The impending invasion of Gaza by Israel cannot be condoned on Health, Rights and Protection grounds. As a Professor at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, I am compelled to pro-offer a clear stance and solution to this new stage of the 35-year-old Israel-Hamas war. If I do not, I question my role at a $75 thousand a dollar year educational institution where we instructors by title and experience are to model the next way for our students: A brave, thoughtful, smart, and creative bunch. Public health by the way, is fundamentally how society safe guards the health of populations based on what we know to work using social pressure and law. The more complex the better
Health wise, the right policy for Gaza is not to for Israel to provide more time for 1.2 million civilians to migrate South along a critically injured pair of roads to a destination where there is no food and water. Nor is it to provide safe passage for UN aid and NGO workers and American Palestinians through Rafah which Egypt has closed. The right health policy is to exert all pressure to stop Israel’s invasion, full stop. The results of this choice will far exceed the effectiveness and efficiency of any other act 100-fold. One doesn’t need an academic to understand this. In contrast, the stated Israeli intention to send ground troops, starting in Northern Gaza, fails the most basic policy test, what we at NYU call a Public Health - Rights framework. This framework demands the following of all policies with impact to health and well being: 1) Be clear on the objectives, 2) Be able to reach stated objectives, 3) Appropriately target populations, and 4) under no circumstance, trample on unabrogable human rights of food, shelter, work and life. Since I cannot compel Q&A through writing, I would ask readers to contrast the current State: 1) Netanyahu is not clear regarding what level of force he will allow Israeli troops to use though he implies a blood bath. 2) Culling through millions of Palestinians will not destroy Hamas. Exhibit 1: Hamas leader Yayha Sinwar lives in Qatar. In fact, expected atrocities will likely only strengthen Hamas and its counterparts for generations. Exhibit 2: The 75-year Israel-Palestinian war 3) Preventable civilian causalities cannot be rationalized by the stupidity of governments. It would be like holding everyday Americans responsible for U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2004 for its connection to 911— Oops, and 4) The world cannot allow the innocent killing of women, children and fathers. At last count 1300 individuals were killed by Hamas terrorists last week. From Israel bombing of Hama there are now over 2700 Palestinians dead. This is the most basic stance any health professional can take let alone any father or mother must take. No past or future rationalizes murder of a child. In this scenario, we are all children.
I don’t allow students to debunk without solution. To start all Universities and their Departments must make a formal declaration against Israeli’s plans to invade Gaza. This of course will include Gaza’s reprehensible unjustified slaughter of innocents last week within Israeli settlements and at a dance concert, as context. The Biden administration should not provide any military aid to be used for the invasion. Such policy is hypocritical, even farcical against rhetoric on praying for Palestinian welfare within a predictable engineered humanitarian crisis. Universities can help students and faculty send strong unifed messages to both governmental branches. Finally, UN Secretary General Guterres condemnation of Israel’s impending invasion of Gaza on health grounds does not go far enough. He must leave UN troops and representatives in Northern Gaza-- if not join them-- to act as human shields. It would work. If the Institution founded to protect the world from the next WWII will not do this simple intervention, what can we do.
