This news has been reported by several sources, including among others Reuters, the Deutsche Welle, and The Daily Mail. According to those sources, a 28 year old Palestinian, working as a nurse for Doctors Without Borders (DWB, or MSF if you use the parent-organization French name, Médecins Sans Frontières), was killed by Israeli soldiers while allegedly opening fire at them and throwing grenades. (I will take these reports as true until I learn otherwise.)
According to Reuters, al-Majdalawi might have been acting as a lone wolf:
The organization later confirmed in a statement that Majdalawi had been killed but did not elaborate.
“MSF is working to verify and understand the circumstances regarding this extremely serious incident, and is not able to comment further at this stage,” it said.
Its website says the group runs three burns and trauma centers in Gaza, whose Islamist Hamas rulers have fought three wars against Israel in the last decade.
Gaza authorities did not confirm Majdalawi’s death, saying that would require having his body, which they believed was being held by Israel. The Israeli military said it could not immediately confirm this.
No armed Palestinian factions claimed Majdalawi as a member.
Responding to Israeli media reports on Majdalawi’s killing, his brother, Osama, described the married 28-year-old on Facebook as a “martyr” who had “bought the weapon with his own money” and acted “completely independently”.
Now this can’t be laid directly at the door of DWB—except that the organization has long had an anti-Israel policy, even implying that Israel shouldn’t exist. It’s repeatedly taken sides with Palestine against Israel and made excuses for Palestinian terror attacks against Israel. Read this article in The Forward (of course it may be biased, but do your own investigation and note that the author links to the “explanation” of the Executive director of MSF). Click on the screenshot to read:
An excerpt (my emphasis):
On June 30, 2016, Jason Cone, Executive Director of Medecins Sans Frontiers-USA (MSF-USA, Doctors Without Borders) attempted to defend his organization from scrutiny over its politicized, anti-Israel bias. He did so through a strawman argument, claiming that his organization was being falsely accused of antisemitism. In this way, Cone deflected attention from the larger issue, namely, that it is wholly inappropriate for a humanitarian organization such as MSF, to assume a one-sided politicized agenda on a complex, multi-faceted issue like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Along with his colleagues, he has adopted a narrow understanding of this protracted conflict and has decided to agitate against Israel, while embracing the worst of Palestinian extremism.
Under Cone and others, MSF’s various branches have vacillated between ignoring Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians, and seeming to justify or celebrate it, as in the MSF-France online, interactive exhibition, “In Between Wars.” Described by the head of MSF-USA as “depicting the humanitarian hardships Palestinians face,” the presentation serves as a showcase for virulent anti-Israel propaganda.
While purporting to present Palestinian life in the West Bank and Gaza, the exhibition parrots the “Nakba” narrative that views the founding of the State of Israel as a catastrophe, delegitimizing the very existence of the Jewish state. Worse, MSF glamorizes deadly Palestinian violence by referring to images of “armed soldiers face[ing] young stone throwers or Molotov cocktails” as “icons symbolizing the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation.” Similarly, one of the exhibits displays the living rooms of Palestinian homes, identifying them as a place to pay tribute to “martyrs”—a term that whitewashes the murderous terror attacks many carried out against innocent civilians. This sympathetic portrayal of Palestinian violence led Roger Cukierman, head of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, to condemn the display as “an apology for terrorism” and warn “that [it] could inflame antisemitic violence.”
. . . Jason Cone’s own July 7, 2015, opinion piece contributed to this demonization by presenting Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli civilians as being “called acts of resistance on one side and terrorism on the other.” Furthermore, he mentioned a rise in “Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians (mostly settlers),” suggesting that some terrorist attacks are more acceptable than others.
Yes, the “terrorism” is all by Israelis, and attempted killing of Israeli civilians by Palestinians is simply “resistance.” For further articles along these lines, see here, here, and here. (For MSF’s response, see here.)
Now I am not an unalloyed supporter of Israel. Their settlement policy is deeply problematic, and Netanyahu seems recalcitrant to consider what I favor: a two-state solution. On the other hand, the Palestinians are also making a two-state solution impossible, and, indeed, I don’t think Hamas—who control Gaza and whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel—wants that solution. They want Israel gone completely. I despair of such a solution ever occurring; but realize that it’s been largely the fault of the Palestinians. Since 1937, they have turned down offers of sharing land with Israel as separate states seven times, and for a long period even refused to negotiate. In contrast, Israel has never rejected either negotiation or the “accords” that were worked out since the late 1980s.
In terms of which state is acting more ethically, I think it’s Israel, as Palestinians use human shields, regularly and directly target Israeli civilians, and engage in repeated acts of terrorism against civilians. In my view, the Palestinians, with the collusion of Western media, have painted themselves as guiltless victims at the same time they preach anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred in their schools and state media. If there’s an “apartheid state”, it’s Palestine.
By taking sides with a terrorist state, MSF is violating its own dictates to perform humanitarian action without regards to politics. When Kelly Houle and I auctioned off my multi-autographed version of Why Evolution is True on eBay, we donated the entire $10,000+ to Doctors Without Borders. And I put them in my will, scheduled to get a lot of money when I die.
No longer. I have a multi-autographed version of Faith versus Fact that I’ll also auction off for charity. But the money won’t be going to Doctors Without Borders: I’ll find another organization that does similar things. And I’m taking DWB out of my will, replacing them with an organization that doesn’t support terrorism. (I’ve divided up my inheritance money between medical relief organizations, organizations helping poor children throughout the world, and conservation organizations that buy up land and preserve wildlife.) I’m sure I can find organizations less problematic than DWB that deserve my dosh.
