THE QUESTION IN ISRAEL TODAY IS:
Should triage for injured terrorists and victims be the same for both?
All on-line English-language news sites are reporting that A decision by the ethics office of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) raised a furor on Wednesday morning, after the body called to first treat the most wounded person at the scene of a terror attack - even if that person is the Arab terrorist who committed the attack.
The point of triage is to get personnel back to duty as quickly as possible. This was proven in North Africa during WW2 when penicillin, in short supply, preference was given in its administration to allied soldiers who contracted VD in local brothels over soldiers with combat injuries; purpose: the soldiers with VD could be rated suitable for duty faster than solders injured in combat.
It seems fair that no one wants to get the enemy "back to duty" as soon as possible. Moreover, specifically in Israel, a terrorist is wounded in an attack on Israeli civilians, receives excellent treatment at an Israeli hospital, is sent to an Israeli prison where education is free and the terrorist gets a salary from the "Palestinian" government (from donations by anti-Jews) and then is released early in a lop-sided prisoner swap.
Against that, the post-war Geneva Convention of 1949 ruled than Only urgent medical reasons will authorize priority in the order of treatment. In 1977 this was expanded to included injured enemy combatants. However, in 1988, the U.S. Defense Department - followed by NATO member countries - ordered medics to follow the utilitarian approach where preference is given for the maximum number of "salvagable" soldiers. See Triage & Equality Baker & Strosberg, 1992
The American Medical Association (AMA), in an article titled Maintaining Medical Neutrality in Conflict Zones cites a case of a medical organization working in rural Uganda that (apparently) refuses to treat "violent enemies" of the community it serves.
"We've worked for years to establish trust among the local people here-trust that's enabled us to dramatically improve the health in these communities. It would be a grave insult if we offered care to their violent enemies, and that would surely result in a huge setback for all our hard work. We should shut down the clinic before the rebels arrive because they're not welcome here." (Bold face emphasis mine.)
In a reddit AskHistorians entry titled How did Napoleon treat wounded enemy soldiers?, Donald F Draper comments that during Napoleon's wars, French surgeons would do whatever they could for anyone, interested in saving lives. This would extend to enemy soldiers if possible. (Underscore emphasis mine.)
The question remains: Does the Geneva Convention require medics to treat terrorists before treating their victims?
According to Military Medical Ethics: Is there a conflict?, slide 29/60 clearly states
Note the slide above does NOT require a medic to give preference to the enemy (terrorist) before giving aid to the terrorist's victims, even when it calls for the medic to "treat fallen combatants as one's own wounded."
The question: Do the laws of war and Geneva Conventions not apply to insurgents or other illegitimate combatants? is answered as follows:
If combatants violate the rules of war or are not wearing proper uniforms or insignia to show the enemy they're legitimate targets while operating behind enemy lines, they don't qualify as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
International law states that only properly uniformed combatants who violates the rules of war (for example by fighting under a white flag or committing atrocities against civilians or enemy prisoners of war or enemy prisoners of war committing against their own buddies or officers of belligerents in POW camps held by belligerents or civilians or waging destruction on property inside the belligerent territory while escaping back to their own lines) and combatants who are not wearing proper uniforms or insignia to show the enemy they're legitimate targets while operating behind enemy lines don't qualify as prisoners of war.
In other words, the "Palestinian" terrorists, being sans uniform, don't have Geneva Convention protection.
Ted Lapkin asks in the Middle East Forum: Does Human Rights Law Apply to Terrorists?
No terrorist group is a party to the Geneva Conventions. They have not signed, much less ratified, those treaties. Moreover, it is evident that Hamas, Hezbollah, and members of the global Al-Qaeda network spurn both the spirit and the letter of international treaties designed to ameliorate the cruelty of war. Bloody attacks in New York, Jerusalem, Bali, Madrid, and Beslan are testament to the fact that these groups seek to kill civilians rather than to take captives. And when Islamist terrorists do seize hostages, brutality rather than protection appears to be the rule.
Terrorists groups all fail the four-part (Geneva Convention) test. Hijacking civilian airliners and flying them into office buildings is not "in accordance with the laws and customs of war," nor is using human bombs to blow up buses, nor is lining up and executing school teachers.
Michael L. Gross writes in Chapter 4 of The Limits of Impartial Medical Treatment during Armed Conflict
But what happens when some of the soldiers are enemy wounded? May their interests be shunted aside in the name of military necessity? During WWII the US government thought so when it allocated 85 per cent of available penicillin stocks to the US military, 15 per cent to civilian hospitals and 0 per cent to treat POWs.
The claim of enemy wounded to receive medical care is similar to the claim of any moral agent who requires aid from those who can provide it. This claim is not absolute nor does it entail that a rescuer offer aid to others that is equal to what he needs for himself. When rescuing agents are states, a similar condition holds: while states may be called upon to aid those in need, no state may be required to relinquish resources at the expense of its wellbeing.
As a corpsman (medic) in the U.S. military circa 1960 I do not recall anyone suggesting that enemy combatants, and certainly not enemies lacking combatant status (i.e., combatants in civilian apparel) deserved the priority attention over less injured American personnel.
That did not mean uniformed enemies were ignored, only that our priorities were for U.S. and allied wounded.
Consider all the facts. Is it humane to treat a badly wounded terrorists before a wounded victim, knowing the terrorist will be a recidivist? If Israel had the death penalty, would the terrorist face it? Given Israel's budget squeeze, is the cost of a terrorist's incarceration worth it?
I'm not living in Israel so it's not my decision, but I think the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) may have gotten it wrong.
