Section:OBS 2N PaGe:10 Edition Date:190804 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/8/2019 18:29 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Observer
10 04.08.19 News
Politics
Even after a decade’s experience as a
doctor in confl ict and disaster zones,
Rosena Allin-Khan was appalled at
the sight of sick and dying children
separated from their parents when
she visited hospitals in Jerusalem and
the West Bank earlier this year.
“I saw wards full of children with
the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen,” the
Labour MP told the Observer. “I met
children undergoing chemotherapy
without their parents to support them.
In a neonatal unit I saw a baby, the
only survivor of premature triplets,
whose siblings had died without their
mother being able to hold them. I
thought, this is wrong; it’s inhumane.”
She had gone to Israel not as a
politician but “with my doctor’s hat
on”, to investigate the availability
of healthcare for Palestinians, par-
ticularly those living in Gaza, fromwhere travel is strictly controlled by
the Israeli government.
When she returned to the UK, she
decided to use her weight as an MP
to pursue the issue. She wrote to
Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary,
urging the government to “lean on
Israeli authorities to overhaul this
inhumane system of deterrence and
restricted access to healthcare”.
She went on the Today programme
to talk about the diffi culties faced by
parents of sick children in Gaza in
getting permits to travel to visit them
in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK,
Sharon Bar-Li, also appeared on the
programme. She invited Allin-Khan to
continue their discussion at a meet-
ing at the embassy.
After that meeting Allin-Khan
tweeted: “It was a pleasure to meet@SharonBarli again at the Israeli
Embassy to continue our constructive
discussions about access to health-
care for Palestinians. I look forward to
continuing to work together on such
crucial humanitarian issues.”
And that’s when it all kicked off.
“The pushback was just horrifi c,
unlike anything I have ever expe-
rienced,” said Allin-Khan. “I didn’t
anticipate a backlash of this natureat all. I was genuinely astonished, and
deeply disappointed, at this unleash-
ing of antisemitic abuse on Twitter.”
The tweets included accusations
that she was a “direct collaborator
in apartheid” for having held talks
with Israeli diplomats, and of having
been “bought by the Zionists for a bag
of silver and a duplex in Marbella”.
One said: “Disgusting. Collaboration
with occupiers and oppressors.
Shameless.”
Allin-Khan responded with a
Twitter thread on antisemitism,
explaining the background to her
meeting. She wrote: “Instead of sup-
porting my work, those purporting
to support the Palestinian cause have
spouted horrible antisemitic abuse ...
these views are abhorrent – but also
misguided and ill-informed.
“This behaviour does nothing toInterview
‘I was called a Zionist collaborator for
trying to help sick Palestinian children’
Emergency doctor and
MP Rosena Allin-Khan
tells Harriet Sherwood
how meeting an Israeli
envoy to discuss Gaza
and West Bank hospital
care led to a torrent of
antisemitic abuse‘I have criticised
human rights abuses
in Bahrain, but that
doesn’t make me
Islamophobic’
Rosena Allin-Khan, MP
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