[This story has been updated for clarity]
Cape Town - The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has called for the immediate reinstatement of Dr Bridget Farham as editor of the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ).
Farham resigned following a backlash related to an editorial in which she wrote there was “no moral equivalence” between the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel’s continuing attacks on Gaza.
The editorial was written in late February, while Farham was the editor of the SAMJ.
Farham also declined to publish a couple of article submissions, which did not mention the October 7 attacks.
The link for Farham’s article “Israel, Gaza and moral equivalence”, has since been removed and the editorial is no longer available.
An extract reads: “The same person who accused me of moral cowardice for not publishing her submission on the weaponisation of health system destruction also said that she, and many others, feel that the events of October 7, 2023 can be justified by 75 years of Israeli oppression.
“This is where I cannot agree. Nothing justifies the horror that was meted out to families on the southern Gaza border that day. Just as nothing justifies Israel’s continuing destruction of Gaza and its people. There is no moral equivalence.”
Farham resigned on April 3, following a meeting with the CEO, head of HR for the South African Medical Association (Sama), and Sama head of publications.
“I retracted the editorial myself and issued an apology for any offence caused. I retracted when members of the editorial staff started to receive email attacks for publishing the editorial,” Farham said.
“I had received personal attacks from, I assume, pro-Palestinian readers, by email. None of the people who emailed me sent an official submission for publication as ‘correspondence’ in the journal, which is the usual way to respond to a published article. I would have published these responses had they been formally submitted.”
Cape Town physician, pulmonology fellow and Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine South Africa chairperson Dr Saadiq Moolla’s submission, co-authored with Dr Ayesha Jacub, titled “Healthcare and genocide: BDS as an entry point to health justice”, was one of the submissions initially declined and eventually published on March 5.
Moolla said: “Dr Farham’s unfortunate decision to decline publication of articles on the topic, both of which were academically sound and subsequently published in the South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, based on her own poorly substantiated opinions and her own now retracted editorial are a case in point. It was rightly criticised by readers.”
Moolla said they appreciated Sama’s decisive handling of the situation, which would restore trust in the journal.
“Wild accusations being thrown about by certain parties lack evidence and are nothing more than a means to distract from the over 30 000 lives lost in Gaza.”
Attempts to get comment from Sama were unsuccessful by deadline yesterday.