Introduction:
The Palestinian Authority is
intensifying its longstanding blood libel campaign against
Israel, falsely accusing Israel of conducting horrific
Nazi-like medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners. These
fabrications have been featured repeatedly in the Palestinian
Authority's official newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is
under the direct authority of Mahmoud Abbas.
In
the past week alone there were three new examples of this
libel:
"The method employed by the Israeli
Occupation in which they [are] instigating slow death ...
doctors in Israeli prison clinics use the prisoners as guinea
pigs for clinical drug testing under the pretense of
'treatment.'" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6,
2008]
"Many of the male and female inmates
received injections from needles they had not seen before, and
which caused their hair and facial hair to fall out
permanently ... others lost their sanity, or their mental
condition is constantly deteriorating... and some are
suffering from infertility." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4,
2008]
"The doctors in these prison clinics
are using the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical testing of
drugs and treatment-methods." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3,
2008]
Giving voice to blood libels and
slandering Israel are essential tools used by the Palestinian
Authority to demonize Israel and to inflame hatred against
Israel, especially on the highly sensitive subject of
Palestinian prisoners. It is therefore not surprising that the
Palestinian public places the release of Palestinian
terrorists from Israeli prisons as a national cause, and
justifies all means -- including the abduction of Israeli
soldiers - to free the prisoners from their supposed
mistreatment.
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has attested
that reports about such "experiments" performed on Palestinian
prisoners serve to "mobilize each and every human-being as
such... to actively participate in activities aimed at their
release and their return to freedom, properly meant as a
return to life... all of us! all of us! all of us! - to
confront the enemy in the war it wages." [Al-Hayat
Al-Jadida, Sept. 3, 2007]
These new accusations
build on earlier libels that Israel conducts the same
kind of experiments on Palestinian prisoners as the Nazis did
in the concentration camps:
"We have many examples of experiments conducted by
the Nazis, but we shall bring one example that exhibits a
great similarity [to the Israeli experiments]: They would
insert poisons into the prisoners' food in order to study the
effect of the poisons on people, with the purpose of
performing autopsies on the bodies of those who died from the
poison. He mentioned multiple cases of the mass poisoning of
Palestinian and Arab prisoners in several Israeli prisons and
detention centers. He did not rule out the possibility that
the mass poisonings were done
deliberately."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 1,
2007].
Furthermore, the libel adds that Israel is
deliberately laboring "to increase the suffering of the
prisoners and to murder them slowly, or to render them hollow,
fragile and sickly bodies that will be a burden to their
families and their nation after their release..."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept.1, 2007].
According to
the libel, because Israel views the prisoners as guinea pigs,
"the terrible crime, unimaginably horrific, that was committed
by the executioner jailers of the occupation forces...
demonstrated that the prisoner is treated like a lab -mouse."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 3, 2007].
In an
attempt to increase the credibility of the libel about the
treatment of prisoners, the Palestinian Authority daily last
week repeated a media invention from a previous article. It
said that Dalia Itzik, Speaker of the Knesset, said in 1997
that Israel conducts "thousands of medical clinical trials,"
and that "experiments with dangerous drugs are performed each
year on Palestinian prisoners." The story also rehashed the
fabrication that an Israeli named Amy Laftat, who was
presented as Head of the Pharmaceutical Division in the
Ministry of Health, reported that "there is a 15% annual
increase in the number of permits granted by her office for
conducting research on dangerous medications on Palestinians"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2008]. Palestinian Media Watch
checked with Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik and the Ministry of
Health, and confirmed that these statements were never made,
and in fact that there is no one named Amy Laftat working for
the Pharmaceutical Division. (The Israeli responses are
below).
