Last month, Dr Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet medical journal, took the stage at the Rambam hospital in Haifa in an apparently contrite mood. The visit – his first to the Jewish state – was to allow him to extend an olive branch to his Israeli peers, after his journal published an "open letter for the people of Gaza" that had provoked widespread outrage.
The letter, composed by five senior doctors and signed by 24, laid the entirety of the blame for the Gaza conflict at Israel's door. "People in Gaza are resisting this aggression because they want a better and normal life," it said. "Under the pretext of eliminating terrorism, Israel is trying to destroy the growing Palestinian unity." Although the letter ran to some 500 words, no mention was made of Hamas' rocket attacks.
To make matters worse, in the days before Dr Horton's visit, I had revealed in the Daily Telegraph that the letter had been written by two people, Dr Paola Manduca and Dr Swee Ang, who had used the internet to spread an anti-Semitic video rant by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard.
In the video, Duke claimed that "the Zionist Matrix of Power controls the Media, Politics and Banking", and that "some of the Jewish elite practices racism and tribalism to advance their supremacist agenda".
All of this had led the audience at Rambam hospital to expect a full and unreserved apology from Dr Horton. Instead, however, Dr Horton merely apologised for the "unnecessary polarisation" that the letter had caused, and said that he "deeply regret[ted] that result". He failed to retract the letter or apologise for its publication. It remains on the Lancet website.
There is now a growing petition to dismiss him
To register their dismay, a number of senior doctors resigned from advisory boards of the Lancet. Many others declared a boycott of every title produced by Elsevier, the publishing company that owns the journal.
The layman might assume that the Lancet focuses exclusively on matters of medicine and science. But many medical professionals see this controversy as just the latest expression of the Lancet's longstanding antipathy towards Israel.
Over the last 15 years, a number of alliances have been formed between the journal and Palestinian groups, including the Lancet-Palestinian Health Alliance, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. In January, the journal launched the Lancet Arab World Series.
By contrast, no such collaborations have existed between the journal and Israeli institutions (although in Haifa, Dr Horton tried to quell the controversy by announcing that the Lancet would do so in future).
Dr Horton himself is a long-standing supporter of the Palestinians, declaring a "personal commitment to return annually" to the Palestinian territories in 2007. In March, speaking at the fifth Lancet-Palestinian Health Alliance conference in Jordan, he described the Palestinians as "living a caged existence", and said that "we want to hold all parties accountable for the massive suffering we see."
He has frequently been associated with the Left, sometimes the radical Left. At a rally organised by the Stop The War Coalition in 2006, he made a rousing speech criticising "this axis of Anglo-American imperialism [which] extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes".
Because of this, a growing petition for Dr Horton's dismissal states that "there is sufficient evidence that Mr Horton has abused his position as Editor-in-Chief of the Lancet to advance his own political agenda."
The furore over the Gaza letter has provoked a range of responses from the people concerned. For his part, David Duke was delighted. "The latest group of people to join the ranks of those who have broken the chains of Zionist censorship have been a brave group of medical professionals," he wrote on his blog.
The authors of the letter defended themselves vigorously; Dr Manduca said that sharing the anti-Semitic video was her right as "freedom of expression", and pointed out that she does not "value the politics of the government of Israel, nor of many others, including Jews in and out of Israel."
As for Dr Horton, he elected to visit Israel and try to calm the situation. But until he issues a fuller apology and removes the Gaza letter from the Lancet's website, it is likely that calls for his resignation will only grow louder.
