The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here in The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. And what’s not great or good nor acceptable is what’s happening in Gaza is what Israel is carrying out in the Gaza Strip and the utter devastation of the entire world. As of this broadcast, 72,000 people have been killed. Among them, over 20,000 children, over 171,000 have been wounded, maimed, or crippled. And countless numbers lie still under the rubble. It is devastation of unimaginable proportions. Let me add this, that in Israel itself, over three quarters of a million people have demonstrated in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to demand the end of the war in Gaza. And today we bring you a conversation with three Palestinian doctors. We’ll talk with us about what’s happening in Gaza, what’s being done to stand up to it, how to end this war, and what’s happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Our guests are the founders of Doctors Against Genocide, commonly known as DAG. Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle is co-founder of DAG and a pediatric neurologist in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Nidal Jboor is co-founder of DAG and an internist in Dearborn, Michigan. And Dr. Maysa Hawwash, also co-founder of DAG is the founder and CEO of ScaleX. All of them are on the canary list, which means they’re targeted by Israel because of their activism being accused of antisemitism, and none of them are antisemitic. So I want to just say once again, welcome to the program. It’s a pleasure to have you all with us. I think one of the things I’ve been reading and following what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank, I think people don’t really, they see pictures but don’t have a sense, especially in terms of health and medicine, how dire the situation is in Gaza and how people are just dying from lack of care and lack of food. And I know that you all are not in Gaza, but I want to really get a sense as Palestinian Canadians, Palestinian Americans as physicians, as people who are fighting for justice in the end to the occupations. Talk a bit about what the conditions are like.

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

Thank you for this question. Yes, this genocide has been a public health crisis and the dimensions of the devastation of health and healthcare has been enormous. Just quick headlines right now, Gaza has the largest cohort of children’s who are amputees. That’s the largest. And the reason a lot of people in Gaza are amputees who become disabled to a very significant degree is because of obviously the bombing campaign that Israel carried on with support from the American taxpayers. Unfortunately, there is also the devastation of the medical infrastructure and the hospitals did not allow the doctors to save limbs and save lives. Many children bled from their lymphs who were injured. The doctors could not fix the bleed by doing vascular surgery, so they had to amputate.

A lot of the amputees needed several amputation because of multiple infections. So when you practice medicine in a hospital and you do not have basic medical equipment and basic medical supplies, the results are dismal. So it’s a combination of trauma and lack of medical care. That’s just the amputees add to that, the maternal health and the neonatal health, where 70% of women suffer from malnutrition who are pregnant, and that leads them to have premature birth with a multitude of medical conditions that arise from having malnutrition and having poor medical care, poor prenatal care. And this is just the medical, we did not even get into the actual results of being pulled from the rubble or being a victim of a bombardment campaign, being exposed to severe hypothermia, being exposed to infections that cannot be treated because of lack of antibiotics. So the layers are multiple and it’s just one thing leads to another.

Marc Steiner:

I think what you’re describing, I think you also chime in on this as well, is something people don’t understand. I think you see the headlines, you see stories, but not really understand the horrendous nature of what’s happening inside Gaza at this moment. I think it’s just something that people don’t grasp at all. So let me just ask you all to jump in. Dr. Hawwash and Dr. Nidal.

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

Thank you so much. You’re right. It’s really difficult to comprehend what’s happening in Palestine, specifically in Gaza right now. And I think one of the main important points that we keep trying to drive every time we engage with the audience, our followers, or through our webinars, is that what is happening today is a systemic attack on healthcare and every aspect of Palestinian life. And I think it should be seen in that context as a systemic destruction of all means that allow Palestinians to live. What we’ve seen, what Karameh mentioned in terms of mortality rates and morbidity rates, facility destruction is all part of this systemic destruction. For example, the entire healthcare system in Gaza has been destroyed. Every hospital in Gaza has been attacked, destroyed the ICUs, neonatal ICUs, operating theaters, everything has been destroyed. The workforce in the healthcare was 1700 doctors and healthcare workers killed and several hundred detained illegally.