Following are more complete
texts of the Prisoners Libel, as promoted by the Palestinian
Authority's official Daily, al-Hayat al-Jadida:
1:
"Prisoners lost their eyesight and the functionality of
their nervous system"
"The Occupation forces continue to
conduct medical experiments on Palestinian and Arab
prisoners in their
prisons, in defiance of every international treaty and code of
ethics. This is not limited to their policy of medical
neglect, but rather the violations even extend to
exploitive use of the prisoners as testing subjects for
pharmaceutical drugs. Dalia Itzik, then a member of the
Israeli Knesset and head of the Science Committee in the
Israeli parliament, revealed in July 1997 that thousands of
medical clinical trials, experiments with dangerous drugs are
performed each year on Palestinian prisoners. At that time,
she added that her office held thousands of permits issued by
the Israeli Health Ministry for large Israeli pharmaceutical
companies permitting the performance of thousands of clinical
trials on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Additionally, 'Amy Laftat,' Head of the Pharmaceutical
Division in the Israeli Health Ministry, revealed before the
Knesset in that same meeting that there is a 15% annual
increase in the number of permits granted by her office for
conducting research with dangerous drugs on Palestinians and
Arabs in the Israeli prisons.
It should be mentioned that many of the male and female
prisoners were given shots from needles they had not seen
beforehand, and which caused their hair and facial hair to
fall out permanently, and there were other prisoners who lost
their eyesight and the functionality of their nervous system,
and others who lost their sanity, or whose mental condition is
constantly deteriorating, and still others who suffer from
infertility and are unable to bear children, etc.
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
July 4, 2008]
2. "Doctors in Israel use the prisoners
as guinea pigs under the pretense of
"treatment"
"Abu Al-Hajj [Director of the Abu-Jihad
Center for Prisoner Affairs in Al-Quds University] referred
back to the period of the British Mandate and its usual method
of execution - using the hanging noose that is on display in
the museum ... Fahd Abu Al-Hajj went on to mention
the subsequent method employed by the Israeli Occupation, in
which they finish off by instigating slow death, which the
prisoners suffer at the hands of the prison authorities. He
added that as a result of this method, 226 prisoners have died
as shahids (martyrs) in the prisons... Abu Al-Hajj pointed to
the fact that... clinic doctors in Israeli prisons are using
the prisoners as guinea pigs under the pretense of
"treatment."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6,
2008]
3. "The prisoner is treated like a lab
mouse."
Heading: "Drugs and Lab-Mice"
..."The
reports came gushing in... of the terrible crime, unimaginably
horrific, that was committed by the executioner jailers of the
occupation forces; the occupation forces used several of the
freedom prisoners as lab accessories for conducting medical
trials. This crime committed by the occupiers demonstrates...
that the prisoner is treated like a lab mouse - who will
either be killed by an inappropriate drug, or will be hurt by
an electrical shock. Otherwise the experiment should inflict a
permanent disability or deformity upon him... this is
something that mobilizes each and every human-being as such...
to actively participate in activities aimed at their release
and their return to freedom, properly meant as a return to
life... all of us! all of us! all of us! - to confront the
enemy in the war it wages against those of us who are alive
and those who are dead"...
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 3,
2007]
4. "Prisoners as guinea pigs for
drug and treatment clinical testing."
Headline: "Reports given by two
lawyers after visiting [prisons] indicate an increase in the
policy of provoking the prisoners".
The director of the
Center for the Defense of Freedoms and Civil Rights,
"Hurriyat", Hilmi Al-Araj said that the reports given by the
two lawyers from the center, Ibtisam Al-Anati and Raed
Al-Zabi, clearly point to a documented increase in the Israeli
Prison Authority's policy of provoking the male and female
prisoners and of treating them inhumanely; this includes, most
notably, a policy requiring the prisoners [to wear] an orange
garment, and the use doctors in these prison clinics make
of the prisoners as guinea pigs for drug and treatment
clinical testing."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3,
2008]
5. "Most suffer infertility
problems, others have lost their
eyesight."
Headline: "Most suffer infertility
problems, others have lost their eyesight and their sanity
after the occupation has injected them with unidentified
substances and drugs - Israel continues to use prisoners as
guinea pigs for pharmaceutical drug-testing."
