The Lancet Won’t Retract Anti-Israel Letter on Gaza Despite Authors’ Radical Ties
The Lancet will not retract a letter slamming Israeli policy in Gaza in light of evidence tying two of the authors to support for white supremacist David Duke.
The British medical journal’s editor, Dr. Richard Horton, dismissed evidence that two of the five authors of “An open letter for the people of Gaza,” published in the August issue, had distributed a video by Duke, according to The Telegraph. Horton called the revelations “utterly irrelevant” and “a smear campaign.”
The letter described Israel’s Gaza campaign as “a massacre” and “a ruthless assault.”
NGO Monitor, a media watchdog, unearthed emails of Dr. Paola Manduca, a geneticist at the University of Genoa, and Dr. Swee Ang, an orthopedic surgeon, forwarding a video titled “CNN, Goldman Sachs, and the Zio Matrix” in which Duke accuses Jewish banking, media and political figures of conspiring to create “an unholy tribal alliance.” Duke has had ties to the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups.
In her email, Ang writes, “This is shocking video please watch. This is not about Palestine — it is about all of us!”
Manduca also forwarded an article suggesting that a Jewish conspiracy may have been behind the Boston Marathon bombings.
In response to questions from the Telegraph, Manduca denied being anti-Semitic, but added, “I legitimately use my right of freedom of opinion and do not agree or value the politics of the government of Israel, nor of many others, including Jews in and out of Israel.”
Ang, in turn, told the Telegraph, “I didn’t know who David Duke was, or that he was connected to the Ku Klux Klan. I am concerned that if there is any truth in the video, that Jews control the media, politics and banking, what on earth is going on? I was worried.”
Lancet’s refusal to withdraw the letter in light of the new information has drawn condemnations from respected figures in the British medical establishment.
Mark Pepys, director of the Wolfson Drug Discovery Unit at University College London, wrote that “Horton’s behavior in this case is consistent with his longstanding and wholly inappropriate use of The Lancet as a vehicle for his own extreme political views,” according to the Telegraph.
Pepys added, “It has greatly detracted from the former high standing of the journal.”
Horton dismissed the criticism.
“I don’t honestly see what all this has to do with the Gaza letter,” he told the Telegraph. “I have no plans to retract the letter, and I would not retract the letter even if it was found to be substantiated.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
