What Has Moved Me To Speak And Act For The Palestinian People?
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We have two beautiful grandchildren – Isobel 6 and Nel who is 4. I look at their lustrous blond hair and into their happy blue eyes. I see in them the two billion other children in the world. They are all equally precious. I believe that not one of them should be harmed; you believe that too. We differ in that from most, so-called world leaders. Eternal shame be on them.
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I was brought up by a Mother who said "share and share alike" to the four of us. My father said "do your best"and "stand up for yourself". That
often seemed harsh to a sensitive lad. Above all, lying was a cardinal sin.
All this in my nurturing has meant that I cannot stay quiet when the underdogs are being kicked around.
I do believe Edmund Burke';s adage applies - "It is only necessary for good men to stay silent, for evil to triumph". -
I qualified as a doctor in 1964. I started repairing folk with broken skeletons and the torn flesh from road accidents. Less often I straightened the crooked limbs of children. Always we worked together to relieve pain and distress. Blowing people apart should be rejected robustly by the so called caring professions. What is happening in Falluja and in Occupied Palestine is evil and beyond the law. I say this as a human, and especially as a doctor and surgeon.
- One has to be a sceptic to be a good doctor; that is part of the scientific training. That quality is part of the forensic approach, the ability to focus down and yet still weigh the evidence, especially the words. This is the basis of good diagnosis and I was taught and taught many others that the history was 70% the diagnosis. An innate scepticism, combined with my medical training, has lead me to measure everything that is handed down to me. I have looked beneath the Western propaganda that is pumped out in favour of the Zionist State and which demonises and marginalizes the Palestinian. I have looked beneath, smelled the stench and I must speak out. If we do not speak out then we are complicit. "When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie" ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Soviet dissident.
Copyright © by David Halpin. All Right Reserved.