As well as when I was in the West Bank, I was really shocked to learn that not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank, there is a massive list of zero stock medication. And that’s just one way of understanding what the systemic attack on healthcare is right now. Israel controls all the finance, all the money that goes into or out of Palestine is controlled by Israel. So for example, the Ministry of Health in the West Bank, they have a deficit of over a billion dollars, which means that they cannot afford medication in their primary health clinics. So what does that mean? That means that chemotherapy drugs are not available. The antibiotics that are needed, especially now, right in the winter, in the flu season, the cold season is not available. Cardiovascular, hypertensive medications, insulin, diabetic supplies, all these medications are not available. So it’s very important to understand that what is happening is not just the story of numbers of people killed by direct assault, but it’s actually a systemic attack on life itself and the longevity of life for the Palestinian people.

Marc Steiner:

So I’m going to be absolutely clear about what you just said as well for people listening to us at the moment, is that Israel is not allowing medicines, pharmaceuticals, other surgical needs to be taken to the hospitals in either Gaza or the West Bank.

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

In the West Bank, the Ministry of Health has a deficit, so a dollar deficit. So if you’re a ministry of health, you need money to pay for medication to supply your primary healthcare and your hospital. So when you don’t have the money, then you cannot pay for medication and you cannot pay for salaries. You have healthcare workers who haven’t received their full salary for months. And so you have a shortage in not only medication, but in workforce and in resources in general. And that’s the West Bank. It’s even worse because not only are you inhibiting and preventing the money from flowing in, but also the supplies, we’ve all seen those trucks sitting at the border not being allowed in the medical supplies, equipment, medication. So you’re talking about a hundred times worse than the West Bank. And the West Bank, to me was shocking that there are no medications in public healthcare clinics in the West Bank

Marc Steiner:

Would you like to add that Nidal?

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

Yeah, yeah, thank you. So regarding the situation in the West Bank, why is there no money? Why doesn’t the PA has enough budget to pay for this medication? It’s because Israel is withholding the Palestinian taxes according to the agreement that they had with Oslo, that all the goods that come to Palestine come through Israel, and Israel takes off the taxes off these goods, and after that, they will pay it to the Palestinian authority. And the last two, three years, Israel have been withholding this money. So the Palestinian Authority has been functioning for two, three years now on zero budget. As any government in the world, the way to pay for salaries for your employees, for the healthcare sector, for the education sector to buy medication is to have the money from the taxes, your own taxes. So as a way of punishment to the Palestinians as a way of sating their economy and force them to leave their country is they’re withholding the money under direct orders from the Israeli finance minister.

That’s why, as Maysa mentioned, they’re not able to buy the basic medications for their patients. They’re not able to pay salaries for their healthcare workers, for the nurses, for the doctors, the teachers, and everyone else is like three months behind and they’re only getting fraction of their salary. And Gaza, the situation is even worse. They’re directly preventing any medication from going into Gaza. They’re even preventing baby formula. Even a few doctors who went to Gaza admissions, a few of our colleagues tried to take with them few bottles of baby formula. They were all confiscated at the border and they were not allowed to get them in. They always accused the NGOs or anyone else who wants to get some help in ine like these can be dual use. What is the dual use for a baby formula? What is the dual use for an antibiotic?

What is the dual use for anesthesia medications? These are all manufactured excuses that Israel comes up with as part of their extermination campaign against the Palestinians. And unfortunately because the United States and the rest of the world allows this, Israel continues to impose these sanctions on the Palestinians. And because they have never been punished every few weeks, they come up with something even worse. Started with bombing, then starvation, then displacement. Now the weather in Gaza this year has been one of the harshest winters in the recent decades. And many people are dying now and babies are freezing to death because they have no home, they have no shelter, they have no heating. Our kids in the hospitals are receiving babies, elderly people who are coming to them frozen to death just because of the situation that Israel created making Gaza uninhabitable as part of the full extermination campaign. They want to get rid of the people by every means possible if those they could not kill by bombing, they want to kill them indirectly by lack of healthcare access, lack of medication, lack of food, and now using the weather as a weapon of genocide and extermination.

