I am a longstanding member of the British Medical Association (BMA) and have current committee roles within the organisation. It is therefore a matter of profound regret to me that Jewish doctors, who have played such a key role both in the BMA and in British medicine, are increasingly grappling with the question: should we remain within the BMA, or resign from it?
If the focus and essence of an organisation can be distilled from behaviour at its annual conference (known as the Annual Representative Meeting, or ARM), which I was at last week, then the BMA has both a problem and an obsession with antisemitism. The repeated statements condemning what at times appeared to be every aspect of Israeli society were met with rapturous applause – so concentrated that it regularly interrupted such speakers mid-flow. I was near the front of the room, hoping to be called to speak, and the sheer volume felt threatening. Despite being Chair of the Jewish Medical Association (JMA), someone who one might think that the ARM should possibly hear from on these subjects under discussion, I was not called upon to speak in the main debate. I apologise to my fellow JMA members, and particularly those who work so hard with me on dealing with BMA, that I was unable to do so.
Any doctors wishing to enter that hall would have already had to run the gauntlet of pamphleteers handing out screeds on Israel’s apparent multi-faceted evil, as well as a protest outside for dead Gazan healthcare professionals which – perhaps deliberately – sought to exploit the imagery of the Holocaust by using shoes.
But let us return inside the hall, with its focus on antisemitism. As many reading this may know, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism is the one accepted and promoted by key Jewish communal organisations in the UK, including the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust (CST). It has also been widely adopted by public bodies.
Earlier this year the BMA had a Task and Finish Group (TFG) where the case for adopting the IHRA in its entirety was considered. I was part of it, and the Jewish members present all agreed that the IHRA should go forward within a new guidelines programme on discrimination issues. The JMA engages positively with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion staff at the BMA, who recognised that we are obviously an interested party on this issue and that the Macpherson principles (whereby a minority group should be able to define what is and is not bigotry aimed at it) should apply to us in the same way as they apply to all faiths, ethnicities, disabilities, and sexual orientations.
The advice of that TFG then went to the BMA Council – and what happened next is anyone’s guess, because the Council have since observed total radio silence on the issue. They have not, as far as I am aware, notified the members of the TFG of any decision
Professor David Katz
At the ARM, a motion was put forward on antisemitism. Only one aspect of the entire IHRA definition was deemed worthy of being made official BMA policy by the ARM. You may have already guessed which that might be? That “criticism of the actions of the state of Israel are not, per se, antisemitic”. The IHRA definition begins that way but then provides a significant number of examples where criticism of Israel can cross over into antisemitism. Apparently that element of the definition was not worthy of the BMA’s focus. It was ludicrous; like making the first incision on a patient in the operating theatre before promptly wheeling them to the recovery room.
Of course, that motion was overwhelmingly accepted. This conference, and the behaviour of its members, needs to be seen in the context of the wider trade union movement, because the BMA is effectively the Doctors and Medical Students Union. It has a spectrum of members, from medical students to retired members. To attend the ARM and vote you have to pass election scrutiny by regional / local groups or by “branches of practice”. And like many unions over a number of years, more radical elements have been organising to ensure that they are represented at such annual meetings in force.
And as with other unions, when it comes to the topic of antisemitism, there are always a few Jewish anti-Zionist members who stand at the ready to lead the charge. The BMA is no different. Jewish anti-Zionist BMA members spoke strongly in favour not only of the motion about the IHRA clause but also of the other two motions on international affairs that had been accepted for ARM debate. Both were highly critical of Israel. They included some throat clearing on the subject of antisemitism being very bad (no joking) and the need for the BMA to foster antisemitism training. This has itself been contentious: it was only with difficulty that the JMA was able to convince the BMA that the CST and the Antisemitism Policy Trust (APT), organisations not possessed of the idea that Israel is the most evil nation in the world, should be the providers of such training. It is significant that after the ARM, to make sure that the wider membership is aware of the BMA’s priorities, extracts from the Jewish anti-Zionist BMA members speeches were included in the weekly newsletter, without any suggestion that some members may have alternative views.
But to return to the ARM itself. I looked around the room. The doctors wholeheartedly cheering such damaging motions were those who I am supposed to work with to promote fair terms and conditions of service for all doctors, who were supposed to be my peers in debates about professionalism and professional regulation, and to respect my views about academic medicine…. yet they were swallowing the notion that most Jews in the UK, those like me, should be stigmatised and frightened. It reminded me of the Jewish novelist and playwright, Elias Canetti’s observation of what happens when mob rule takes over a crowd.
Rather like in Canetti’s description there were other people who felt marginalised. At the time I felt very much alone, but one colleague bravely questioned the debate; several Sikhs, Hindus and Christians came to speak to me; and long-standing colleagues have continued to message me with thoughts and reflections.
To me the crowd priorities in that hall seemed warped and twisted. I am an immunopathologist, and I can tell you that there is a disaster looming with regards to vaccinations – falling take-up of medicines which have helped to protect countless people mean that diseases which were all but defeated make a terrible return. British medicine, via the notorious 1999 Andrew Wakefield article in The Lancet, has a direct responsibility in connection with this, even if it is America, via Donald Trump and his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who are now triggering the lion’s share of the damage.
The ARM has the power to debate emergency motions, and one might have expected that this topic would be raised then. Regrettably none of the 25 proposed emergency motions distributed were on vaccination – but 13 of them were about Israel and war. and an emergency motion calling into question the Israeli Medical Association’s membership of the World Medical Association was given high priority. I was called to speak in this debate – apparently it was now safe for me to do so, given this was not a direct discussion on antisemitism itself. I couldn’t help but wonder whether, had I been called on the earlier motion, the BMA might have been forced to include some of my comments in their newsletter, instead of a solely Jewish anti-Zionist view.
I have wrestled with the question of whether to stay in the BMA or whether to leave. At the ARM in 2023 – prior to 7 October – ironically I was asked to speak on advocacy for religious freedoms on behalf of all faith groups. In my talk I cited a well-known quote from a Talmudic sage “It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it.” The quandary faced by British Jewish doctors who are struggling with the decision of whether to stay or leave the BMA is, I believe, connected to this. Would the act of resigning be an example of avoiding such a task of which the Talmud speaks?
Irrespective of the decision about membership, it is, regrettably, our necessary and continuing obligation to continue to tackle the task of combatting pernicious antisemitism in medicine.
David Katz is Emeritus Professor of Immunopathology at University College London (UCL)
