Medical organizations so quick to condemn Israel look away from Iran

(JNS) — Medical organizations that were previously shouting allegations about Israel denying Palestinians basic medical care have become oddly silent regarding attacks by the Iranian government on hospitals. This selective mutism reveals that these organizations are not really concerned about the safe delivery of medicine, as they are in trying to score points against the State of Israel.

Just last year, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Sue Kressley, wrote on behalf of her organization to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, raising alarms about the denial of pediatric medical care in Gaza. In particular, she objected to the detention by Israeli forces of Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, expressing concern that children in northern Gaza would no longer have access to pediatric emergency care or to Abu Safiya.

Kressley failed to note that Hussam Abu Safiya was also a colonel in Hamas and that Kamal Adwan was a military hospital, giving Israeli forces reason to detain Abu Safiya amid a military conflict.

Fast-forward to present-day Iran, and doctors are being detained by military forces, but this time, the doctors and the hospital are clearly civilian in nature. According to the news source ME24, “the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence raided Milad Hospital in Isfahan, abducting several doctors who had been providing medical assistance to injured protesters. Their lives are now in serious danger.”

In the city of Ilam in Western Iran, IranWire reports that “security forces repeatedly entered the hospital compound, breaking down doors and attempting to seize wounded protesters. And Radio Farda, which is operated by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been told by a doctor in southern Iran that “security forces have stormed hospitals and executed wounded protesters amid a brutal state crackdown on nationwide anti-establishment protests.”

And Kressley’s response? Complete silence. Somehow, detaining a Hamas colonel in a military hospital compelled the head of the largest association of pediatricians to write to the U.S. secretary of state, but Iranian forces raiding several hospitals to kill and abduct wounded protesters—and arrest doctors caring for them—is not so troublesome.

Other medical organizations similarly suffer from this selective mutism. The international group, Doctors Without Borders, has condemnedIsrael for committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and maliciously attacking hospitals without military justification. The group “demands the immediate protection of medical workers and health facilities, the immediate release of detained health workers, and full respect for international law.”

But when it comes to Iran, Doctors Without Borders has nothing to say other than that it “runs programs to assist marginalized groups who often face barriers when seeking health care, including refugees, migrants, sex workers and people who use drugs.” Apparently, Iranian security forces attacking wounded protesters in hospitals and detaining doctors are not among the barriers to health care they wish to address.

Leading medical journals, such as The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), ran several editorials condemning Israel and demanding protection for health-care providers in Gaza. One Lancet piece asserted: “Health-care workers, hospitals, ambulances and water systems have been repeatedly and deliberately targeted [by Israeli forces].” A NEJM piece deplored “Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza’s health system.”

Leaving aside that these accusations of genocide by Israel and intentionally targeting Palestinian health care are completely false, where are the string of pieces in these leading medical journals condemning the very real assault on hospitals and doctors by Iranian forces? Perhaps they are yet to be published, but no one should hold their breath.

The reason not to expect from leading medical associations and journals denunciations of Iran commensurate with those they’ve issued against Israel should be fairly obvious.

There is a pathological obsession among many medical elites with leaping to condemn the Jewish state that transcends any concern for the consistent application of standards for behavior. If these medical organizations did not have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.