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

One additional

Marc Steiner:

Please go ahead.

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

Yes,

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

Anecdote here. It has been a very cold winter actually in the West Bank and in Gaza Yesterday I learned from my brother actually who lives in the West Bank that you cannot get propane gas in a big city like Nablus. That’s 350,000 people. And of course, because Israel controls the supply and to get into and out of every city in the West Bank, now we have to go through checkpoints. So a city like Nablus has five checkpoints and then you can shut these checkpoints overnight and literally, technically speaking, you can start a city of 350,000 people in less than a week. So now there is a shortage of gas and it’s freezing cold in a city like Nablus, but nobody’s talking about it. So this is just one example of what systemic genocide looks like.

Marc Steiner:

What you’re saying is Israel is not allowing any propane into the West Bank during the winter for people to keep their homes safe and warm.

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

Yeah, my brother has been trying to get a propane tank into the house for the last three days, unsuccessfully very small supply, and it’s obviously lineups for hours and hours and days and people are not able to get it, and that’s one of the largest cities in the West Bank.

Marc Steiner:

I also understand as doctors against genocide that you meet regularly four or five hours for a meeting with doctors and others. If that’s what I heard, I’d like to talk about that and how you go about your work of healthcare not being allowed in and addressing that both in the West Bank and Gaza.

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

So Doctors Against Genocide is an organization that has a mission, which is to mobilize the medical community in opposition of war crimes against humanity and genocide. Our work has three branches. We are an educational organization, we are advocacy organization, and we are a humanitarian aid organization. So the way we mobilize our colleagues is by education and by engaging them with advocacy. So our webinars that are quite long are focused on education, but the communities that suffer from genocide, we made a commitment not to turn our faces away from any community that suffers. So every weekend on Sunday at noon, we invite many of our colleagues in Gaza to speak and tell us about what is happening. We are in touch with them on daily basis and we know the needs and what is happening minute by minute, literally. We also have colleagues in Congo, colleagues in Sudan, colleagues in Rohingya, international law experts, genocide scholars, and our webinars serve as a reminder that our mission as medical professionals is to protect life and to not turn away when people are in need.

So in abstract, what we try to do every Sunday, in reality, it’s really a bearing witness and identifying ways to be helpful in the areas where we are in touch with. And once we identify a group of medical doctors who want to open a medical point or who first responders who are trying to help people, we work with the communities to identify the best way to help them financially and to support their efforts. Any life that is saved by aid for us is something that we cannot give up on. So we try our best to come up with resources for our colleagues to be able to continue to do their work and continue to save lives and continue to be open for their patients and open for the wounded, the injured and the needy.

Marc Steiner:

So as you were speaking, Karameh, I was thinking one of the many things that popped in my head was, and Maysa, I’ll turn to you, maybe you can answer this. When you have these conversations with doctors and healthcare workers from around the world, are any of them from Israel?

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

No. I mean, we’re sad to report that the Israeli medical community have been complicit in this genocide. Actually, many we’re talking about, hundreds of Israelis did sign letters to their government to ask them to bomb the hospitals in Gaza, except for very few voices here and there. The Israeli community and the Israeli Medical Association never said any word against this genocide against the mass slaughter of babies and children of civilians, which does not really encourage us to get them on board. We would love that they do get involved and whenever they decide to do so, the perpetrator here is their own government. They should direct their intervention or ask or statements to their government. They are there and they do have the capability to intervene and to make a difference if they really want to be on the right side of history and if they want to uphold their real ethics and moral obligation of being a doctor to advocate for life and against the preventable and needless loss of lives.

