diminished their ability, when people accuse them of advocating an agenda that has little support among American Jews, to point to their own polling and declare themselves the true representatives of Jewish opinion.

J Street’s polls have always been conducted by Jim Gerstein, who runs a far-Leftprogressive political consultancy in Washington. As J Street says on its polling pages, “Survey analysis from Jim Gerstein, Principal at Gerstein | Agne, the firm that commissioned the poll.”

Now J Street is an advocacy organization, not a newspaper or a judge, so it need not police its conflicts of interest with fastidious rigor. But Jim Gerstein is not simply a principal at the firm that conducts polls for J Street. He was J Street’s vice president.

You’d never know this from J Street’s staff page or the voluptuous promotion that accompanies the release of a J Street poll. You wouldn’t know it from all the mentions of Gerstein on J Street’s website, in which he is always portrayed as an independent actor. In order to know that he was J Street’s founding vice president, you’d have to look at J Street’s 990 IRS form.

So J Street not only commissions polls—it writes the questions, conducts them, analyzes the results, and then carries out promotional campaigns with the findings. If you were wondering how it was possible that J Street could repeatedly produce “polling data” that almost perfectly complements the group’s political agenda, now we have one important clue.

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