Dozens of medical workers protested at a meeting of the American Medical Association's board of directors on Sunday, urging the organization to renew its call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
This is the fourth protest by Chicago Health Workers for Palestine at the health association's River North office since October 2023, and was held in parallel with a weekly vigil late last year.
Speakers denounced “double standards” in the group's response to Gaza compared to its response to the war in Ukraine. They cited the group's call for a ceasefire after the start of the war in Ukraine, in addition to $100,000 in aid funding to Ukraine to support humanitarian efforts there, and similar funding since the conflict began in Gaza. He pointed out that there was no statement.
Tarek Yakub, a child and adolescent psychologist at Lurie Children's Hospital, said that while he personally supports efforts to help Ukraine, there should be no difference in the organization's response to health care workers killed in the conflict. Stated.
“The AMA was absolutely right to issue a statement regarding Ukraine,” Yakub said. “What we are angry about is the hypocrisy and the contradiction of whose lives are worth protecting and which health care workers are more deserving of memorialization.”
AMA did not respond to requests for comment.
Yaqub, who is of Palestinian descent, said Islamophobia plays a role in this discrepancy, as it makes it easier for the general public to ignore people with whom they have less empathy, in addition to other cultural and institutional biases.
“Islamophobia and the policies that stem from it are manifest here,” Yaqub said. “When you reach a group of people with such a message, it becomes easy to become desensitized to their suffering and to attribute this suffering to their perceived backwardness. ”
He said the group had no intention of resorting to protests, but after filing a motion with the AMA's governing body and requesting a panel and meeting with the AMA's board, it was left with no other option.
Yakub said there was some hope about how the conversation had changed after an Israeli missile attack killed seven World Central Kitchen staff, but the world's attention was once again on those who lost their lives in Gaza. He said he was disappointed that it took the death of a foreign aid worker to get the group together. .
“We are not really asking the AMA to take a marginal position, we are asking them to follow their morals,” Yaqub said. “This is a real opportunity to participate in the political process, and we hope it will lead to real change where all lives are valued.”
