On March 21, an open letter from a collective of Quebec doctors in support of Gaza was published in The Press ; it was in reality a real militant pamphlet conveying false rhetoric and preferring to fall into an ambiguous ideology instead of stating proven facts.
In the context of this partisan statement expressing unidirectional activism, the Association of Jewish Doctors of Quebec (AMJQ), which represents more than 400 active doctors, medical students and residents in training, wants to protest against this disinformation, express your position and set the facts straight.
The terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 in Israel caused real shock around the world. In addition to the 1,200 Israeli civilians massacred with unprecedented cruelty and barbarity, some 250 hostages were captured with extreme violence and taken to Gaza, including sick elderly people, children and even babies.
Israel did not want this war, it did not seek it, it was imposed on it and forced it to defend its territory and protect its population. But war is a monstrous thing, wherever it occurs and whatever population it affects.
This is why the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza, of these children, of these devastated populations, upsets us to the highest degree. As much as we are haunted by the dead, the thousands of wounded, the hundreds of thousands of displaced people and children killed or orphaned in Israel.
For us, AMJQ doctors, a Palestinian mother who has lost her child constitutes the same calamity as the Israeli mother who mourns hers. Our compassion does not have double standards.
We attach capital importance to the Hippocratic Oath, and we believe that honoring this oath would rather consist of adopting a balanced discourse, which would express the same compassion for both camps, which would be concerned about saving Palestinian lives, of course, but Israeli too.
Honoring the Hippocratic Oath would also consist of condemning the immoral acts perpetrated by the leaders of Hamas – whose name is not even mentioned in the declaration of these doctors – against their own population, these Gazans taken hostage, starved by their leaders, prevented from fleeing, left to their own devices and used without scruple as human shields. And to demand that Hamas release the hostages.
We, from the AMJQ, are women and men of peace. We are shocked, haunted by the humanitarian catastrophe plaguing Gaza, it could not be otherwise, and we call with all our strength for a just and lasting peace in the region.
This statement published in The Press claims that more than 31,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of this war, without specifying that these figures come from Hamas, a terrorist organization which has no credibility and makes no difference between civilian deaths and combatants. Hamas’ figures are in no way verified, which does not prevent the signatories from asserting without the slightest proof that “70% of deaths are women and children”.
These signatories also demand the “safe release of all hostages on both sides”, which is pure imposture: “on both sides” would mean that Israel is also holding hostages, which is not not the case. Israel is not holding any hostages. The only real hostages of this conflict are the approximately 250 Israeli civilians captured on the morning of October 7 at the Nova festival and in their kibbutzim, of whom only 120 were released. There therefore remain 132 hostages in Gaza in the Hamas tunnels – men, women, children whose fate is unknown – and 29 remains not returned to the families. These are the facts.
This open letter from the collective, in addition to the fact that it expresses a humanism of variable geometry, disseminates erroneous information with impunity, without concern for the accuracy of the facts, with the result of misinforming Quebecers and stigmatizing Israel. This is why the AMJQ wants to take a position today in the debate that is shaking our medical community and set the record straight by proposing a balanced and humanist discourse.
* The executive council of the Association of Jewish Doctors of Quebec is composed of: DD Guila Delouya (president AMJQ, radiation oncologist, University of Montreal), Dr Lior Bibas (vice-president AMJQ, cardiologist and intensivist, University of Montreal), Dr Yves Benabu (Treasurer AMJQ, radiologist, University of Montreal), DD Jaclyn Madar (AMJQ Secretary, gynecologist and obstetrician, McGill University), Dr Jason Agulnik (AMJQ advisor, pulmonologist, McGill University), Dr Michael Bensoussan (AMJQ advisor, gastroenterologist, Sherbrooke University), Dr Élie Haddad (AMJQ advisor, pediatric immunologist, University of Montreal), Dr Jacques Kadoch (AMJQ advisor, gynecologist and obstetrician, University of Montreal), Dr Corey Miller (AMJQ advisor, gastroenterologist, McGill University) and Dr Karl Weiss (AMJQ advisor, infectious disease specialist and microbiologist, McGill University).
View the list of co-signers
1. Read the letter “We, doctors from Quebec, denounce the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”
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