So we are very disappointed with the Israeli medical community. And so far we did not hear any voice from Israel that is denouncing this genocide that’s been going on for two years. We think somehow they are benefiting from the ongoing situation. We think that they are failing their profession, they’re failing their moral obligation. And as you mentioned before regarding why we do this, because this is our job. We don’t think that what we’re doing now is separate from medicine. What we are doing, talking to you now with our webinars, talking to doctors, raising awareness about these crimes that are happening all over the world, especially in Gaza, in Sudan and Congo is a medical intervention to raise awareness, to protect life, to prevent the loss of life, practicing medicine or going to school. You swear an oath to protect life. And there are many ways to protect life other than seeing patients in the hospital or the clinic or doing sutures, one of them. And I think we can save more lives as a medical community if we raise awareness about these crimes all over the world and try to prevent these crisis from escalating, try to find pressure for peaceful resolution for these conflicts

Before they reach into mass slaughter and mass loss of life. So this is medicine we’re working and although it’s not paid for, but this is our moral obligation, professional obligation to do so.

Marc Steiner:

And I understand the work you’re doing is really intense. I’m very interested in some points here and mea, I’ll turn back to you for a moment. You have been on Capitol Hill, you’ve been arrested on Capitol Hill pushing, and I think that’s important to describe how that happens if people can be involved and exactly what goes on there.

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

Yes. So I mean, I want to go back to the one point in terms of really the core of what we do, just to ask,

Marc Steiner:

Oh, please do. Yes, please. Was

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

Saying, and part of the reason why we do not engage with the Israeli medical communities is that our job is to center the voices of the victims of genocide. And that’s always been our guiding principle is that we want the source of the truth to come from the people themselves. And that’s what we’ve done consistently. And this is part of the reason why we’ve grown so much in the past years. Sadly, we have grown a lot because genocides continue to escalate and happen. And so part of that centering the voices is to use ourselves as a conduit to bring these voices, like you said, to Capitol Hill, to Department Hill in Canada, and to be a constant presence in these platforms to bring these voices forward. And I don’t want to make a big deal out of the arrest because the arrest was unfortunate, but of course, sometimes the police decides to arrest doctors in white coats and they think that’s a good idea.

But really the issue here is not that we got arrested, this is not really a big deal. But then the main issue here is to continue to be a constant presence to bring these voices forward and to advocate. And in some cases we’ve been successful, for example, putting pressure on a Congress person to make a statement publicly, for example, about the starvation or about the freezing cold. And we’ve been successful in some cases, but we are dealing with a very complicit political system. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop us from going there consistently and bringing these voices forward and bringing more doctors forward. And every time we go to the hill, there’s more doctors and more healthcare workers joining us because people are sick from seeing genocide. Literally. People are sick from feeling disempowered and powerless against this atrocity. And one of the ways of dealing with this sickness is to actually be vocal and to advocate and to bring our voices and bodies to bear witness together. So that’s why we do it and that’s why we keep doing it every week, every month.

Marc Steiner:

So how do you recruit for and bring people into doctors against Genocide? I’m interested in kind of the organizing that goes on and how you stand up. I mean, I know physicians here where I live and across the country who are Palestinian, who are Jewish Americans who would be involved and would want to be involved. So I’m curious how you go about organizing doctors against genocide and how you bring them in and then how you push that agenda.

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

So when we started Doctors Against Genocide, there was a handful of us and we quickly grew because we do focus on meeting in person and building the relationship in person. So our events, when we go to the Hill, we know everyone in person. Our webinars also help us spread the word. Every medical professional who cares about their oath and who is not willing to look away from people who are suffering joins us. So the people that are members of Doctors, again genocide, I can attest that they have the highest moral compass. And because we care about life and we care about preventing suffering, the mission is inspiring. So people join us by sometimes sending us emails on our website, sometimes joining us on the hill, sometimes attending our conference or attending our talks when we go to talks. And we grew relatively fast, just like Maysa said, because the situation in the world, we are at a very low point internationally. There’s a lot of wrong that is going on, and the medical community is in a good spot to be able to reverse the course. The medical community is a very large community and they are entrusted with protecting life and they’re interested with preserving health. And we are seeing the military industrial complex and the complicit politicians do everything in their power to healthify people. So we hope more and more people will join us, and the majority of the medical professionals will be proudly doctors against genocide.

