By Fighting Words Staff
On May 18, 2024, the first conference of Doctors Against Genocide took place at the Dearborn Performing Arts Center, right outside the city of Detroit.
The event was organized by physicians, medical school professors and researchers to shed light on the genocide taking place in the Gaza Strip in Palestine.
The event attracted participants from the metropolitan Detroit area, nationally and internationally.
Several speakers noted the silence on the part of the American Medical Association (AMA) related to the crimes being committed in Gaza against healthcare workers and civilians. More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military since the Al-Aqsa flood on Oct. 7, 2023.
One panelist noted the sharp differences between the response to the beginning of the Russian Special Military Operations in Ukraine and the current situation in Palestine. With Ukraine, the AMA took immediate action in support of the United States government’s position. Contrastingly, in Gaza, the AMA has maintained “neutrality” and has discouraged its members from involving themselves in Palestine solidarity work.
One speaker at the event had recently been evacuated from Gaza where her family was able to cross into Egypt because her 12-year-old son held a U.S. passport.
The conference concluded with a dinner where Dr. Jill Stein, who was arrested in a Palestine solidarity encampment, delivered the keynote address. Stein is a physician and presidential candidate for the Green Party.
The genocide in Palestine has mobilized protests from people in various sectors of the labor force including physicians along with industrial workers, educators, social workers, professors, among others.
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