The Jewish Medical Association has described Jewish doctors as feeling “intimidated, unsafe and excluded” at the annual conference of the British Medical Association, with ten percent of all motions to the conference focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Zionism or antisemitism.
The JMA said that it had “felt it necessary to seek advice” from both the CST, as well as the BMA itself, to “to ensure the safety and protect the wellbeing of Jewish representatives”.
The BMA’s agenda committee prioritised five motions for debate on Tuesday, all of which were about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The JMA noted that there were “zero motions prioritised for discussion about any other international matters, not even those that one might expect to be of some interest to compassionate UK doctors, such as the famine in Sudan, war in Ukraine or the disastrous impact on public health of the new US administration’s health policy and its withdrawal from the World Health Organisation”.
Motions submitted to the conference included a call for the BMA to boycott Israeli medical institutions and universities, while another requested that the BMA support doctors who refuse to pax taxes due to the British government being “complicit in genocide”.
Responding to criticism of its conference, a BMA spokesperson said:
“We are totally clear that antisemitism is completely unacceptable. There is no place for it in the BMA, NHS, or wider society and we condemn antisemitism in the strongest possible terms, as we do with all discrimination based on race, religion, sexuality, gender or disability.
“The BMA’s annual representative meeting is an inclusive space, where wellbeing of members and staff is our priority and we’ve put in place a number of measures and sources of support to ensure this. We are also confident that we are complying with all of our obligations under the Equality Act and our own EDI policies.
“The BMA has a long and proud history of advocating for human rights and access to healthcare around the world, and motions submitted to this year’s conference reflect the grave concerns doctors in the UK have about the Gaza conflict and the impact on civilians and healthcare.”
The conference comes the week after the BMA announced that it had dropped an investigation into the conduct of its president, Mary McCarthy, regarding her tweets relating to the Gaza conflict. This came despite an external lawyer hired to carry out an independent review of the complaint made by Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) concluding that McCarthy had a case to answer for a potential breach of the BMA’s code. However, last week the BMA told LAAS that according to its articles and bylaws, only its own members and staff could make complaints. Alex Hearn of LAAS condemned the move, stating that “The BMA President is promoting content from extreme accounts known for racism and misinformation. And she won’t face any consequences.”