Marc Steiner:

The three of you as physicians who are Palestinian Americans are pushing this, but Doctors against Genocide is a much broader group. Is that right?

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

A hundred percent. Our mission is not rooted in ethnicity, is not rooted in religion or gender or political affiliation. It is rooted in the protection of life and being opposed to killing genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and anything that puts people and communities at risk.

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

Basically, since this genocide starts, we have been on call 24/7, and we think what we do as medicine, what we’re trying here, is to bring medicine to its real core and soul, which is to defend life, wherever life is being threatened, whether it’s here in the United States, whether in Canada, whether in Palestine, Congo, anywhere in the world, because that is the true meaning of medicine. When politicians fail humanity, when politicians fail the children, when governments, when institutions, international organizations fail humanity, there is a saying that the doctors are the last defense line for life and they are the lawyers of the poor. So this is our core mission is to want to bring the real core of medicine, the real soul of medicine. We want to bring the medicine that has been industrialized, that has been monetized into its real core mission of really being about protecting life rather than just being about money.

And we don’t really recruit, we don’t like even use the terms of business in this. We’re not recruiting. We’re reminding doctors, we’re reminding human beings, people of good conscience all over the world, that this is their job, this is their authority. The people need to take care of each other. We need to protect each other. And among all of these, those working in the health community should be the first one to stand up and to join us. And everyone is welcome, whoever they are, as long as we share this mission. And although we’re Palestinians or we’re hurting more from what’s happening in Palestine and what’s happening, Palestine has been the most intense and maybe in our lifetimes. But this mission is global. It’s about life. It’s about our universal humanity, about rediscovering ourselves, our mission, our profession. And many, many people are inspired by this. We of course, we want more because the healthcare community, as Karameh mentioned in every country, is a very powerful community. And if we really mobilize in numbers, we can pressure any government to do the right thing. We’re not asking for miracles. We’re not asking for them to go rediscover the planet, just do the right thing. Stop killing people, stop putting people in danger wherever they are.

Marc Steiner:

Maysa, you want to leave you out for the final word here?

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

Not much to add, to be honest. I think it is being consistent in our mission that has allowed us to grow so much. And what Nadal Karama said is that we’re focused on healthcare preserving life, and it’s really important to remind people of the core of what we’re here to do. It’s really not about numbers for us, it’s about impact. And we find that by being true to our mission always, that has allowed us to not recruit, but to be surrounded by amazing advocates. And we’re seeing the doctors do amazing things, the way they tell the stories, the way they advocate within their institutions, and then they share the testimonies from Gaza or Congo or Sudan or other areas. It has been very impactful. And it is sooner or later we are going to be changing institutions. I know that it’s still a very capitalistic world that we live in that is based on profits maximization, but eventually we have to prevail that the humanity has to prevail. And that’s really what we’re here to do. It’s a massive change, but it starts with being consistent and true to our mission and to our core values. And I think that’s why we are, sadly, we are growing. I keep saying sadly, because

We would’ve loved to not exist at all. But the problem is our governments are all complicit and we need a different system.

Marc Steiner:

I mean, you go back, everything you all have said to the real basis of the Hippocratic Oath and the need for a society not just built on profit and greed. And I think that I really do want to conclude this final thought thing is back to Gaza, because I think what you described, most people see the headlines, they read the articles, maybe they watch something here and there, but they have no idea of the utter devastation and death it’s taking place inside Gaza. And I’ve covered things for the last 40 years, and this is among the worst that’s happened anywhere on the planet, I think, in terms of what’s happening in this teeny tiny place with all these people crammed in the middle, being blown apart physically. So if any of you would like a final thought on that, and also we are going to tell people how to contact doctors against genocide so they can contribute, do what you need to do to participate in this. But just to talk a bit about, I want people to understand, again, the depth of deprivation that’s going on and what you all are doing to address that.