"Abd
Al-Nasser Piroanah, researcher and head of the Statistical
Department in the [Palestinian] Ministry of Prisoner and
Released Prisoner Affairs, said in his report that the
Occupation Authorities conduct clinical testing on Palestinian
and Arab prisoners in prisons, in defiance of every
international treaty and code of ethics.
The general tragic state of the prisons escapes no one,
and the medical situation all the more so... In order to
increase the suffering of the prisoners and to murder them
slowly, or to render them hollow, fragile and sickly bodies
that will be a burden to their families and their nation after
their release...
Further, he stated: This is not limited to their policy
of medical neglect, but rather the violations even extend to
exploitive use of the prisoners as testing subjects for
pharmaceutical drugs.
Knesset Member Dalia Itzik and former Head of the
Science Committee revealed in July 1997 that thousands of
medical clinical trials, experiments with dangerous drugs are
performed each year on Palestinian prisoners. At that time,
she added that her office held thousands of permits issued by
the Israeli Health Ministry for large Israeli pharmaceutical
companies permitting the performance of thousands of clinical
trials on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Additionally, 'Amy Laftat,' Head of the Pharmaceutical
Division in the Israeli Health Ministry, revealed ...
that there is a 15% annual increase in the number of permits
granted by her office for conducting research with dangerous
drugs on Palestinians and Arabs in the Israeli
prisons.
The researcher concluded that this crime is only
becoming more widespread... under the auspices of the Israeli
Health Ministry ... These crimes reflect clearly on the
degree of racism which abounds in the Israeli system as a
whole... He brought many examples of male and female
prisoners who were given injections from needles they had not
seen before, and which caused their hair and facial hair to
fall out permanently, and there were other prisoners who lost
their eyesight and the functionality of their nerve system,
and others who lost their sanity, or whose mental condition is
constantly deteriorating, and still others who suffer from
infertility and so forth...
Piroanah mentioned that the first to use prisoners
for medical experiments were the Nazis, who did it in the
detention centers of the German army during
WWII...
He added: We have many examples of experiments conducted by
the Nazis, but we shall bring one example that exhibits a
great similarity [to the Israeli experiments]: They would
insert poisons into the prisoners' food in order to study the
effect of the poisons on people and with the purpose of
performing autopsies on the bodies of those who died from the
poison. He mentioned multiple cases of the mass poisoning of
Palestinian and Arab prisoners in several Israeli prisons and
detention centers. He did not rule out the possibility that
the mass poisonings were done deliberately.
He said the Ministry of Prisoner Affairs has been conducting
activities in the past months... aimed at pressuring
international opinion to act urgently and to adhere to its
moral and human responsibility to save the prisoners... and to
investigate the serious medical circumstances found in Israeli
prisons, and to bring the war criminals to international
courts."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 1, 2007]
6. "Clinics are nothing
but open grounds for experimenting with dangerous
drugs."
"Dr Awda emphasized that health
conditions in Israeli prisons are bad and dangerous... She
emphasized that the clinics are nothing but open grounds
for experimenting with dangerous drugs on the sick
prisoners. She proved this with a statement given by the
Head of the Knesset Science Committee Dalia Itzik on July 10,
1997, in which she claimed that every year 1000 clinical
trials of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs are conducted using
Palestinian prisoners as subjects."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
April 17, 2008]
Israeli Officials
Respond
Office of Knesset Speaker Dalia
Itzik:
"Knesset Speaker Itzik never made the
statements attributed to her. Knesset Speaker Itzik is certain
that incidents of this kind do not occur in Israel; this is
not how Israel conducts itself."
Ministry of
Health's Response:
"Clinical testing on prisoners in
prison was never approved, never performed, and is most
certainly not taking place at present. Furthermore, there is
no person named Amy Laftat working for the Pharmaceutical
Division.