Komen foundation claim untrue: Israel boycotted at Egypt Breast Cancer Conference after all

Previously, the Susan G. Komen foundation had claimed Israelis were welcome at the Breast Cancer conference in Cairo. Coming so late, the announcement seemed suspicious. It was untrue, it seems. Boycott and lie about it seems to be a new strategy.

Ami Isseroff

Stop boycotts of Israelis at international medical conferences, IMA demands

Oct. 27, 2009
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich , THE JERUSALEM POST

The Israel Medical Association on Tuesday denounced all boycotts of Israelis at international medical conferences such as the one held in Cairo last week on coping with breast cancer.

IMA chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman said that Israeli doctors and scientists are often confronted by hostility when attending professional conferences abroad.

Eidelman said that medicine and science are not political. Even those who oppose policies of the government of Israel should never inject politics into these fields, which aim to save lives and to which Israelis contribute a great deal, he said.

He called on the government to launch a serious campaign against such boycotts and have "zero tolerance" for them. The IMA, he said, would be happy to participate in such efforts.

Eidelman added that conferences that keep Israelis out would constitute a "black day for science in Israel and around the world."

Nancy Brinker, founder and head of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization that raises significant amounts of money to fight breast cancer, claimed last week that despite threats in Egypt, Israelis were not barred from the Cairo conference.

But the Foreign Ministry and the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization said they had been.