Scientists call on international group of medical students to reverse suspension of Israeli branch

Israeli student: The decision is based on “baseless and slanderous” accusations and “rumours”

Scientists from around the world are calling on the International Federation of Medical Student Associations to reverse a recent decision to close its Israel chapter.

The association, which represents more than 1.5 million medical students worldwide, voted to suspend the Federation of Israeli Medical Students for two years during its general assembly on August 6.

The Israeli group is accused of “threats against medical students, online harassment and hate speech,” according to a press release from the association.

The suspension does not mean the withdrawal of the group’s membership, and its representatives can continue to participate in the meetings of the international federation as observers, the press release said.

The association called for “respect” for its decision, adding that “any suggestion that FIMS has been removed from the IFMSA and/or silenced is misinformation.”

But Miri Shvimmer, a medical student and chair of the Israeli group, said in a statement that the suspension was based on “baseless and slanderous” allegations and “rumors.”

Shvimmer said some had also “raised the fact that members of the Israeli medical students’ organization serve in the Israeli military.”

In addition, her group only learned of the allegations ten minutes before the vote.

“When we had the opportunity to present our perspective, half of the delegates left the room, including many board members, and online participants could not hear our arguments because the live stream was paused,” Shvimmer said.

Doctors around the world are calling for the suspension to be lifted.

In an X-Post this week, University of Toronto professor emeritus Peter Singer called the vote a “terrible decision” that “delegitimises Israel by punishing medical students: the very young people needed to build a peaceful future for all.”

Singer, a former special adviser to the World Health Organization, said the association should “immediately” reverse the suspension because it was “biased and procedurally flawed.” He is not to be confused with the Princeton University philosophy professor emeritus of the same name.

Dr. Mark Silverberg, a gastroenterologist and professor at the University of Toronto, wrote on X that this will lead to “more division” and “hate.”

“And this starts in the earliest stages of medicine. In what other country are medical students treated like this?” Silverberg wrote.

In the USA, a representative of the medical organisation Do No Harm also condemned the vote.

“This is another example of widespread anti-Semitism in medicine, unprecedented and based on baseless accusations of ‘genocide’ and ‘occupation,'” senior fellow Dr. Jared Ross said in a statement Thursday.

Ross said his organization joins others in Israel, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg in calling for “a formal investigation into this blatant discrimination.”

Meanwhile, leading Israeli doctors are trying to reverse the decision, Israeli national news:

The chairman of the Israel Medical Association, Prof. Zion Hagai, is calling for the suspension to be lifted.

The decision can only be repealed by a two-thirds majority at the General Assembly of the Association, which will be held in August 2025 of the following year and in August 2026 of the following year.

Health Minister Uriel Busso responded: “This outrageous decision is a disgrace for the medical world. It is a political decision without any factual basis and contrary to all moral and ethical principles, which gives rise to terrorist organizations. I intend to work with all relevant parties to reverse this serious decision.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group based in Los Angeles, said the students were being punished for an alleged crime by their government – one it did not commit.

Meanwhile, the association remains silent on “actual genocides being committed by other governments,” including China, “which is actively destroying Uighur culture,” Cooper said in a statement this week.

Nor has the association “suspended medical students from Iran, whose national policy is the destruction of Israel,” he said.

MORE: Harvard medical and dental students complain that school censored anti-Israel ‘welcome video’

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