(Pajamas Media) Barbara Kay - Lancet, once an impeccable source for authoritative medical research, has in recent years become more and more "Palestinianized." In a just-published article, "Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory," Palestinian husbands were found to be more violent towards their wives as a function of the Israeli "occupation." Very clever. Being a Palestinian means you get to beat your wife because the Israelis made me do it! The statistics were gathered and the study was funded by the Palestinian Authority. This is propaganda, not research. A group of Israeli medical academics, led by Prof. Yehuda Shoenfeld, editor-in-chief of the Israeli Medical Association Journal, assessed coverage of conflict-related deaths in the British Medical Journal, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association. Their findings: for Europeans killing Europeans (Bosnia), there was one citation for every 2,000 deaths; for Africans killing Africans (Rwanda), one citation for every 4,000 deaths; for Arabs killing black Africans (Darfur), one citation for every 7,000 deaths; for Arab Muslims killing Kurds, no citation whatsoever; yet, for Israelis killing Palestinians, one citation for every 13 deaths. It's too bad these medical journals don't choose to highlight the amazing medical benefits Israel has brought to Palestinians. As detailed in a May 30, 2009, study by U.S. medical researchers, Palestinians in the territories boast the lowest mortality rate per 100,000 of all Middle Eastern Arab populations. Since 1972, immunization coverage in the territories has reached 99%. Polio and measles have been eradicated. Life expectancy rose from 54 in 1970 to 73 in 2007. A non-political group called Save a Child's Heart, based at Wolfson Hospital in Tel Aviv, has operated on 2,100 children from 35 different countries at a cost of about $10,000 per child. Almost half were from neighboring Arab countries, including the West Bank. During the Gazan conflict, an infant nephew of the Hamas minister of defense was brought in for urgent heart surgery.
2010-02-05 08:41:47Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive