Physicians for Human Rights- Israel

The charity nominated for particular support by the Friends of St Andrew’s Jerusalem this year is Physicians for Human Rights- Israel. I was able to introduce their work at yesterday’s St Andrew’s day service because of their very helpful website. I particularly recommend you watch the short film about their work.

Homepage

Here’s what I said:

I don’t know the work of PHRI personally yet, but from what I have read, including the extract from their website which you will find in the order of service, it seems to me they exemplify non-violent resistance and how as individuals and communities of folk who share commitment to human rights and peace with justice we can do what we can, and how that little is multiplied and gives hope and new opportunity to so many.

Instead of busying themselves with practicing medicine in comfort, as they easily could, these Israeli volunteers challenge injustice in the courts, recently successfully overturning a new rule that said only people at end of life could leave Gaza for treatment, reverting to the status quo where cancer patients and others could, with difficulty, leave Gaza for treatment that may extend life or cure them.

They refuse to ignore the inequalities within the boundaries of Israel, where migrant workers, Bedouin, Arab Israelis, prisoners and detainees and people with no status would not have access to full medical care without their work.

They take their mobile clinics into the West Bank, bringing expertise and treatment to many who languish without it.

When I watched their video I was moved by the story of Iman Yassin whose deafness was diagnosed and a hearing aid fitted, and her young son, aged about 8 who wept as he told of the difference this made.

And then also there is the story of Issa Awad, wage earner for his family of 8, who had a leg amputated following gangrene but whose recovery really began when PHRI supplied a prosthetic limb for him.

The situation which was bad before has worsened because of the pandemic. In my first telephone conversation with the woman who is now my Arabic teacher, who lives in Bethlehem, she told me about how her husband, a lawyer has had to close his office and about her parents, both on many medications, who  cannot afford what they need. Vaccine inequalities and lockdown and the lack of international observers has made a bad situation much worse.

Many of you know the importance of a sympathetic witness, who holds the plumbline of justice. PHRI, in their commitment to human rights, medical ethics and social equality spotlight the reality of life under occupation. And you know that because of COVID the international witness has been greatly depleted over the past  2 years, making PHRI’s work more vital than ever.

I would invite you not only to make a personal donation to their work today, but to share their stories in all the forums you have, and to be inspired, wherever we find ourselves, by their courage and commitment to an alternative reality of justice and equality in the face of awful horror (a reference to the bible reading Mark 13: 1-11), of self-interested politicians and growing inequality and the increasingly obvious effects of climate injustice. PHRI challenge us to be ready to speak truth to power and to live out of an ethic of nonviolence, justice and peace for all.

Thank you.

Donations can be made to the Church of Scotland, account number 00134859, sort code 83-06-08 with Friends of St A as indicator of where the money is to go.