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

So I want to just remind people that this is the first genocide in history that’s been live streamed 24/7 from of the whole world for more than 800 days, more than two years now. And just to tell people, I think many of them already know, but tell them how bad is it? Imagine yourself being at home in your house or in a school and being bombed by a 2000 American made bump destroying the whole neighborhood. Imagine yourself even if you survive bullying your children in pieces from under the rubble trying to collect their pieces, their head, their arms, their legs into a grocery bag. We are lucky, many of our colleagues and the medical students still have their families under the rubble for more than a year. And they continued their study, they continued to care, they continued their work despite their fathers. Their mothers continued to be under the rubble and they could not get them out because they don’t have the tools to get them out.

And because they’re still in a survival mode trying to run for life. Imagine yourself going to bed at night in a tent when it’s zero degrees outside and you have nothing to heat the tent for your kids. And imagine your kids going to sleep without food and screaming from hunger, and you’re trying to lie to them to buy time and tell them, I’ll try to get you something tomorrow. Let’s just manage tonight. And tomorrow comes. And the same story happens. Imagine yourself living in a world where your children died, literally die because of malnutrition and starvation, or because they lack a simple antibiotic. Or you wake up one night that what’s happening now when your baby or your child or your mother is frozen to death because they’re left out in the cold, turn apart, tents that does not really protect you from this extreme weather.

This is the story of more than 2 million people. And it has been broadcasted live streamed in front of all of us by the victims and by the perpetrators. The perpetrators themselves are documenting and sharing their crimes with us. So we really have no excuse. No one has an excuse that they did not know or they did not see. And especially if you are a healthcare worker or a doctor, this puts more obligation and more responsibility on your speak up to act, to mobilize, to do everything you can, can be a simple thing, can be a big thing. Whatever you are comfortable with, join us and let’s do it together, create a better world for all of us.

Dr. Maysa Hawwash:

One of the thoughts that I keep coming back to is, like Nidal said, this has been live streamed so everybody knows what’s going on. It has been abundantly clear that what’s happening is a genocide. One of the ways that I feel it really scares me, the idea that people are starting could potentially start to normalize something as horrible as a genocide. And the responsibility that we each bear within us is not to just watch horror and consume this massive amount of terrifying footage of children blown up to pieces and starving families and displaced humans, but to actually take action and that to remind people that just because we watch and maybe cry a little bit, that’s not enough. That’s not going to get us to a better world. And as we are seeing that, yes, it started in a genocide, but what we’re seeing in the US today with ice and all the oppression and the fascism that’s growing everywhere in the world, that is the direct result of not only complicity but silence and allowing ourselves to normalize something as horrific as genocide. So my closing thoughts are to never, ever allow any of us to normalize genocide because the cost of that is lost humanity. And I don’t think we can afford as a human race to get there. And we’re seeing the signs everywhere in the world right now. So I’m hoping that people will continue to take action and keep challenging themselves to do better.

Marc Steiner:

I want to thank the three of you so much for the work you’re doing. We will connect to your website and we’ll continue our conversations together with you and others in Gaza and keep this in front of people. And I thank you for your work. We all have to stand up to this together.

Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having us and for your time.

Dr. Nidal Jboor:

Thank you for having us. Really appreciate. Thank you

Marc Steiner:

Once again. I want to thank our guests for being with us today, Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, Dr. Nidal Jboor, and Dr. Maysa Hawwash. And thanks David Hebden for running the program at our audio editor, Stephen Frank, for working his magic and producer Rosette Sewali for bringing us these guests and make it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here through our news for making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. And once again, thank you to our guests for joining us and for the incredibly important work that they do. So for the crew at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved. Keep listening, and take care.